A Most Dangerous Method - by John Kerr (Paperback)

About the Book

This explosive, revelatory history of the early years of psychoanalysis shows that the bitterly unresolvable split between Jung and Freud pivoted around a former patient and lover of Jung's whose story and own potentially important theoretical contributions to psychoanalysis were blocked by both men. "A huge scholarly work . . . gripping".--The New York Times.

Book Synopsis

"Has all the elements of a juicy novel . . . riveting. . . . Reudite and elegant." --Newsday

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, Directed by David Cronenberg and starring Keira Knightly, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, and Vincent Cassel.

In 1907, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung began what promised to be both a momentous collaboration and the deepest friendship of each man's life. Six years later they were bitter antagonists, locked in a savage struggle that was as much personal and emotional as it was theoretical and professional. Between them stood a young woman named Sabina Spielrein, who had been both patient and lover to Jung and colleague and confidante to Freud before going on to become an innovative psychoanalyst herself.

With the narrative power and emotional impact of great tragedy, A Dangerous Method is impossible to put down.

Review Quotes

"Both a superb cultural history and a gripping narrative. . . . Daring. --San Francisco Chronicle

"Surrounds Spielrein's personal history with all the debates, squabbles, negotiations for precedence, knifings in the back that accompanied the development of . . . psychoanalytic schools." --The Atlantic

About the Author

John Kerr (1950-2016) is best known for writing A Most Dangerous Method, a book that became the basis for a play and a movie. Kerr was trained as a clinical psychologist at New York University. He was an editor at The Analytic Press, a scholarly press specializing in works on psychoanalysis, and was coeditor and a contributor to Freud and the History of Psychoanalysis. He died in Portland, Maine at age 66.