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Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision--An Analytical Biography [Hardcover]

Louis Breger (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a major new work on the father of psychoanalysis, Breger, Professor Emeritus of Psychoanalytic Studies at California Institute of Technology, synthesizes seminal earlier books such as Ernest Jones's four volume Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1953) and Peter Gay's Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988), and provides a new reading of how Freud himself continually altered public and professional perceptions of himself. Breger is adept at reexamining and reinterpreting existing knowledge about Freud, such as how his entrenched pro-militarist feelings about the First World War manifested in his work; his misinformed and conservative disapproval of birth control; and his complicated view of both male and female homosexuality. In addition, Breger fairly evaluates new criticisms of the man and his work, particularly those of Freudian renegade Jeffrey Masson. Especially astute is Breger's delineation of how Freud's understanding of himself as a Jew, as well as the anti-Semitism of his times, contributed to his theories (although curiously he does not refer to any of Sander Gilman's noted work on this topic). Breger's unique contribution is an analysis of how Freud's own interpretation of his childhood "became the prototype for his understanding everyone, a foundation that he relied on throughout his life." Careful to situate Freud in the political, social and artistic contexts of his time, Breger has produced a provocative, well-written and up-to-date account of the life and career of one of the 20th century's most influential intellectual figures. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Psychoanalysis ia a clumsy tool, not the scalpel Freud envisioned. In this masterly biography and cultural history, psychologist and psychoanalyst Breger (emeritus, California Inst. of Technology) explains why. Previous Freud biographers Ernest Jones, Paul Roazen, Ronald Clark, and Peter Gay lack his combined clinical acumen and objectivity. Breger interprets carefully, guiding the reader through an oft-told story that has never been made so human. "Sigi," though his mother's favorite, was emotionally starved as a youngster and could not deal with this pain in his creatively evasive self-analysis. His professional frustrations were not caused by Viennese conservatism but by his own way of thinking, working, and treating people. Breger movingly portrays the Great War, Freud's initial enthusiasm for it, his inability to grasp the nature of real trauma, and the resulting death instinct theory. Essential for all public and academic libraries, this landmark work conveys a new sense of one of the great, flawed men and movements of the last century.DE. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 480 pages
  • Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 8, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0471316288
  • ISBN-13: 978-0471316282
  • Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #875,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
    #49 in  Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( F ) > Freud, Sigmund

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Louis Breger
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
SIGMUND FREUD was born in 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia (today Pribor, in the Czech Republic), a small market town one hundred fifty miles north of Vienna, the first child of the newly married Jacob and Amalia Nathanson Freud. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
travel phobia, wise baby, psychoanalytic press, psychoanalytic publications, unconscious homosexuality, war neuroses, psychoanalytic movement, beating fantasies, psychoanalytic journals, cathartic method, masculine protest
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, United States, Bertha Pappenheim, First World War, The Interpretation of Dreams, Anna Freud, Vienna Society, Wilhelm Fliess, Great War, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Jones, Three Essays, Wolf Man, Emma Eckstein, Josef Breuer, Otto Rank, Rat Man, Physiological Institute, Autobiographical Study, Karl Abraham, Oscar Rie, University of Vienna, Wednesday Society, Western Front, Alfred Adler
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Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision--An Analytical Biography
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4.2 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Get to know the man behind the theory!, September 20, 2000
By C. Gelber (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision--An Analytical Biography (Hardcover)
Despite all the biographies of Freud out there, none have been written by actual psychoanalysts which means no one has really looked at Freud's life, especially his early family life, from a psychoanalytic perspective. Breger's portrait is endearing and a little tragic - it shows us how many of Freud's ideas emerged from his own struggles with the loss and pain of his early experience. Breger's story is as much a biography of early psychoanalysis as it is of Freud's life, and not the mythical, heroic version of Freud's life that he wrote for himself and his biographers have clung too. This is Freud uncensored!
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A fresh and lucid account..., May 29, 2002
This review is from: Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision--An Analytical Biography (Hardcover)
Many years ago, an old teacher of mine commented to me that the published writings about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis could fill a suburban library. This could be a slight exaggeration, but the biographies and published essays that one can find on a university library catalogue, for example, reach a remarkable number. Even today, the interest in the man and his work continues unabated, more in the general humanities, however, than psychology itself. What is this unrelenting fascination about Freud that draws so many people to his life and work? This is a hard question to answer, but an interesting one to consider. In the latest contribution to the Freud canon, ~Freud- Darkness in the Midst of Vision~ Louis Breger attempts a somewhat new interpretation of Freud and psychoanalysis, and a successful one.

