Against Freud

Everyone agrees that Sigmund Freud has had a profound impact on Western society and intellectual life. But even today few people know much about his life and work beyond the legends that Freud and his adherents created, fostered, and repeated. The result is an enormous cross-disciplinary field characterized by contradiction and confusion. Only the experts could possibly make sense of it allbut not always, since no field is as thoroughly undercut by ideology, acrimony, and bad faith as psychoanalysis. Against Freud collects the frank musings of some of the world's best critics of Freud, providing a convincing and coherent "case against Freud" that is as amusing as it is rigorously presented. Hailing from diverse academic backgroundshistory, philosophy, literary criticism, sociology, psychotherapy, and psychiatrythis diverse group includes renowned international figures such as Edward Shorter, Frank Sulloway, Frederick Crews, and Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, as well as those who knew Freud and his family. Listen in on the critics and then decide for yourself whether or not "Freud is dead."

Todd Dufresne is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Lakehead University. He is the author of Tales from the Freudian Crypt: The Death Drive in Text and Context (Stanford, 2000) and Killing Freud.