Freudians and Schadenfreudians: Loving and Hating Psychoanalysis

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.

The book begins by focusing on four highly prolific authors whose admiration for Freud is boundless: Lionel Trilling, Harold Bloom, Kurt R. Eissler, and...