Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis
GEORGE MAKARI: Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis. New York: Harper (An imprint of Harper Collins) 2008, 613 pp. $32.50, ISBN: 978 0 06 134661 3. Revolution in Mind is an extraordinary tour de force that traces the intellectual history of psychoanalysis from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth. Author George Makari is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College and Director of Cornell's Institute for the History of Psychiatry. In a discussion of his book at the recent American Psychoanalytic Association meetings, Makari credited psychoanalyst Robert Michels, former Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College and former Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, for shaping the direction of the book. Originally Makari had set out to write a book on transference but Michels suggested that a book on the history of psychoanalysis would have a more far reaching appeal. And he was right. In fact, the book received a favorable full page review in the Book Review of The New York Times, an exceptional accomplishment for a book in our profession. In his Prologue, Makari states that his book is not meant to be a biography of Freud. There are, of course, numerous excellent biographies of Freud, such as those by Ernest Jones and Peter Gay, and countless other books about psychoanalysis. What Makari had in mind, instead, was a wide ranging account of the rise of psychoanalysis in western and central Europe, where psychoanalysis was born. Revolution in Mind is divided into three major sections: Part One: Making Freudian Theory; Part Two: Making the Freudians; and Part Three: Making Psychoanalysis. Makari begins with Theodule Ribot, who wished to separate psychology from metaphysics and religion and stressed the importance of both introspection and external observation (p. 12) Makari traces Freud's academic journey through his early neurological research in Vienna, his experience at the Salpetriere in Paris, and to his consulting room at Berggasse 19. From those initial Wednesday night meetings, Freud slowly gathered his following throughout Europe as the discipline of psychoanalysis evolved. One of the major strengths of the book is Makari's even handed treatment of Freud. In his Prologue he notes that Freud has been both worshipped as a genius and denounced as a fraud and relic. Makari notes that the Minutes of the Vienna Society depict a Freud who was "reasonably charitable in the face of dissenting views "(p. 157) Throughout the years, Freud was not rigidly dogmatic and modified his theories, often incorporating the ideas of others. On the other hand, Makari also notes (p. 161) that "one could not it seems question Freud's clinical authority, his veracity as an empirical observer, or his therapeutic claims." And when Freud disagreed with Adler, " Freud did not prove Adler was wrong; rather he declared Adler was not a psychoanalyst" (p. 263) The book is particularly strong in giving us the historical context for psychoanalysis in light of the dramatic increase in anti Semitism throughout much of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. In fact, Makari notes that Freud would not have gotten his professorship had an important patient not intervened on his behalf, (p. 137) Makari also credits analysts like Ernest Jones, as well as the International Psychoanalytic Association, for rescuing many Jewish analysts from the Nazis and arranging for them to resettle in England or the United States. There is also a cogent discussion of the question of lay analysis. Freud had gone out on a limb to defend Theodore Reik against charges of quackery for practicing psychoanalysis without a medical license, and wrote his book, The Question of Lay Analysis in response to the controversy. Freud's own daughter, Anna, was, of course, a lay analyst as well. Makari explains that the ability of nonphysicians to practice psychoanalysis was not a moot point: the issue took center stage when there was a mass migration of lay psychoanalysts who were fleeing Nazi Germany and needed to make a living in their new homelands.