Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Often referred to as "the father of psychoanalysis," Sigmund Freud championed the "talking cure" and charted the human unconscious. But though Freud compared himself to Copernicus and Darwin, his history as a physician is problematic. Historians have determined that Freud often misrepresented the course and outcome of his treatments—so that the facts would match his theories. Today Freud's legacy is in dispute, his commentators polarized into two camps: one of defenders; the other, fierce detractors.

Peter D. Kramer, himself a practicing psychiatrist and a leading national authority on mental health, offers a new take on this controversial figure, one both critical and sympathetic. He recognizes that although much of Freud's thought is now archaic, the discipline he invented has become an inescapable part of our culture, transforming the way we see ourselves. Freud was a myth-maker, a storyteller, a writer whose books will survive among the classics of our literature. The result of Kramer's inquiry is nothing less than a new standard history of Freud by a modern master of his thought.

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From Publishers Weekly

Looking closely at Freud's approach to specific patients and revisiting some of his lesser-known publications (including a vigorous campaign in support of cocaine as a mood-enhancer and anesthetic), Kramer finds in this irreverent biography a man who "displayed bad character in the service of bad science." Kramer's task is a difficult one, in large part because, in anticipation of his own legacy, Freud began destroying his personal documents at an early age. It's this kind of hubris ("as for the biographers ... we have no desire to make it too easy for them") which enabled him to hide the fact that he was "more devious and less original than he made himself out to be;" it also makes him a fascinating subject. Kramer is careful to give Freud's major contributions-including the recognition that symptoms can "reveal hints of thoughts and feelings pushed out of awareness" and that psychoanalysis's unfettered exploration of the subconscious can offer patients a haven for exploring otherwise repressed thoughts-their due. But he is unsparing in his assessment of Freud's errors in judgment: "there is a disturbing consistency in Freud's indifference to inconvenient facts. ... he bullied his patients and misrepresented his results." Kramer's study is a refreshing and thorough work that readers of all levels of familiarity with Freud's work can appreciate.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Eminent Lives; 1 edition (November 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060598956
• ISBN-13: 978-0060598952
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #449,713 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent expose', December 31, 2006

By	Princeton Reader "Princeton Reader" (Princeton NJ) - See all my reviews

Kramer's lucid writing style is refreshing.This small volume will give the reader a critical review of Freud's major writings. Highlights of Freud's biography add spice to the narrative. Kramer uses our contemporary knowledge in psychiatry to rediagnose some of Freud's patients.I got a deeper understanding of some of the famous cases like Anna O,Dora, the Wolf Man the Rat Man. Like many, Kramer agrees that Freuds impact on the development of the field of psychotherapy and psychological thinking have been hugh. Freud was not perfect.This book help highlight the imperfections. More than that,it helps clarify in a short space, work that took Freud years and years to develop and 23 volumes of the Standard edition to Express.Like Freud,Kramer is a very talented writer as this and his other four volumes show.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short, readable, objective , March 21, 2007

By	Darioz Svabodas "Darioz" (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This is an excellent, objective, and readable evaluation of the work and legacy of Sigmund Freud. Those who put this in the "Freud bashing" category appear not to desire an objective evaluation of Freud as a clinician nor as a scientist: Kramer presents the reader with such in a lively and precise way. He also presents the impact that Freud's ideas had on Western culture, and it is here where the impact of Freud is beyond question. Whether this impact has been for ill or good is open to question, speaking generally or more specifically in psychiatric and psychological science.

9 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Freud's frauds were not the true measure of the man, February 23, 2007

By	J. Adams "History buff" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The "Eminent Lives" series has some great writing and equally good research into some of the most significant people to walk the Earth (with the exception of Armstrong's book on Mohammed).
Kramer does a good job of taking Freud off the pedestal that many have used to create an altar for an atheist. But by showing Freud to be a mere human, he goes out of his way to point out his opinion that Freud, with all his faults, was "The Inventor of the Modern Mind."

While I don't personally agree with Kramer's evaluation of Freud any more than I did with a lot of his opinions in his "Listening to Prozac" book, this is a book worth reading to get a far better balanced view of a man who was responsible for much of our modern day vocabulary in dealing with our fellow humans.

Freud had a lot of dumb ideas, was a shameless self-promoter, ignored his own research, invented and lied about the complex nature of some of his patients, but at the end of the day, as Kramer points out, was one of the humans to leave the Earth with a net plus on his life ledger. Unfortunately some of his patients paid the price of his opinions with their lives in ruins, but it will be up to your own value system to determine whether this was worth it. After all, many Clinton supporters agree with his view that the lives of a million Tutsi were not worth the life of a single American as he allowed the most intense genocide in the history of mankind in the modern era to occur on his watch. His approval ratings must make him "right."

If you don't want to buy this book and see it in a bookstore, just take five minutes to read the last chapter to see that Kramer holds Freud in high regard using this measuring stick.

This is not a "five-star" book, but i gave it that rating to balance the superficial reviews by Freud groupies who read this book with blinders on, if they read it at all.