Elisabeth Young-Bruehl. Anna Freud: A Biography, 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. 576 pp. $20.00 (paper). ISBN-13: 9780300140231. Michael Ruse and Robert J. Richards (Eds.). The Cambridge Companion to the “Origin of Species.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xxvii, 395 pp. $26.00 (paper). ISBN-13: 978-0521691291. Stephen Murdoch. IQ:A Smart History of a Failed Idea. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007. xiv + 269 pp. $24.95 (cloth). ISBN-13: 978-0471699774. Warren D. Allmon, Patricia Kelley, and Robert Ross (Eds.). Stephen Jay Gould: Reflections on His View of Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 416 pp. $34.95 (cloth). ISBN-13: 978-0195373202
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2009
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 38 KB
- Volume
- 45
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-5061
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The main text of this second edition of Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's biography of Anna Freud remains unchanged from that of the highly acclaimed first edition. The author suggests that although new source material and scholarship on Anna Freud have become available since 1988, "nothing has appeared that requires substantial factual amendment or interpretive emendment to the life story told here" (p. xiii). However, the Preface to the second edition is a fascinating addition, as is her Appendix, a reprint of her 2004 article "Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham at Hempstead: The Origins of Psychoanalytic Parent-Infant Observation." In the new Preface, Young-Bruehl comments on "two periods of Anna Freud's new world" (p. xiv) since 1988, the American-centered "Freud Wars" of the 1990s and the more recent revival of interest in child psychoanalysis that has accompanied the emergence of new trends in studies of child development. Regarding the "Freud Wars," she presents pointed critiques of two different versions of the "Bad Freud Story," one focusing on the "Bad Freud" who "abandoned" the seduction theory and blamed his patients, and the other on the "Bad Freud" who provided a model for therapists who blamed abusers falsely. Noting that the two versions are incompatible, Young-Bruehl examines the cultural context surrounding the widespread acceptance of one or both of these "Bad Freud Stories." Discussing the second period, she links Anna Freud's insights from child psychoanalysis with recent social and natural scientific research from many fields, noting, for example, the emergence of new areas of study combining psychoanalysis and neuroscience. These comments supplement the insights of the article on the origins of psychoanalytic parent-infant observation. Framed by the new Preface and the Appendix, Young-Bruehl's excellent biography will be valuable for new readers and readers of the first edition alike.