Every human who has lived since evolution bestowed self-awareness upon his species has, from time-to-time, considered the many whys of his existence. Why am I alive? Why am I me? Why do I do what I do? Though answers to these questions have proven to be too individualized to be generally applied to the human race, this has not dissuaded countless generations from building narratives, stories, even mythologies, in an attempt to bring clarity to life's most eternal quandaries. For if we cannot understand our motivations or our aims, then how can we possibly live a coherent, healthy life?
While many of us have considered these questions, only a relative few have devoted their lives to solving them. Their explanations may be confusing, their methods may be scattered, and their motivations may be grandiose, but there can be no doubt that, in attempting to grapple with the foundations of what it means to be alive, they have advanced our knowledge and brought us closer to understanding ourselves. A Most Dangerous Method is a biography of three such figures. Neither their names, nor their contributions, will soon be forgotten.
Mr. Kerr, a clinical psychologist and historian, here, reconstructs the lives and the theories that elevated Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung from clinical obscurity into the pantheon of cultural immortality. Examiners of the human mind, this famous pair, Austrian and Swiss, Jewish and Christian, came together in the early years of the 20th century to create and codify Psychoanalysis, a semi-systematic attempt to treat mental illness by sifting through the human subconscious for clues to the inner conflicts plaguing the afflicted. A patient being subjected to Psychoanalysis would be told to confess their dreams, fears and fantasies which would be used to build a profile of the person's mental state. Unresolved issues could then be teased out by the clinician, allowing the patient to resolve his issues by confronting the underlying cause of his condition.
Though their insights undoubtedly lead to a better understanding of the human mind, and though their efforts unquestionably helped the many suffering souls they treated, their science was, argues Mr. Kerr, shaky at best. When not enveloped by their own psycho-dramas, Freud and Jung acted more like prophets of a sacred faith than spearheads of a new, scientific endeavor. The tactics they deployed against those who disagreed with them were machiavellian and vengeful, revealing a predisposition for self-importance that no amount of dream journals could cure. More over, though they were successful in helping their patients come to grips with a wide range of abuse and neglect, their efforts to rationalize and explicate the traps of the human subconscious fell back on mythology more than method, making their conclusions vulnerable to errors of logic and supposition.
Into this revolution steps the third and here-to-for unremarkable figure of Sabina Spielrein. Youthful and intelligent, the Russian immigrant to western Europe and western thought first surfaces when she is treated by Carl Jung for histrionics. As a byproduct of her treatment, a profound, and sometimes sexual, attachment is formed between doctor and patient that would, in some form or another, last for the remainder of their lives. Jung not only attracted Spielrein's love, he seems to have encouraged her study of psychology. Though Spielrein would go on to earn a doctorate, becoming an eager pupil of masters Freud and Jung, and though she had insights that might have received noteworthy praise at any other time, Spielrein, like other adherents of the faith of Psychoanalysis, was caught up in the intellectual feud between Freud and Jung that, having once erupted, never healed. For as much as they could claim to reveal the infirmities of others, they could not detect or treat their own.
Though Mr. Kerr's biography of the triad who gave birth to Psychoanalysis succeeds in shining worthwhile light on the complex personalities of Freud and Jung, and though it does posthumous justice to the wronged Sabina Spielrein, a woman history unfairly forgot, A Most Dangerous Method is, otherwise, an overly meticulous reconstruction of the early history of Psychoanalysis. Perhaps for those already learned in the concepts championed by Freud and Jung, Mr. Kerr's deconstructions of the interplay between our three protagonists, along with his analysis of their insights, reads as an intelligent and incisive critique. Not so for this layman who found himself repeatedly plunged into the deep end of Psychoanalysis and its many preconceptions. Rather than educate the reader on the nature of these ideas, Mr. Kerr presumes a level of proficiency that most of his audience lacks, leading to an unnecessarily opaque and technical 600-page adventure through what is clearly an important topic.
For all this, Mr. Kerr is a talented biographer. Wherever he might have erred in the theories of the piece, he steps right when portraying the three flawed geniuses who occupy the heart of this story. Spielrein's preoccupation with an inner demon tormenting her life, Jung's obsession with mythology and Freud's insistence on being the high priest of his own science are vividly explained and backed up by correspondence exchanged between all three principals. Their triumphs and their failures are understood through the lens of their own biases which they, in spite of being armed with keen minds and cutting-edge theories, could never outrun.
As a biography, wonderful and gripping work. As an explicator of Psychoanalysis and its place in modern psychology, it leaves much to be desired. All in all, a powerful if flawed read. (3/5 Stars)
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