Word: freuds
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...more serious symptom of Freud's condition was his sudden passion for cocaine. "The essential constituent of coca leaves" had only recently been introduced into Europe, and young Freud went crazy over the "magical drug." Convinced that it was harmless, he gave it to his patients (one of whom died), pressed it on all his friends (including Martha), and himself took "very small doses of it regularly against depression and . . . indigestion." He wrote a paper describing "the most gorgeous excitement" it aroused in animals, and exulted in the "virility" it aroused in him. "Woe to you, my Princess, when...
Biographer Jones believes that, far from realizing that he was "rapidly becoming a public menace," Freud merely thought of his fondness for cocaine as a sort of hobby. But when cases of cocaine poisoning and addiction began to pour in, Freud's hobby made him the center of a scandal. His colleagues were further scandalized when, under the influence of France's Charcot, Freud became an ardent supporter of hypnotism...
This was the turning point into "pure" psychology. In partnership with Dr. Josef Breuer (1842-1925), Freud published the case histories of five victims of hysteria-the most notable of which was the "Case of Anna O." Breuer had discovered that Anna tended to lose her symptoms if she were allowed to talk about them; Anna herself coined the happy phrase "chimney sweeping" to describe such therapy, and thus led the way to the idea of psychological "catharsis...
Breuer fled "in a cold sweat" of shocked horror. But Colleague Freud remained, his mind suddenly stirred by the idea of a "sexual chemistry" at work in neuroses and of "catharsis" as the answer to it. He installed a couch in his consulting room, stretched his patients upon it, and urged them to sweep their chimneys. Sometimes he hypnotized them, sometimes encouraged them to be frank by asking gentle questions. But one day a patient "reproved him for interrupting her flow of thought," and Freud "took the hint." Another Freudian law, that of "free association" on the patient...
Jones traces clearly the successive steps taken by Freud from this simple beginning to the full-dress appearance of psychoanalysis in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). He tells vividly of Freud's decision to psychoanalyze himself-the results of which have been the basic pattern of analytical treatment ever since. As this first volume ends, he leaves Freud at the turn of the new century, his theory half-complete but already an object of horror to all respectable neurologists...