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.
In his book's preface, Brome states that his interest in psychoanalysis and its history is of long standing, going back more than fifteen years. In fact, Brome has also written other psychoanalytical books, on both Freudian and Jungian subjects.
Ernest Jones. Freud's Alter Ego takes the form of a biography based on the public and private life of the man described by Brome as 'the son of Thomas Jones, a clerk in a South Wales coal company', who 'rose to become President of the International Psychoanalytical Association, a figure known internationally who not only manipulated many phases of psychoanalytical history but became the power behind the Freudian throne and actually made a great deal of that history'.
The history of the psychoanalytical movement and its pioneers is an extremely sensitive area that is in some ways still a minefield. There are many problems and restrictions surrounding access to the Freud archives in the Library of Congress, as well as access to other documents, so the task of the biographer and historian is made exceptionally difficult.
Brome informs us, however, that he was able to consult the letters, of which there were over four hundred, exchanged by Freud and Jones, and the correspondence between Anna Freud and Jones, as well as diaries and other letters put at his disposal by the Jones family, Joan Riviere's daughter, and others.
In addition, Brome was able to supplement his information from the personal encounters he had with Jones when studying the work of Havelock Ellis, and from the interviews he was able to conduct with some of the key figures in the first generation of psychoanalysts in England, such as A. Freud, M. Balint, W. Gillespie, P. Heimann, C. Rycroft, E. Rosenfeld and so on.
Brome's flowing style as a writer and journalist has made him one of the best-known biographers in England. And in some respects, his biography of Ernest Jones confirms this reputation. Facts about the public and private life of the founder of psychoa