You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
When Dr. George Makari set out to write an intellectual history of transference theory, he thought he would begin by securing a good, overarching history of psychoanalysis from which to draw upon. He soon discovered that what he needed simply did not exist. There were many serious biographies of important figures within the movement, but they all tended to overestimate the importance of their subjects. Ruben Fine's attempt at a history read more like an encyclopedia than a narrative. This sent Dr. Makari, the director of Cornell's Institute for the History of Psychiatry, deep into the research archives of libraries all over Europe and America looking for the groundwork he would need in order to begin his task. When a colleague reviewed the resulting book proposal, he was struck by the potential for another project altogether—perhaps unsurprisingly that history of psychoanalysis that Makari could not find as he first began his work. A little intimidated, but very intrigued, Makari decided to accept the challenge. He set out to write an engaging history of the psychoanalytic movement from its inception in the late 19th century through to the end of World War II. Tonight's lecture was but a brief glimpse into the process that produced his book, Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis . Jacket photographs of the book are of Jean-Martin Charcot, Karen Horney, Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein and Wilhelm Reich, below a picture of inner city fin de siècle Vienna.
Makari began with the premise that in order to establish his narrative there were two questions he needed to answer: Just where did these ideas come from? And