Brandon - Freud Response

I really enjoyed the way Appighanesi and Zarate portrayed and broke down Freud in this concise, easy reader. It talks about his life and his work and theories. Sparing any analysis on Freud’s own psych, it shows how his personal life and work at times were very closely related. I’ve studied Freud before, but never learned about any of his specific case studies like Anna O and the Rat Man, or the ways in which he developed some of his theories. The illustrations were entertaining but not so childish that they took away from the depth of the concepts. I thought his work with hysteria was particularly interesting because he broke from what had up until that point been believed about the affliction. He concluded that it did not only affect women, and developed his own methods of therapy (including free association) through his diligent attempt to cure patients. Freud’s ideas were evolutionary and although he was outcast for their extremity at the time, his influence on psychology and many other fields cannot be denied.