Borch-Jacobsen Mikkel, Shamdasani Sonu. The Freud Files: An Inquiry into the History of Psychoanalysis

Cambridge University Press, 2012. — 414 p.How did psychoanalysis attain its prominent cultural position? How did it eclipse rival psychologies and psychotherapies, such that it became natural to bracket Freud with Copernicus and Darwin? Why did Freud ‘triumph’ to such a degree that we hardly remember his rivals? This book reconstructs the early controversies around psychoanalysis, and shows that rather than demonstrating its superiority, Freud and his followers rescripted history. This legend-making was not an incidental addition to psychoanalytic theory but formed its core. Letting the primary material speak for itself, this history demonstrates the extraordinary apparatus by which this would-be science of psychoanalysis installed itself in contemporary societies. Beyond psychoanalysis, it opens up the history of the constitution of the modern psychological sciences and psychotherapies, how they furnished the ideas which we have of ourselves, and how these became solidified into indisputable ‘facts’.
Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Washington.He is the author of highly influential books on the theory and history of psychoanalysis, and co-author of the best-selling Le livre noir de la psychanalyse (The Black Book of Psychoanalysis).
Sonu Shamdasani is Philemon Professor of Jung History at the Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines at University College London, and is widely regarded as the leading Jung historian at work today. His numerous books have been translated into many languages, and his most recent edited work, C. G. Jung’s The Red Book. Liber Novus (2009), was awarded the Heritage Award from the New York Book Show for the best book in the last twenty-five years.
Books by both authors have been recipients of the Gradiva Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis.