The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud

Last updated
The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud
The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, volume one.jpg
Cover of volume one of the first edition
Author Ernest Jones
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subject Sigmund Freud
Publisher Basic Books
Publication date
1953
1961 (abridged edition)
Media typePrint (hardback and paperback)
Pages428 (vol. 1)
512 (vol. 2)
537 (vol. 3)
670 (abridged edition)
ISBN 978-0140170856

The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud is a biography of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, by the psychoanalyst Ernest Jones. The most famous and influential biography of Freud, the work was originally published in three volumes (first volume 1953, second volume 1955, third volume 1957) by Hogarth Press; a one-volume edition abridged by literary critics Lionel Trilling and Steven Marcus followed in 1961. When first published, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud was acclaimed, and sales exceeded expectations. Although the biography has retained its status as a classic, Jones has been criticized for presenting an overly favorable image of Freud. Jones has also been criticized for being biased in his treatment of rival psychoanalysts such as Otto Rank and Sándor Ferenczi.

Contents

Summary

Jones aims to "record the main facts of Freud's life" and "to try to relate his personality and the experiences of his life to the development of his ideas." He criticizes previous biographies of Freud for their "distortions and untruths." Subjects addressed include Freud's relationship with the physiologist Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, and with the psychoanalysts Sándor Ferenczi and Otto Rank. [1]

Background and publication history

According to the philosopher Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and the psychologist Sonu Shamdasani, the events leading to the writing of The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud occurred as follows. Leon Shimkin, director of Simon & Schuster, contacted Jones in October 1946, to ask whether he was interested in writing a biography of Freud. Jones in turn contacted Sigmund Freud's daughter, the psychoanalyst Anna Freud. Jones had recently taken sides with the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein in her dispute with Anna Freud. Consequently, Anna Freud was unsure how much she could trust Jones, and suggested that he collaborate with her friend the psychologist Siegfried Bernfeld. However, Bernfeld was even more suspicious of Jones than Anna Freud was, and was working on his own biography of Freud. Nevertheless, Bernfeld was willing to work with Jones. After Jones displeased Anna Freud by writing a preface to Freud's The Question of Lay Analysis (1926) with which she disagreed, she asked the psychoanalyst Ernst Kris to inform Shimkin that she was considering withdrawing her agreement to Jones writing the book. Shimkin replied that Bernfeld should be entrusted with the task, with Anna Freud's assistance. Anna Freud did not wish to directly participate in writing the book, and therefore proposed instead that it should be written by Bernfeld and Kris. In September 1947, the publisher offered Jones a contract. Nothing followed from this until 1950, when Jones wrote to Bernfeld to ask for his collaboration, along the lines originally discussed. [2]

Bernfeld offered to place his research at Jones' disposal. He closely collaborated with Jones. Jones questioned Bernfeld on numerous matters, including Freud's date of birth, his essay on 'Screen memories', and his relations with the philosopher Franz Brentano and the psychiatrist Theodor Meynert. Bernfeld undertook research to help Jones and corrected the drafts of Jones' chapters. The psychoanalyst James Strachey also collaborated on the volume. Jones eventually gained the confidence of the Freud family, after showing the first chapters of the book to Anna Freud. In April 1952, the Freud family showed Jones the letters that Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays wrote to each other during their engagement. Bernfeld, however, lost Anna Freud's support during this period, as she believed that his research tended towards sensationalism. She became so appalled at what she saw as Bernfeld's intrusions into private matters that she decided to stop replying to his requests for information. In discussing Freud's use of cocaine, Jones nevertheless relied on an article by Bernfeld. [3]

The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud was originally published in three volumes (first volume 1953, second volume 1955, third volume 1957) by Hogarth Press; a one-volume edition abridged by literary critics Lionel Trilling and Steven Marcus followed in 1961.

Reception

According to Borch-Jacobsen and Shamdasani, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud was acclaimed, and sales exceeded expectations, with 15,000 copies being sold in the first two weeks after publication in New York City alone. They state that the work was reviewed in periodicals such as the Manchester Guardian , which wrote that Jones had "drawn the portrait of a man who deserves to be acclaimed, by general consent, among the greatest of any age", while the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim adopted a more critical view of the work, accusing Jones of multiple "errors and omissions", and of lacking objectivity. Borch-Jacobsen and Shamdasani credit Bettelheim with being the first observer to point out that The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud relied on restricted documents and correspondence held by the Sigmund Freud Archives, making it impossible to determine its accuracy. [4]

Borch-Jacobsen and Shamdasani maintain that Jones provides a misleading account of Freud's experimentation with cocaine: according to them, Jones' statement that cocaine "had for some time helped" to control the symptoms of Fleischl-Marxow's withdrawal from morphine is "vague and misleading" and "aimed at explaining how Freud could have made false claims for success in his 1884 and 1885 articles." They called the book "a brilliant dramatisation of the Freudian legend", writing that Jones "was past master in the art of utilising documents and accounts to which he alone had access to flesh out and confirm Freud's accounts whilst eliding the contradictions" and guilty of major omissions. Borch-Jacobsen and Shamdasani accused Jones of exaggerating the extent to which early reviews of Freud's works were negative, and of falsely portraying Freud as puritanical. [5]

Other critics of the book include the former psychoanalyst Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, [6] the psychologist Hans Eysenck, [7] the historian Roy Porter, [8] the historian R. Andrew Paskauskas, [9] and the author Richard Webster. [10] Eysenck described the book as the "most famous" biography of Freud, but saw it as "more a mythology than a history", charging Jones with suppressing data which might reflect unfavourably on Freud. [7] Porter described the work as "hagiographical and bowdlerized". [8] Paskauskas criticized Jones for altering Freud's English in his use of his correspondence with Freud. He wrote that while Jones stated that he had not altered Freud's grammar, there are "many dissimilarities of spelling, grammar, and punctuation between the letters quoted in Jones's published biography and Freud's originals." He accused Jones of errors in his citations of Freud's letters, such as mistakenly citing his letters to Freud as letters from Freud. [9] Webster wrote that Jones was unreliable and replaced hostile accounts of Freud with an overly positive account. [10]

Mixed evaluations of the book include those of the psychologist Frank Sulloway, [11] the historian of science Roger Smith, [12] the psychologist Louis Breger, [13] and the psychiatrist E. James Lieberman and the consultant Robert Kramer. [14] Sulloway described the book as "monumental", writing that it had "deservedly remained the definitive and indispensable" biographical source about Freud. Nevertheless, he distanced himself from Jones' understanding of Freud, criticizing Jones for failing to admit that psychoanalysis owes its fundamental theoretical inspirations to biological sources. He also described the book as the "fullest expression of the Freud legend". [11] Smith wrote that it is an "official biography, replaced in detail but still of interest". [12] Breger considered the book biased due to its status as an official biography, as well as its author's active role in the psychoanalytic movement and hostility to other analysts, including Rank and Ferenczi. He nevertheless saw the book as valuable because of its "wealth of detailed, firsthand material". [13] Lieberman and Kramer wrote that the book is the most influential biography of Freud. They also observed that Jones knew Freud for decades and had access to letters of Freud that were only published in full after 1990. However, they believed that Jones had a partisan view of his rivals Ferenczi and Rank. [14]

Positive evaluations of the book include those of the historian Peter Gay, [15] [16] the philosophers Jerome Neu and Richard Wollheim, [17] [18] and the sociologist Christopher Badcock. [19] Gay described the book as "beautifully informed", [15] and called it "the classic biography of Freud", adding that it "contains many astute judgments" despite Jones' poor style and tendency to "separate the man and the work." Gay criticized the idea that Jones, motivated by jealousy, was scathing about rivals such as Ferenczi, maintaining that while exception has been taken to Jones' suggestion that in his last years Ferenczi was subject to psychotic episodes, it "echoes the opinion that Freud expressed in an unpublished letter to Jones." [16] Neu identified The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud and Gay's Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988) as the two most useful biographies of Freud. [17] Wollheim called The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud a "great" biography, but observed that while Jones had the advantage of knowing Freud and his associates, he was able to write only what Anna Freud found acceptable. Wollheim observed that Jones alternated between discussion of Freud's life and discussion of his thought. [18] In 1992, Badcock stated that despite the criticism it had received, the work "remains unrivalled and is the only biography to include summaries of all Freud's works known at the time of writing." [19]


