Available online from good bookstores |
Rediscovering the
unconscious
The legacy of Freud
Freud, Satan and the serpent
Freud's false memories
Lévi-Strauss's theology
The
bewildered visionary
Flirting with
Freud
Lacan goes
to the opera
The cult of
Lacan
History and
hatred
Taming the
beast
Letting
the Cartesian cat out
Freud and the Judaeo-Christian tradition: a TLS exchange
between Frederick Crews and Richard Webster
Online version of Why Freud Was Wrong (search whole book and read
first page of every chapter free)
'Burying Freud': a human-nature.com controversy resulting from
Raymond Tallis's review in the Lancet
'How
fabrications differ from a lie'
by Mikkel Borch- Jacobsen
J. P. Roos comments on Borch-Jacobsen: 'When does this . . . "in society there
are no facts" fashion stop? Get real, Mikkel!'
'Little
brother, little sister': review of Juliet Mitchell on hysteria
(Mad
men and medusas)
by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen |
......... |
Why Freud Was Wrong
Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis
by RICHARD WEBSTER
_________________________________
HarperCollins / Basic Books (US), Hardcover, 1995, pp. 692
Revised paperback edition with new preface, 1996
New large format Orwell Press paperback, April 2005
THIS STUDY OF SIGMUND FREUD'S life and work sets out to provide an answer to the controversies which have raged for a century around one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. Tracing Freud’s essentially religious personality to his childhood, it shows how the founder of psychoanalysis allowed his messianic dreams to shape the ‘science’ he created and how, in the diagnostic darkness which prevailed at the beginning of the twentieth century, he led his followers ever deeper into a labyrinth of medical error. The book is, at one and the same time, both a critique of Freud and an essay in cultural analysis. The nature of psychoanalytic doctrines and their rapid adoption by Western thinkers illustrate the main thesis: that our intellectual tradition remains dominated by rationalist theories of human nature and that these theories are in their turn based on forms of mind-body or ‘angel-beast’ dualism which are rooted in Judaeo-Christian religious teachings.
‘Richard Webster’s new book is so important, so
original and so controversial that all those who are interested in
Freud will have to read it. They will enjoy doing so . . . It is
impossible to do justice to this brilliant book in a short review.
It is one of the best books written on Freud and twentieth-century
ideas of human nature.’ |
ANTHONY STORR , The
Financial Times |
‘Freud, as
revealed in Why Freud Was
Wrong, is no independent and fearless thinker, but a man who
repeatedly fell under the spell of charismatic healers, and who
behaved like the messianic founder of a great faith rather than the
discoverer of a scientific truth . . . Webster’s systematic analysis
of Freud is of a man driven by ambition… Precisely because he is at
pains to give Freud the benefit of the doubt at virtually every
turn, he is arguably the most devastating critic of them all.’ |
|
ANTHONY CLARE, The
Sunday Times |
|
‘Undoubtedly the most stimulating and
significant book I have read this year: a study of the
patriarchalism which has shaped Judaeo-Christian culture written
with clarity and authority.’ |
PENELOPE MORTIMER, Books of the Year,
Daily Telegraph | |
‘. . . exceptionally searching, lucid and
well-argued. It is impossible to read this challenging,
mind-stretching book without one’s respect for Freud being shaken
and diminished.’ |
DAVID LODGE, Books of the
Year, The Sunday Telegraph |
‘Brave and stimulating.’ |
RICHARD HOGGART, Books of the Year, The
Guardian |
‘The
best new book I’ve
read this year was Why Freud Was Wrong, by Richard Webster, a
calm, lucid and devastating account of a very flawed scientist.’ |
SEBASTIAN FAULKS, Books of the Year, The Daily Mail |
|
‘Why Freud Was
Wrong is the most exciting book I’ve read in years. It’s
almost magical how the clarity of Richard Webster’s prose makes his
profound thinking accessible to the ordinary reader.'
|
DERVLA MURPHY |
‘Masterly . . . covers a lot of intellectual
ground with great clarity and verve.’ |
JEROME
BURNE, The Independent
|
‘Why Freud Was Wrong is a delight to
read: it is informative and humane but also powerful, pugnacious and
controversial. You will not quite be the same when you put it down
as when you started.’ |
ANDREW SIMS (formerly President, Royal College of Psychiatrists), The Tablet
|
|
‘Intensely interesting… The main thesis is of
such importance that one hopes it will not be missed.’
|
NICHOLAS MOSLEY, The Sunday
Telegraph
| |
‘A profound study of the man and his work, Why Freud Was Wrong is the finest treatment of its subject I know, in both content and style.’ |
JAMES LIEBERMAN, Journal of the History of Medicine
|
|
|
‘The greatness of Webster’s book lies not only in its command of the primary and secondary literature, nor only in its wonderfully lucid and witty prose, but in the penetration of his understanding of the man and his influence. Webster is also a brilliant story-teller . . . Why Freud Was Wrong – at once a major intellectual biography and a signal contribution to the intellectual history of our times – is liberating. Towards the end of the twentieth century, Webster has lifted the incubus Freud placed at the beginning of the century upon the minds of all those who think about human nature.’
|
RAYMOND TALLIS, The Lancet
|

Sunday Times cartoon, 1995 - Click picture to enlarge |
|
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
| |
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
 |
TOP |
|