Born in Berlin in 1923 as Peter Joachim Fröhlich, his family fled. In this magisterial biography by the eminent cultural historian (The Bourgeois Experience, etc.), Freud's greatness and his flaws flow out of the same stubborn, obsessive quest for truth. Gay’s persuasive arguments were doubtless influenced by his own family history, which echoed Freud’s in some essential ways. Search Google Scholar for this author, Harry Trosman, M.D. New York: Norton See all articles by this author. Perhaps no biographer has succeeded as well as Gay in linking Freud's life to his writings and his times. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 1993 41: 3, 829-837. Though he preached that the psychoanalyst should be detached during therapy sessions, he bent and even broke his own rules, returning fees to patients who fell on hard times and making friends with his favorite analysands. Freud continually analyzed his own unresolved conflicts, blaming his fainting spells on unconscious homosexual urges. Product Details About the Author Peter Gay (19232015) was the author of more than twenty-five books, including the National Book Award winner The Enlightenment, the best-selling Weimar Culture, and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time. We follow the ambitious medical student's long, sexually starved courtship of Martha Bernays, a romance that, according to Gay, influenced his theories about the sexual roots of mental ailments.

We see how a doting, domineering mother equipped young Sigmund for a life of intrepid investigation. Gay's engrossing portrait of Freud is unconventional, at times startling. Peter Gay, a leading scholar of Freud and his work, has carefully chosen these selections to provide a full portrait of Freuds thought.

Freud by Peter Gay