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Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis |  | Author: Eli Zaretsky
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $8.21
as of 9/6/2010 05:58 CDT details
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Seller: belltowerbooks
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 639098
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st Paperback Edition, printing by this publisher
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 1400079233
Dewey Decimal Number: 150.19509
EAN: 9781400079230
ASIN: 1400079233
Publication Date: August 9, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The fledgling science of psychoanalysis permanently altered the nineteenth-century worldview with its remarkable new insights into human behavior and motivation. It quickly became a benchmark for modernity in the twentieth century--though its durability in the twenty-first may now be in doubt.
More than a hundred years after the publication of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, we’re no longer in thrall, says cultural historian Eli Zaretsky, to the “romance” of psychotherapy and the authority of the analyst. Only now do we have enough perspective to assess the successes and shortcomings of psychoanalysis, from its late-Victorian Era beginnings to today’s age of psychopharmacology. In Secrets of the Soul, Zaretsky charts the divergent schools in the psychoanalytic community and how they evolved–sometimes under pressure–from sexism to feminism, from homophobia to acceptance of diversity, from social control to personal emancipation. From Freud to Zoloft, Zaretsky tells the story of what may be the most intimate science of all.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Its about Freud, stupid! January 31, 2010
meeah (somewhere between my ears (i presume))
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Some books have descriptive titles that at least indicate what they're about; those that don't, are usually supplied with bluntly accurate subtitles. "Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis" has neither. There aren't any soul-shattering or soul-enhancing secrets imparted here. And the book isn't so much a history of psycholanalysis as it is a history of Freudian psychoanalysis.
Unless you consider Freud synonomous with psycholanalysis, and I suppose at least some, if not many, among them certainly the author, do, then you're going to be disappointed if you're looking for a balanced treatment of all the various schools and personalities of the psychoanalytic movement. Sure Jung is mentioned, Adler, Rank, Klein, Reich, all the way down the line to Lacan, but they are all considered in relation to Freud, not as thinkers in their own right who eventually developed systems more or less free-standing and Freudless. Yes, any analyst post-Freud must in some way, manner, or form deal with Freud, and must be dealt with in relation to Freud, but does that also mean that every analyst, no matter how neatly he broke away or how far from the tree he carried his branch, he must still be considered as doing nothing more than reacting to and/or against Freud?
Well, if this book is any indication, Zaretsky seems to think so. I have no gripe with his writing a book on the cultural and social history of Freudianism, or Freudian analysis, but he really should have advertised his book as such. Maybe he wanted to. Maybe the publisher came up with this misleading title and subtitle to appeal to a wider audience, to sell more books. They do that all the time. I guess I should only be surprised that they didn't work Dan Brown's name into the title, or DaVinci, or Rachel Ray.
I can't believe it's snowing outside. I know that has nothing to do with my review of this book, but, then again, maybe it does. On some deep subconscious level that not even I'm aware of, I mean. For instance, I bought two new pairs of sandals today and it's snowing! Can you believe that? What timing, right? I bet Freud could figure out the meaning of that--if it were a dream. But this is real life!
The fact is, I'm not sure I have anything else to say about "Secrets of the Soul." (Except, apparently, this:) It's a pretty good book, even if it is somewhat misrepresented. I think Freud is one of those Eminences that a lot of people don't read because, like Babe Ruth, you know who he is even if you know nothing about psychology--or in Babe Ruth's case, baseball. Even if you do know something about psychology, the figure of Freud is obscured by a smokescreen of critical reactions over the years.
Freud often comes down to us as dogmatic, sexist, rigid, stodgy, conservative, domineering, and, yes, patriarchal. In fact, he is a lot of those things up to a certain point, but only up to a certain point. But Zaretsky shows us a Freud who was a lot more open-minded than he's usually given credit for being. A Freud who is quite careful and circumspect about the correctness of his theories. A Freud who encouraged new ideas and new lines of research. A Freud who modified, developed, and absorbed the critiques of the more talented of his disciples. A Freud with a good deal more forebearance towards those who he felt were betraying psychoanalysis. A Freud who seemed to feel genuine distress whenever he felt it necessary to toss someone out of the movement.
Zaretsky traces the diaspora of psychoanalysis across the world, especially after World War II, when the Nazis and Communists considered psychoanalysis a decadent Jewish pseudo-science or not sufficiently directed outward for the good of the State...or both. And follows the decline and fall of psychoanalysis as it eventually shattered into identity politics and a vertiable mosaic of cultural/intellectual fads.
Still, in the end, it's Freud, Freud, Freud...Freud up and out the wazoo. So don't let the title and subtitle fool you. This book should have the word "Freud" in both, and a big old picture of Freud on the cover.
Freud.....I just had to say it one more time.
 Ugh & Wow October 9, 2005
John Schowalter (Hamden, CT USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is an extremely dense work that is not easy even for the initiated, but even the initiated will learn very much indeed.
The first to synthesize the international history November 6, 2004
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Eli Zaretsky's SECRETS OF THE SOUL is the first to synthesize the international history of psychoanalysis, from its origins to modern times, showing how Freud's teachings set the stage for the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the modernization of society. Zaretsky's articles on the history of family, psychoanalysis and modern culture have served as precedents to this his opus of psychoanalytical history.
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