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Killing Freud: 20th Century Culture and the End of Psychoanalysis

Killing Freud: 20th Century Culture and the End of Psychoanalysis

by ToddDufresne (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2003

    $4.74

  • Used

    Paperback 2005

    $12.36

  • New

    Paperback 2006

    $25.55
Synopsis

Taking the reader on a journey through the 20th century, this book traces the work and influence of one of its greatest icons, Sigmund Freud. The critique ranges across the strange case of Anna O, the hysteria of Josef Breuer, the love of dogs, the Freud industry, the role of gossip and fiction, bad manners, pop psychology and French philosophy, figure skating on thin ice, and contemporary therapy culture. A map to the Freudian minefield and a masterful negotiation of high theory and low culture, Killing Freud is a revaluation of psychoanalysis and its real place in 20th-century history. It should appeal to anyone curious about the life of the mind after the death of Freud.

$4.74

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 240
 Edition: 1st Edition
 Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
Published: 13 Nov 2003
ISBN 10: 0826468934
ISBN 13: 9780826468932

Media Reviews
Witty, provocative and admirably erusite, this is required reading for anyone with a critical--or in other words sceptical--concern for the history of psychoanalysis and the human sciences.
Killing Freud begins by reviewing previous studies of the case of Anna O.... Dufresne depicts an unscientific and shamelessly ambitious Freud, eager to found psychoanalysis at anyone's expense. - Naomi Morgenstern, University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 75 No. 1, Winter 2006
A timely, important, and interesting book, written in an engaging style readily accessible to non-specialists. MIND
Killing Freud is a major attack on both the culture of theory and the culture of therapy, demonstrating that many of the most cherished truths of psychoanalysis are based upon misreadings, misunderstandings and blatant falsifications. Witty, provocative and admirably erudite, this is required reading for anyone with a critical - or in other words sceptical - concern for the history of psychoanalysis and the human sciences. David Macey, author of The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory
Dufresne does not attempt a demolition of Freud, though he is equipped to do that. He concentrates his fire on weak points in the enemy's defences: the way Freud systematically distorted his findings in case-histories, and the way psychoanalysis, as a profession, is a fiercely jealous guild. There is a wickedly funny section on the literal-cum-metaphoric ice-skating of Ernest Jones, Freud's English promoter and official biographer; and, more playful still, a supposedly unpublished memoir by an orthodox practitioner, forced to admit that psychoanalysis is nothing if not a bad habit. Killing Freud requires some knowledge of its subject-matters: Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan, as much as Freud. While it is not a book for he uninitiated, for those minded to follow the Freud Wars, its erudition offers sure-fire caviar. - The Independent, UK, December 2003
A flamboyant and hilarious satire of one of our most revered cultural institutions, Killing Freud combines impeccable and truly original scholarship with great wit. Todd Dufresne, a distinguished Freud scholar, has written a remarkable and delightful book which joyously affirms the death of psychoanalysis without trying to prove Why Freud Was Wrong. People will read this book for the sheer fun of it, but they will also learn a lot about psychoanalysis and its role in twentieth-century culture at large. Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, author of The Freudian Subject and Remembering Anna O
'I just spent a couple of enjoyable hours with Todd Dufresne's new book Killing Freud .......I couldn't resist cheering the show he puts on.....Because what Dufresne sets out to do is dance on Freud's grave. How did this awful man and his worse ideas ever get themselves taken seriously? What in god's name were people thinking? these are a couple of the questions Dufresne asks. - http: //www.2blowhards.com
Author Bio
Todd Dufresne is Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Lakehead University and is editor of Returns of the French Freud and Freud Under Analysis, and author of Tales From the Freudian Crypt. He is currently working on the origin of the psycho-neuroses and on the sensational 1923 Chicago trial of Leopold and Loeb, at which Freudian ideas first began to influence criminology.