Freud and Man’s Soul.

BETTELHEIM, Bruno.

Item Number: 103369

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983.

First edition of this “vital…an eloquent attempt to reclaim Freud’s reputation in America” (The New York Times). Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author, “To Margaret with my best wishes for Christmas and a Happy New Year Love Bruno.” Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket design by Robert Anthony.

Has Sigmund Freud been seriously misunderstood? The author of The Uses of Enchantment argues that mistranslation has distorted Freud's work in English and led students to see a system intended to cooperate flexibly with individual needs as a set of rigid rules to be applied by external authority. This provocative argument cuts through the myths to reveal a greater, more compassionate and also far more disturbing figure. "Lucid and provocative" (The Los Angeles Book Review).