Freudians and Schadenfreudians

<b>Sigmund Freud can be a polarizing figure beloved by many and despised by some. Focusing on eight key writers and scholars who either passionately loved or gleefully loathed Freud this book represents Freud's wide legacy the reach of his ideas their controversies and their ability still to provoke inspire confound outrage and compel.</b><br/><br/>The book begins by focusing on four highly prolific authors whose admiration for Freud is boundless: Lionel Trilling Harold Bloom Kurt R. Eissler and Peter Gay. Berman then explores four more writers whose aim was not simply to debunk Freud and destroy his monstrous creation but to cast both into hell: D. H. Lawrence Vladimir Nabokov Thomas Szasz and Frederick Crews. Each chapter discusses the author's involvement with Freud exploring the continuities and discontinuities of his or her writings as well as offering snapshots of the writers suggesting how their personal and professional lives were inextricably related.<br/><br/>Berman draws out some surprising commonalities between the Freudolaters and Schadenfreudians going on to discuss the current state of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic credos by which contemporary analysts live.