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Before Einstein told us that it is all relative, Freud told us that it is all relatives. Freud, the proclaimer of the Oedipus complex as the nuclear complex of neurosis, and the importance of relationships between family members in the genesis of the Oedipus complex, lived his entire life within large families. Given that Freud changed our views of family life so dramatically, and given that Freud's perspectives on family life were created in particular social and cultural settings, any attempt to understand the development of psychoanalysis must include studies of the specific family worlds in which Freud lived. Paul Roazen's Meeting Freud's Family is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of Freud's personal (and professional) family life.
Roazen has written a very personal history of his attempts to learn about Freud's family life. Starting in 1964, in his ambition to collect a different sort of evidence than could be found in the written record, Roazen began to interview people who had known Freud personally. Starting with Helene Deutsch, Roazen began to encounter other analysts with personal connections to Freud, and eventually, he received the opportunity to interview some members of Freud's immediate family. The heart of Meeting Freud's Family is Roazen's account of his own perceptions of Freud's family members, as well as their impressions and anecdotes concerning Freud and his relationships with relatives and colleagues.
While he acknowledges a great debt to Ernest Jones's biography of Freud as a goldmine of information, by 1965 Roazen had become aware of serious omissions and distortions in the “official”