Intimate Friends, Dangerous Rivals

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

To Schultz, the relationship between Freud and Jung was a spiral of mutal dependence, a foredoomed Oedipal drama. Freud found in the Swiss analyst a submissive son, while, for Jung, Freud was spiritual guide and surrogate father. Psychologist and University of South Florida professor Schultz succumbs to oversimplifications, and his overblown style can be annoying. Nevertheless, his brisk, devastatingly intimate study is rewarding. The duo's relationship is analyzed in the context of their personal lives. Jung embarked on a love affair with a patient, Toni Wolff, and would juggle a 30-year triangular relationship with her and his own wife. Possibly to make Freud jealous, Jung found a submissive disciple of his own, a young, unstable Swiss psychiatrist, Johann Honegger, whom he misdiagnosed and who later committed suicide. Freud, who diagnosed himself as having anxiety neurosis caused by coitus interruptus with his wife, found an outlet in his sister-in-law, Minna Bernays, who, in Schultz's view, ``occupied a central position in Freud's emotional life.'' Whether they actually had an affair remains speculative. (Mar.)

Library Journal

Schultz has fairly successfully walked a thin line between biography and a People expose. Focusing on the continued interest in the friendly rivalry between Freud and Jung, Schultz examines the issues that brought them together during the foundation of the psychoanalytic movement and later tore them apart. However, he does not leave out the juicy details of their extramarital affairs, drug use, or psychoanalysis of one another's motives. Based on English-language materials, the work is easy, interesting reading and has copious footnotes for those who are interested in reading the primary sources. Photographs of persons mentioned in the text would have added to enjoyment of the book. Index not seen. Recommended for medium to large public and most academic libraries.-- Lucy Patrick, Florida State Univ. Lib., Tallahassee