Related Research Articles

Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques that deal in part with the unconscious mind, and which together form a method of treatment for mental disorders. The discipline was established in the early 1890s by Sigmund Freud, whose work stemmed partly from the clinical work of Josef Breuer and others. Freud developed and refined the theory and practice of psychoanalysis until his death in 1939. In an encyclopedic article, he identified the cornerstones of psychoanalysis as "the assumption that there are unconscious mental processes, the recognition of the theory of repression and resistance, the appreciation of the importance of sexuality and of the Oedipus complex." Freud's colleagues Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung developed offshoots of psychoanalysis which they called individual psychology (Adler) and analytical psychology (Jung), although Freud himself wrote a number of criticisms of them and emphatically denied that they were forms of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was later developed in different directions by neo-Freudian thinkers, such as Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack Sullivan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sigmund Freud</span> Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis (1856–1939)

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sándor Ferenczi</span> Hungarian psychoanalyst (1873–1933)

Sándor Ferenczi was a Hungarian psychoanalyst, a key theorist of the psychoanalytic school and a close associate of Sigmund Freud.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Jones</span> Welsh neurologist, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst (1879–1958)

Alfred Ernest Jones was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and became its leading exponent in the English-speaking world. As President of both the International Psychoanalytical Association and the British Psycho-Analytical Society in the 1920s and 1930s, Jones exercised a formative influence in the establishment of their organisations, institutions and publications.

<i>The Interpretation of Dreams</i> 1899 book by Sigmund Freud

The Interpretation of Dreams is an 1899 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in which the author introduces his theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation, and discusses what would later become the theory of the Oedipus complex. Freud revised the book at least eight times and, in the third edition, added an extensive section which treated dream symbolism very literally, following the influence of Wilhelm Stekel. Freud said of this work, "Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once in a lifetime."

<i>Studies on Hysteria</i>

Studies on Hysteria is an 1895 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and the physician Josef Breuer. It consists of a joint introductory paper ; followed by five individual studies of hysterics – Breuer's famous case of Anna O., seminal for the development of psychoanalysis, and four more by Freud— including his evaluation of Emmy von N— and finishing with a theoretical essay by Breuer and a more practice-oriented one on therapy by Freud.

<i>Totem and Taboo</i> 1913 book by Sigmund Freud

Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, or Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, is a 1913 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in which the author applies his work to the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and the study of religion. It is a collection of four essays inspired by the work of Wilhelm Wundt and Carl Jung and first published in the journal Imago (1912–13): "The Horror of Incest", "Taboo and Emotional Ambivalence", "Animism, Magic and the Omnipotence of Thoughts", and "The Return of Totemism in Childhood".

<i>Moses and Monotheism</i> 1939 book by Sigmund Freud

Moses and Monotheism is a 1939 book about the origins of monotheism written by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It is Freud's final original work and it was completed in the summer of 1939 when Freud was, effectively speaking, already "writing from his death-bed." It appeared in English translation the same year.

<i>The Discovery of the Unconscious</i> 1970 book by Henri Ellenberger

The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry is a 1970 book about the history of dynamic psychiatry by the Swiss medical historian Henri F. Ellenberger, in which the author discusses such figures as Franz Anton Mesmer, Sigmund Freud, Pierre Janet, Alfred Adler, and Carl Jung. The book was first published in the United States by Basic Books. The work has become a classic, and has been credited with correcting older estimates of Freud's level of originality and encouraging scholars to question the scientific validity of psychoanalysis.

<i>The Psychopathology of Everyday Life</i> 1901 book by Sigmund Freud

Psychopathology of Everyday Life is a 1901 work by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Based on Freud's researches into slips and parapraxes from 1897 onwards, it became perhaps the best-known of all Freud's writings.

The Secret Committee of the early history of psychoanalysis was formed in 1912 in order to oversee the development of psychoanalysis and protect the theoretical and institutional legacy of Freud’s work.

Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen is a professor of Comparative Literature and French at the University of Washington in Seattle, and the author of many works on the history and philosophy of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and hypnosis. Born to Danish parents, he began his studies in France and emigrated to the United States in 1986. His constructivist analysis of the co-production of psychical "facts" emphasises the accuracy of historical accounts of mental disorders.

Sandor Rado was a Hungarian psychoanalyst of the second generation, who moved to the United States in the 1930s.

<i>Why Freud Was Wrong</i> 1995 book by Richard Webster

Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis is a book by Richard Webster, in which the author provides a critique of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, and attempts to develop his own theory of human nature. Webster argues that Freud became a kind of Messiah and that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience and a disguised continuation of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Webster endorses Gilbert Ryle's arguments against mentalist philosophies in The Concept of Mind (1949), and criticizes many other authors for their treatment of Freud and psychoanalysis.

