Overview

John Forrester’s passionate yet probing engagement with Freud and psychoanalysis is legendary. Here, in six introductory lectures delivered to his students at the University of Cambridge, his range and lucidity bring the evolution of Freud’s thinking and the nature of Freud’s discoveries into sharp focus. With an historian’s eye for context, Forrester explores Freud’s biography, the scientific moment, the radical subject matter of the field itself – sex, dreams, desire, the unconscious, childhood, language – as well as Freud’s development of a new clinical practice.   Forrester also explores both the growth of the psychoanalytic movement and the question of what kind of beast it might be as it travels through time and geography. He illuminates the cultural and revolutionary impact of psychoanalytic thinking – not only Freud’s, but that of some of his progeny in the many places where the movement flourished.  Freud and Psychoanalysis takes us from Vienna to London, from Paris to New York and Hollywood, from the lab to the couch, to the campus, to film and to literature. This is a slim book that packs a big punch. It invites any curious reader into a field and a way of thinking that shaped the twentieth century.

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9781509558124

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Reviews

Clear and compelling, these lectures are at once more than accessible and often startlingly informative. In his characteristically lucid and incisive way Forrester makes Freud new and intriguing. This book is that rare thing, a book as much for the curious as for the knowledgeable. The best book on Freud for many years. Adam Phillips

""Clear and compelling, these lectures are at once more than accessible and often startlingly informative. In his characteristically lucid and incisive way, Forrester makes Freud new and intriguing. This book is that rare thing: a collection as much for the curious as for the knowledgeable, and the best book on Freud for many years."" Adam Phillips “[Psychoanalysis is] our inheritance. It will always be there for us. To understand it, we can do no better than to look to Forrester.” Chronicle of Higher Education

Author Information

John Forrester was Professor of History and Philosophy of the Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Lisa Appignanesi is a prize-winning author of many books, including Everyday Madness: On Grief, Anger, Loss and Love.

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