Freud, Frederick Crews
Freud, Frederick Crews
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Freud
The Making of an Illusion

Author: Frederick Crews

Narrator: William Hughes

Unabridged: 25 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/22/2017


Synopsis

From the master of Freud debunkers, the book that definitively puts an end to the myth of psychoanalysis and its creatorSince the 1970s, Sigmund Freud’s scientific reputation has been in an accelerating tailspin—and for excellent reasons. Nevertheless, the idea persists that some of his proposals were visionary discoveries. In Freud: The Making of an Illusion, Frederick Crews investigates the record and reveals findings that will revolutionize our conception of the therapist, the theorist, and the human being.Drawing on rarely consulted archives, Crews shows us a man who blundered tragicomically in his dealings with patients, who never produced a corroborated cure, who promoted cocaine in one decade and was deluded by it in the next, who misunderstood the psychological controversies of the era, and who advanced his career through falsifying case histories and betraying the mentors who had helped him to rise. The contrary legend has persisted, Crews shows, thanks to Freud’s self-fashioning as a master detective of the psyche and later through a campaign of censorship and obfuscation conducted by his followers.A monumental biographical study and a slashing critique, Freud: The Making of an Illusion will stand as the last word on one of the most significant and contested figures of the twentieth century.

About Frederick Crews

Frederick Crews is the author of many books, including the bestselling satire The Pooh Perplex and, most recently, Follies of the Wise, which was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. A professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a longtime contributor to the New York Review of Books.

About William Hughes

William Hughes is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. A professor of political science at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, he received his doctorate in American politics from the University of California at Davis. He has done voice-over work for radio and film and is also an accomplished jazz guitarist.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul

There are several great reviews of this book by proper grown-up reviewers in the New York Times, Washington Post and so forth. They relish every page of this ferocious forensic filleting of Freud’s fanciful foolishness. The subtitle of this huge book lays it on the line, and it’s serious – Prof Crew......more

Goodreads review by Carl

Adamancy is the word for both Sigmund Freud and Frederick Crews. In his new biography, “Freud: The Making of an Illusion,” the UC Berkeley professor emeritus castigates the fraudulent founder of psychoanalysis for a rigid, even authoritarian personality antithetical to science. In fact, Crews points......more

Goodreads review by Claire

I adored this book, and any anti-Freudian will as well. Admittedly Crews approach is coated with bias and some of his criticisms and logical leaps about Freud are probably more informed by this than by the evidence - although unlike Freud he will always offer some sort of basis to his theories. The......more

Una delle ragioni per cui ho intrapreso la lettura di questo saggio, poderoso in tutti i sensi, è stata saperne di più sulla dipendenza da cocaina di Freud, argomento sconosciuto ai più perché tenuto nascosto dai biografi o meglio “agiografi” ufficiali. Sembra che ne abbia fatto un uso cospicuo e qu......more


Quotes

Freud: The Making of an Illusion [is] a…stake driven into its subject’s cold, cold heart…Crews is an attractively uncluttered stylist, and he has an amazing story to tell.” New Yorker

“Crews opens his study with the question of how Freud, whose scientific reputation has plummeted over the past decades, could retain so much cultural capital in the twenty-first century. In a single volume, he draws a portrait of Freud the liar, cheat, incestuous child molester, and all-around nasty nut job, bringing a new level of detail to these accounts.” New York Times

“Crews [is] going in for the kill. A damning portrait.” Esquire

“Diligently documented…neither sensationalized nor ranting…A scorching summation.” Chronicle of Higher Education

“A powerful and thorough takedown of Sigmund Freud.” Vulture

“Impressively well-researched, powerfully written, and definitively damning.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A stunning indictment of Sigmund Freud…Paints a portrait of Freud as a man who cared more about himself than his patients and more about success than science.” Publishers Weekly

“The Freudian myth―one of the thought-deforming tyrannies of the twentieth century―is hereby at an end. This book is as exhilarating as the fall of the Berlin wall.” Stewart Justman, author of The Psychological Mystique

“A riveting, masterful biography of Freud that demolishes forever the myth of the brilliant, heroic conquistador of the human mind. Delving deeply into hitherto suppressed archival material, Crews paints an unforgettable portrait of an utterly incompetent psychotherapist whose ruthless pursuit of wealth and fame led him to disregard the welfare of his patients as well as the scruples of scientific method.” Richard J. McNally, author of What Is Mental Illness?

“For those who worship Freud and even those millions who have simply admired his ideas, Crews’s rigorous and captivating detective work will be a bracing challenge.” Elizabeth Loftus, coauthor of The Myth of Repressed Memory


Awards

  • Amazon Best Book of the Month
  • New York Times Pick
  • Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books
  • Library Journal bestseller