Offers an examination of the very foundations of psychoanalytic theory and practice, which was born with the publication of Breuer and Freud's Studies on Hysteria in 1895. In his opening essay, Breuer described the case of Anna O., a young woman afflicted with a severe hysteria whom he had cured of her symptoms by having her recount under hypnosis the traumatic events that precipitated her illness. Hysterics suffer from reminiscences, wrote Freud, and they heal when they remember these repressed or dissociated memories. This discovery of Breuer's, Freud continued, is still the foundation of...

Why do maladies of the soul such as hysteria, anxiety disorders, or depression wax and wane over time? Through a study of the history of psychiatry, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen provocatively argues that most mental illnesses are not, in fact, diseases but the product of varying expectations shared and negotiated by therapists and patients. With a series of fascinating historical vignettes, stretching from Freud's creation of false memories of sexual abuse in his early hysterical patients to today's promotion and marketing of depression by drug companies, Making Minds and Madness offers a powerful...

Why do maladies of the soul such as hysteria, anxiety disorders, or depression wax and wane over time? Through a study of the history of psychiatry, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen provocatively argues that most mental illnesses are not, in fact, diseases but the product of varying expectations shared and negotiated by therapists and patients. With a series of fascinating historical vignettes, stretching from Freud's creation of false memories of sexual abuse in his early hysterical patients to today's promotion and marketing of depression by drug companies, Making Minds and Madness offers a powerful...

Borch-Jacobsen provides an introductory summary of Freud's psychoanalysis, emphasizing biological and historical contexts, and offering a fresh perspective on the familiar facts of Freud's theories. Scholars and students of Freud, as well as practising psychoanalysts, will benefit from this book.

Borch-Jacobsen provides an introductory summary of Freud's psychoanalysis, emphasizing biological and historical contexts, and offering a fresh perspective on the familiar facts of Freud's theories. Scholars and students of Freud, as well as practising psychoanalysts, will benefit from this book.