Freud, the man and the cause

Abstract

So much has been written about Freud by his adminens, his enemies, and himselfthat one may wonder ifanother lengthy book was necessary. Aften neading Clank’s biography, I happily answer that, although perhaps not necessary. it was desirable. This is primarily a biography and only in pant a history of the development of psychoanalysis. It is not an explanation, an evaluation, an encomium, or an attack. Clark is a biographen who has written about Haldane, Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and the Huxleys. He is not, and makes no claim to be, a psychiatrist on psychoanalyst. He has not tried to write psychohistory, but he has written a clear, carefully researched, apparently impartial account of the life of one of the most interesting individuals of the past century. Inevitably this book will be compared with Ernest Jones’s three-volume detailed biography of Freud. published in the 1950s. Clank’s work necessarily contains much of the same information but includes new material discovered on published in the past 25 years, and it is more compact, although well oven 200,000 words. Clark presumably did not know Freud personally and seems quite unbiased in writing about him. He has written his book for the general reader, not for the psychoanalyst. Freud’s family background, childhood, youth, courtship, marriage, and early work as a neuropathologist are described in the first hundred pages. The nemainden of the book is a history of the development of psychoanalysis, with discussion of each of Freud’s major publications, his troubled relationships with his followers, and his lengthy but finally successful struggle fon recognition. Only brief mention is made of his personal life, family relationships, vacations. One chapter is devoted to his cancer. Freud appears in this biography as a serious, earnest, hardworking, morally upright, highly intelligent man. He had little concern for religious practice, would not permit his wife to light Sabbath candles, but was intensely conscious of his Jewish identity, always aware of and reacting to antiSemitism. He formed close friendships, especially in his earlier life, but could not maintain them. Inclined to be autocratic in directing the psychoanalytic movement, he was intolerant of disagreement. His ideas developed gradually over many years. Psychoanalysis was to him a cause to be promoted and defended, to be valued more as a doctrine and explanation of mental pnocesses and neunoses than as an effective therapy. Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who read this book may find that they disagree with some of Clank’s interpretations but will probably enjoy it. Students will find it a valuable introduction to the history of psychoanalysis. The lengthy bibliography, some 70 pages of notes. and a detailed index accentuate the value of this book for both the general neader and the specialist.

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