How Freud Worked. First-Hand Accounts of Patients: Paul Roazen. London, Jason Aronson, 1995.

Unorthodox Freud: The View from the Couch. By Beate Lohser & P. M. Newton. London, Guilford Press, 1996.

With any thinker, certain discrepancies between life and teaching may exist. In the case of Freud and his therapeutic technique, discussions of such differences generally take their cues from his technical papers and case histories. Here, however, are two books published in recent years which focus on Freud's therapeutic praxis, giving his patients' version of it rather than his own. One is based on oral sources, the other on written accounts.

All of Freud's patients and co-workers are now deceased. Still, an impressive wealth of first-hand observations remains. Kurt Eissler was quick to realise the importance of collecting and systematising testimonies of such direct encounters. To this end, he founded the Freud archives, and from the 1940s on, tirelessly collected information on the man from anybody he could find. This material will prove invaluable, having been collected at such an early date, and at a time when there was much less public interest in Freud than there was to be later on. The amount of material in Eissler's archives is formidable, but most of it has yet to be made accessible to research. In exchange for information, he allowed his informants generous moratoria on the publication of their accounts. Paul Roazen interviewed many of these same persons during the 1960s, though from a diametrically opposite standpoint. Roazen came from outside, as a historian. The 60s, of course, saw an explosion of interest in Freud and the influence of psychoanalysis reached new heights. Simultaneously, the wave of anti-Freudian criticism got underway, and Roazen was an instrument and a protagonist of this particular zeitgeiest. As an interviewer, he assumed a critical stance; clearly, he was out to discredit Freud and the psychoanalytic movement. The decade's radical, debunking spotlight turned its glare on Freud. The material collected by Roazen became the founda