Don't be mislead by the fact that John Kerr's A
Most Dangerous Method now re-titled A Dangerous
Method has been made into a movie starring Viggo Mortensen, Michael
Fassbender and Keira Knightley into thinking the book is some sort of romantic
novel. It is not. Don't be deceived by the cover of the newly
released Vintage paperback which plants Knightley firmly between Fassbender and
Mortensen into thinking this is the story of some epic love triangle. It is not.
The book is not fiction. There is
something that might qualify as a love story, but it is less the central
concern of the book than it is an interesting sidelight.
That said, what, then, is it? A Dangerous Method is a
serious historical account of one of the most significant relationships in the
development of the theory of psychoanalysis, the friendship and eventual animosity
between perhaps the two most important figures of the movement, Sigmund Freud
and Carl Jung. It traces that
relationship through their letters and their writings, and through the writings
of their colleagues and critics. It
shows how they attempted to foster the growth of the discipline, how their
ideas developed and how those developed ideas and their outsized personalities gradually
pulled them apart. Their collaboration
began in 1907 by 1913 they were hardly on speaking terms.
This is not a new story.
The quarrel between the two great theorists has been explained before,
perhaps not in the same kind of detail, but explained nonetheless. What is new is the emphasis on the role
played by Sabina Spielrein, the young Russian woman who first became a patient
and mistress of Jung's, then a psychoanalyst herself, and a confidante of
Freud's. Spielrein came to the Swiss
clinic where Jung was practicing for treatment of what seems to have been
"psychotic hysteria." In the
course of the treatment, she, as it seems many patients do, developed a
romantic attachment to her therapist, and Jung didn't manage to maintain his
professional cool. Now while, Kerr
demonstrates that that romance and the psychic themes resulting from it played
an important role in the formulation of some of Jung's ideas, ideas that were
to result in the eventual break with Freud, it is the ideas that are the focus
of the book, not the love affair. The
point to be made here is that this is a study of ideas, not a soap opera.
Indeed for those with no familiarity with these ideas the
book may be tough sledding. Kerr is a
trained clinical psychologist, and he doesn't hesitate to use the jargon of the
trade. "Phylogenetic
inheritance" comes trippingly from his pen along with such other felicitous
phrases as "the clinical phenomenology of neuroses," "the
psychological structure of introversion," and the "temporary effluxes
of sexuality." Certainly there is nothing wrong with this kind of
language, but it does not exactly make for an easy read for the general
reader. Add to this a cast of thousands
(excuse the hyperbole), a gaggle of psychologists and psychoanalysts from all
over the world who are referred to throughout the book, and who are very hard
to keep track of if they are little more than names. It is one thing when you're talking about
well known theorists like William James, Ernest Jones and Alfred Adler, it's
quite another story when you're talking about Ludwig Binswanger, Eugen Bleuler
and Josef Breuer. It is not that these
men are insignificant or unimportant; it is simply that they are not household
names and there are so many of them.
To be clear, this is an excellent book, filled with
interesting information. It has
excellent analyses and critiques of some of the seminal ideas of some of the
most original thinkers of the early part of the twentieth century. It provides a compelling look at the
personality and character of the central figures and shows how their work was
affected by it. It looks at their flaws;
it looks at their merits, and it makes considered judgments. And over its intellectual history it
superimposes the narrative of a young woman who became involved with two of the
century's giants and may never have quite gotten the recognition she deserved. It is simply not a book to breeze through on
the beach.
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