Brother Animal: The Story of Freud and Tausk

By Paul Roazen

Book Overview

A major figure among pre-World War I psychoanalysts, Victor Tausk was perhaps Sigmund Freud's most brilliant pupil "the most prominently out-standing" in the opinion of Lou Andreas-Salome. Tausk craved recognition for the originality of his work, and a fierce rivalry developed between pupil and mentor. Tausk, who felt a deep and neurotic dependence on Freud, was totally consumed in the struggle. Freud's final rejection of his follower, and the particularly unfortunate manner in which it was carried out, was followed by Tausk's bizarre suicide and by an official silence that has all but obliterated his name from the annals of psychoanalysis.

Arthur Koestler called Brother Animal "A very important and original contribution to the history of the psychoanalytic movement and beyond that to the history of ideas," and Maxwell Geismar said it was "the best treatment of Freud and that remarkable group of his original disciples that 1 have read. It reads as if Mr. Roazen was right there at the time, inside the inner circle."

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1138519839
• ISBN13: 9781138519831
• Release Date: December 2020
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 280 Pages

Customer Reviews

Brother Animal, by Paul Roazen

Great reading for those interested in Freud and the crucible of psychoanalysis in Vienna in the early 1900's. Also a great case history of madness and brilliance, in the case of Tausk which can be recognised in people today.The enigma of Freud whose brilliance is undisputed but who so dominated the group and was so idealised is captured in a comment of Paul Federn's wife, who is quoted as having told her children: first there is god, then there is Freud, then there is your father.