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The word ‘psychoanalysis’ has several meanings. It is a method of treatment that is at the same time a method of studying the mind, it is a body of theories about mental functioning, and it is a movement. George Makari states that his purpose in writing his book was “to locate the specific origins of psychoanalysis as a body of ideas and a movement” (p. 3) and to trace its history to the mid-twentieth century. He divides his book into three main parts. The first he calls ‘Making Freudian Theory’, the second, ‘Making the Freudians,’ and the third, ‘Making Psychoanalysis.’ There is also an epilogue that sketches some of the developments after 1950. For anyone who is interested in the history of psychoanalysis - as in my opinion every analyst should be - this book is required and, I should add, delightful reading.
In Part One Makari gives an extensive and masterly account of the ways in which many influential figures of European thought grappled with the question of mind, from those who believed that the mind by its very nature is inaccessible to scientific, systematic study, to those who put their faith in everything from phrenology to psychophysiology. His canvas is wide indeed. The reader is treated to a fascinating account of the history of the many, varied efforts of those who tried along the way and of Freud's earliest efforts in the field - efforts that led him up many a blind alley before he finally arrived at a theory of neurosis that, for the time, satisfied him. As Makari writes, what Freud accomplished, up to that point, was:
something spectacular. He had taken up complex debates in psychology and psychopathology, quarrels over the mind and brain, nature and nurture, behavior, individual development and evolution, drive and desire, and in the end he could sum up his answers in one highly theorized word: psychosexuality. Ribot, Charcot, Bernheim, Janet, Brucke, Helmholtz, Exner, Meynert, Breuer, Fliess, Fechner, Hering, Lipps, Wundt. Krafft-Ebing, Schrenck-Not