Freud: From Youthful Dream to Mid-Life Crisis [Hardcover]

Peter M. Newton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 1994

Drawing from highly personal correspondence, some of which has only recently been released, this illuminating biography applies a developmental approach to Freud's youth and transition to middle age. It reconstructs the years during which Freud determined his goals, suffered a crisis resulting from his inability to realize them, and fought his way through to the creation of psychoanalysis. In so doing, the book reveals the great complexity of Freud's personal reality and simultaneously challenges critiques of his thinking.
This book will be of interest to readers in the history of psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Newton uses Freud's published correspondence with boyhood friend Eduard Silberstein to show that, by age 19, Freud dreamed of becoming not only a great scientist but a revolutionary healer as well. In this engrossing biography, Newton, a psychology professor at the Wright Institute in California, challenges Jeffrey Masson's accusation, in The Assault on Truth (1985), that political expedience motivated Freud to abandon his seduction theory, according to which neurosis results from the sexual molestation of small children. Drawing on Freud's letters to his mentor, Wilhelm Fliess, Newton compellingly argues that Freud's own clinical case studies scuttled the seduction theory, and that Freud's ensuing despair at his inability to uncover the root cause of neurosis led to his systematic self-analysis and to his book The Interpretation of Dreams (1899). By treating Freud's life as a series of developmental stages of personal growth, Newton has fashioned an often startling portrait rich in clinical insights.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...extraordinarily impressive....Rather than 'psychoanalyze' Freud, Newton applies a sophisticated contemporary model for understanding personality continuity and change in the adult years to the founder of psychoanalysis himself. The result is a remarkable resonance between the theory and Freud's life." --Dan P. McAdams, Journal of Adult Development

"...a book of great importance. In this volume Newton offers a penetrating reexamination of the origins of psychoanalysis as it took shape in the course of a series of adult developmental periods and transitions between periods of Freud's life. Newton's 'theory of lives' approach to biography provides an important lens through which to explore the data emerging from Freud's correspondences, a good deal of which has only recently become available for study. Thought-provoking critiques of the conventional wisdom regarding the meaning of a number of significant turning points in Freud's life are offered. In addition Newton presents convincing discussions of the relationship of these developmental 'crises' to Freud's major contributions to psychoanalysis. Newton's very fine biography of Freud represents a major new step in our understanding of the origins of psychoanalysis." --Thomas H. Ogden, M.D., Supervising and Training Analyst, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California

"Peter Newton's excellent intellectual biography of Freud's early-to-middle years captures the dramatic movement of a life, and the gradually deepening illumination of character that one ordinarily might look for in a novel. These qualities make his study of Freud sympathetic, original, and particularly engaging. It will be valuable to anyone interested in the man who determined much that we think about ourselves, as well as a good deal about how we think; but it should be said that in the tone and organization and choice of scenes from Freud's life, Newton has written a book with a life of its own." --Leonard Michaels, University of California, Berkeley

"Newton's biography is 'novelistic' in the best sense of the word. It is closer to the lived life than any biography of Freud so far and constitutes an important and original contribution to our understanding of Freud, of biography, and of adult development." --Daniel J. Levinson, Ph.D., Yale University

"The inevitable first question is whether the world needs yet another Freud biography. Has not the Fruedian corpse been thoroughly picked over by previous biographic scavengers? Somewhat to my surprise it turns out that another worthwhile telling of the Freud narrative is indeed possible.... The most distinctive feature of this Freud biography is that it is built around Daniel Levinson's (1978) adult developmental theories. Newton, who was a protegee of Levinson, argues that development does not stop at adolescence with biological maturity; rather it continues on in recognizable, definable segments throughout the life cycle. According to this view, psychoanalysis has been cramped in its understanding of adults by its adherence to a developmental theory limited to the first thirteen years of life. To prove his point Newton has selected none other than the founder of psychoanalysis, the creator of the child-fixated developmental theory, as his case study.....Newton's Freud surpasses the current standards - Jones and Gay - in its unvarnished, highly nuanced rendering of Freud during his youth to middle-age years.... Newton more than any Freud biographer to date has provided us with a credible Freud narrative based upon verifiable data and animated by an adult developmental perspective. I hope that we do not have to wait until Dr. Newton passes through his 60's to get our next installment, but if we do, the wait will be worth it." --Stephen Walrod, Ph.D., The Journal of the Northern California society for Psychoanalytic Psychology

"... lively and brilliant book....This exciting work should be read by those interested in Freud and psychoanalysis, at all levels of sophistication. General; upper-division undergraduate through professional." --R.H. Balsam, Yale University

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 297 pages
• Publisher: Guilford Press; 1 edition (December 2, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089862293X
• ISBN-13: 978-0898622935
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,039,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Groundbreaking study on Freud, November 30, 1999

By 

Jeffrey S. Kaye (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freud: From Youthful Dream to Mid-Life Crisis (Hardcover)

With so many biographies and books on Freud, the question is why read another? Newton's biographical study of Freud is unique in examining the great psychologist's life from an adult developmental viewpoint. The key achievement of this book is a finely detailed study of how Freud's adult development -- his dreams of accomplishment, his relationships, and career decisions -- interlock with Freud's creative achievement in creating the foundations of psychoanalysis in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Newton argues that the tasks of the mid-life crisis were peculiarly interrelated with Freud's creative achievement. Incidentally, this finely researched and written book demolishes Jeffrey Masson's notorious thesis that Freud abandoned his theory of infantile seduction due to cowardice, with Newton relying heavily upon Freud's written correspondence with his friend, Fliess. An exciting book that reads at times like a novel.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why did Freud abandon his famous seduction theory?, February 12, 2003

By 

Jeffrey M Ives (Upstate NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freud: From Youthful Dream to Mid-Life Crisis (Hardcover)

Does anyone other then Sigmund Freud know why he abandoned his seduction theory so quickly, one that he thought would bring him fame and fortune as a revolutionary healer? I would have to say no. Masson and Newton both give compelling arguments to what they both believe to be the truth of why Freud did what he did; Masson claiming Freud abandoned his seduction theory because of political and social preasure, Newton claiming Freud did so because he was fighting a mid life crisis. It is impossible to form an opinion without reading them both carefully, so I think this book, along with Masson's, is worth the read. My synopsis is that Freud never really gave up on the seduction theory at all, but simply realized that he would get much farther going a different route, then bringing Victoria Austria to it's knees by claiming it was laden with child molesters.