Drawing from highly personal correspondence, some of which has only recently been released, this illuminating biography applies a developmental approach to Freud's youth and transition to middle age. It reconstructs the years during which Freud determined his goals, suffered a crisis resulting from his inability to realize them, and fought his way through to the creation of psychoanalysis. In so doing, the book reveals the great complexity of Freud's personal reality and simultaneously challenges critiques of his thinking.
This book will be of interest to readers in the history of psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud.