The Freud Files

Professor Sonu Shamdasani is a historian of psychology and psychiatry and is widely regarded as the leading Jung historian at work today. His numerous publications have been translated into many languages and his last edited book, Jung's Red Book (2009) was on The New York Times bestseller list and a documentary is currently being prepared on the subject. 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 bestselling Le livre noir de la psychanalyse (The Black Book of Psychoanalysis).

• Introduction: the past of an illusion; 1. Privatising science; 2. The interprefaction of dreams; 3. Case histories; 4. Policing the past; Coda: what was psychoanalysis?

'Attempts to debunk the legend in the 1970s and 80s failed. But a current assault, helped by a wealth of 'declassified' material, correspondence and critical studies, looks more likely to dismantle the monomyth … the legend is 'fraying from all sides'.' New Scientist