<i>The Assault on Truth</i> 1984 book by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory is a book by the former psychoanalyst Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, in which the author argues that Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, deliberately suppressed his early hypothesis, known as the seduction theory, that hysteria is caused by sexual abuse during infancy, because he refused to believe that children are the victims of sexual violence and abuse within their own families. Masson reached this conclusion while he had access to several of Freud's unpublished letters as projects director of the Sigmund Freud Archives. The Assault on Truth was first published in 1984 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; several revised editions have since been published.

<i>Freud, Biologist of the Mind</i> 1979 book by Frank Sulloway

Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend is a 1979 biography of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, by the psychologist Frank Sulloway.

<i>The Foundations of Psychoanalysis</i> 1984 book by Adolf Grünbaum

The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique is a 1984 book by the philosopher Adolf Grünbaum, in which the author offers a philosophical critique of the work of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. The book was first published in the United States by the University of California Press. Grünbaum evaluates the status of psychoanalysis as a natural science, criticizes the method of free association and Freud's theory of dreams, and discusses the psychoanalytic theory of paranoia. He argues that Freud, in his efforts to defend psychoanalysis as a method of clinical investigation, employed an argument that Grünbaum refers to as the "Tally Argument"; according to Grünbaum, it rests on the premises that only psychoanalysis can provide patients with correct insight into the unconscious pathogens of their psychoneuroses and that such insight is necessary for successful treatment of neurotic patients. Grünbaum argues that the argument suffers from major problems. Grünbaum also criticizes the views of psychoanalysis put forward by other philosophers, including the hermeneutic interpretations propounded by Jürgen Habermas and Paul Ricœur, as well as Karl Popper's position that psychoanalytic propositions cannot be disconfirmed and that psychoanalysis is therefore a pseudoscience.

<i>The Trauma of Birth</i> 1924 book by Otto Rank

The Trauma of Birth is a 1924 book by the psychoanalyst Otto Rank. It was first published in English translation in 1929. Especially with its focus on the connection between microcosm and macrocosm, it foreshadows Rank's most popular book, Art and Artist, published in 1932 and considered a masterpiece by scholars of art history. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, reacted both favorably and critically to The Trauma of Birth, responding to Rank's ideas in his own work.

<i>Freud: A Life for Our Time</i> 1988 book by Peter Gay

Freud: A Life for Our Time is a 1988 biography of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, by the historian Peter Gay. The book was first published in the United Kingdom by J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. The book has been praised by some commentators and compared to the psychoanalyst Ernest Jones's The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1953–1957). However, it has been criticized by authors skeptical of psychoanalysis, who have accused Gay of lacking objectivity and of repeating incorrect claims about Freud's work.

<i>Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire</i> 1985 book by Hans Eysenck

Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire is a book by the psychologist Hans Eysenck, in which the author criticizes Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Eysenck argues that psychoanalysis is unscientific. The book received both positive and negative reviews. Eysenck has been criticized for his discussion of the physician Josef Breuer's treatment of his patient Anna O., whom Eysenck argues suffered from tuberculous meningitis.

References

  1. ↑ Jones 1964, pp. 25, 60–61, 313, 331.
  2. ↑ Borch-Jacobsen & Shamdasani 2012, pp. 258–260.
  3. ↑ Borch-Jacobsen & Shamdasani 2012, pp. 260–262, 266.
  4. ↑ Borch-Jacobsen & Shamdasani 2012, pp. 285–287.
  5. ↑ Borch-Jacobsen & Shamdasani 2012, pp. 266–269, 273.
  6. ↑ Masson 2003, pp. 145, 154.
  7. 1 2 Eysenck 1986, p. 213.
  8. 1 2 Porter 1989, p. 250.
  9. 1 2 Paskauskas 1995, pp. vi–vii.
  10. 1 2 Webster 2005, p. 14.
  11. 1 2 Sulloway 1979, pp. 4–5, 484.
  12. 1 2 Smith 1997, p. 989.
  13. 1 2 Breger 2000, p. 380.
  14. 1 2 Lieberman & Kramer 2012, p. ix.
  15. 1 2 Gay 1984, p. 464.
  16. 1 2 Gay 1995, pp. 743–744.
  17. 1 2 Neu 1991, p. 339.
  18. 1 2 Wollheim 1991, pp. xxi–xxii.
  19. 1 2 Badcock 1992, pp. 175–176.

Bibliography

Books
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.