SIGMUND FREUD

A fine biography, this serves as a well detailed account of Freud's work and theories, and a fair psychological study of the man, too. Beginning before Freud's birth, with a description of Amalia and Jacob Freud's weaver household in Freiburg and then with their child's boyhood, the Freuds' family relationships are delineated- for example, Sigmund's deep love for his mother and his fear for a stern father. In this way, reaching into the man's own feelings and into those of others as he worked with them, the author joins statement with example to tell of the rest of his life:- hard student days in Vienna, first realizations that people were sick for no known physical cause, research with Charcot in Paris, return to Vienna and the transition from hypnotism to free association that led to the development of the psychoanalytical method, his theories of dreams, sex, the ego and the id, his discouraging quarrel with Jung. There is some analysis of Freudian influence on art and literature. A calm, sensitive tribute and biography needed to make Freud as he was, human and understandable to younger readers.