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In October 1998, after a controversial two-year delay, the Library of Congress opened an exhibit entitled Freud: Conflict and Culture, with materials drawn from the Freud Archives, the Sigmund Freud Museums of London and Vienna, and Freud scholars. In celebration of this event, a conference was held at Georgetown University that attempted to address, “What is still relevant of the core of Freud's legacy?” and “How have things changed in theory, practice, and in applied psychoanalysis?” This book is a compilation of the papers and panels presented at that conference, edited by one of its principle organizers, David E. Scharff, MD.
Scharff has done a masterful job of assembling a wealth of rich material in an easily accessible format, with cogent introductions to each grouping of papers and panels that provide context, connection, and clarity. In his Introduction, he summarizes Freud's contributions as follows:
Freud's fundamental theories—that an unconscious life guides us, that psychological development beginning In infancy imparts meaning to our lives, that the thinking embedded in dreaming and the unconscious is fundamentally different from so-called logical thinking, that clinical narratives are revealed through transference—all these have become accepted common sense. His technical inventions of free association, free-floating attention, interpretation, and reconstruction have stood the test of time and remain stalwarts of our clinical armamentarium, although technique has evolved beyond them to include new focus on countertransference and the relationship between therapist and patient. (p. xvii)
The book is divided into five parts, each containing a group of papers relating to a particular theme. “Part I: History and Psychoanalysis” contains papers by two Freud scholars who attempt to address some of the controversies that have surrounded Freud and his work. Michael Roth, Ph.D., curator of the Freud Exhibit at the Library of Congress, in “Falling into History: Fre