In the 'Background and Sources' at the back of the text, Breger writes an interesting comment: he states that there are basically three camps or perspectives of the man - the first are the 'fiercely' loyal combatants, the defenders of psychoanalytic orthodoxy; Freud's words are considered gosple and no divergence is permitted. In the second camp are the sharp and brutal critics, who dismiss Freud and psychoanalysis in its entirety. The third category (where Breger places himself) are not worshiping sycophants or radical critics, but those who see the significance of Freud's work, and acknowledge his contributions with a balanced assessment of the man and psychoanalysis in general. This book manages to capture the spirit of the third cartegory with brilliance of insight, objectivity and compassion.

I've read many accounts of Freud and the history of psychoanalysis from hagiography, (Ernest Jones' three-volume mythology) to chatty, uninformed rumour mongering, (Paul Ferris -Dr. Freud A Life) and found Breger's to be the most clinically informed and fair of them all.

Breger set out to dismantle the many myths surrounding the history of Freud and psychoananlysis. This book is straightforward historical revisionism at its most readable form. He writes of the origins of psychoanalysis and its intellectual development against its historical milieu, that gives the reader a true context in which the movement was born and the reasons why it catapulted into international popularity after the First World War. The text cuts through the folklore and the intentionally generated romance of the subject, revealing a clear well-researched account, which remains as out of the ordinary as the myths themselves.

Even with all of Freud's faults and flaws of personality, his steel-like dogmatism and refusal to accept any further developments (contrary to his own) from his followers or divergence from his questionable theories, continues to incite interest and fascination generation after generation. It is his utter strength of personality that was his true genius, that reaches out from the past and grabs our attention. To dismiss this highly original thinker is a mistake. And Louis Breger's ~Freud - Darkness in the Midst of Vision~ emphasises this fact in a lucid, fresh and graceful manner.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A new and clearer portrait of Freud, January 15, 2001
By Thomas Rosbrow (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision--An Analytical Biography (Hardcover)
Breger gives us a more vivid picture of Freud as a person, including his daily routines and personal relationships, and how he constructed a mythology of his own life and then universalized this myth as psychological bedrock for humanity in the form of the oedipal theory. The idea in the oedipus complex that the little boy looks up to an overpowering father with whom he also engages in murderous competitive rivalry - at least in fantasy- in fact denied the reality of Freud's relationship with his father, who he loved but saw as weak and ineffective. The oedipal rival actually represented Freud's wish for a stronger, more potent father. This is one essential insight in a book that puts Freud in three dimensional historical space, in a way that previous historians failed to- who either put him on a pedestal, or else tended to bash him. Breger does neither, and lets us see him as a great thinker with huge blindspots and incapacities for tolerating other points of view, which has left a bitter legacy within psychoanalysis. Breger is a lucid and moving writer, as is also evidenced in his previous, also profound, biography of Dostoevsky.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Did freud have a narcissistic personality disorder?
This an excellent account of Freud and his life. it is well documented and reads nearly like a novel. Read more
Published 21 months ago by mark jabbour

5.0 out of 5 stars Though His Sins Be As Scarlet, His Heritage Continues
It has been a long time since I have come across a book title that so aptly summarizes its subject, in this case the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Read more
Published on July 4, 2007 by Thomas

3.0 out of 5 stars Less biography than over-long monograph
To read this book, you'd wonder why psychoanalysis ever had the inordinate success it enjoyed. Though Breger does say at various points that Freud's contributions opened up whole... Read more
Published on December 1, 2006 by Bob Fancher

5.0 out of 5 stars highly recommended
It is refreshing to come across a biography of Freud--and an analytical biography at that--without an obvious agenda or an ax to grind: in other words, without idealization... Read more
Published on January 14, 2006 by Craig Chalquist, PhD, author o...

5.0 out of 5 stars "Darkness" is Illuminating
As one contemplates purchasing this biography, attention must be paid to the subtitle: "An Analytical Biography. Read more
Published on June 19, 2004 by popjunkie

5.0 out of 5 stars Our Golden Sigi
He was the founder and autocratic (some would even say dictatorial) leader of one the most controversial, yet profoundly influential, intellectual movements of 20th century... Read more
Published on April 30, 2004 by John D. Harrigan

5.0 out of 5 stars Factually fulfilling
This book informed me on the one question that I most wanted to know about Freud. I have been reading a lot of magazines, in which the funniest thing that could relate Freud's... Read more
Published on October 11, 2002 by Bruce P. Barten

4.0 out of 5 stars This IS the Man, Myth and His Chilling Darkness
I am not expert in psychoanalysis. What drew me into this book was the humanization of this slightly stooped, ambitious, clearly brilliant, altogether bourgeois, autocratic, but -... Read more
Published on September 22, 2002 by A. H. Lynde

4.0 out of 5 stars An Entire Life in 375 Pages
This biography by Louis Breger is an excellent collection of everything one would ever need to know about Sigmund Freud. Read more
Published on May 25, 2001 by Cathy

5.0 out of 5 stars And the truth shall set you free
An excellent treatment of not only the man and his work, but the time and context in which it should be viewed. Read more
Published on April 8, 2001

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