Dr. Freud: A Life - Hardcover

Details the psychoanalyst's personal life, and explores how his experiences shaped his scientific theories

This startling book provides new insight into an increasingly controversial figure whose work has left an indelible mark on the modern world.. In Dr. Freud, Paul Ferris presents a rich and complete biography, focused first and foremost on the details of Freuds life and family. This is a personal book about a long, contentious, and often desperate life, about a man who prized self-examination and studied contradictions as few before him had. In a style that avoids jargon, Ferris has written one of the most accessible and informative books to date about an increasingly controversial figure who left an indelible mark on the modern psyche. From a distance of years, it is all too easy to attack Sigmund Freud, to discount the originality of his ideas and scrutinize his flaws. Today, nearly sixty years after Freuds death, the field of psychoanalysis still swarms with controversy about his career. His work has been picked apart by fellow theorists, who seek either to canonize his intellectual prowess or to vilify both the man and his work.Paul Ferriss new biography avoids this fashionable polemic, attending to the details of Freuds personal existence. A balanced, fair-minded work, free from the technicalities of psychoanalytic jargon, Dr. Freud tells the story of a long, contentious, and often desperate life. He writes of Freuds obsessive interest in sexual frustration, noting the context of Freuds own passionless marriage, and recounts Freuds advocacy of cocaine as a miracle drug, without neglecting his regret at discovering its painful repercussions.Freud, his work, and his time emerge in fine detail in this robust and sympathetic portrait--a stunning look into the many aspects of a complex soul.