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Todd Dufresne is Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Lakehead University and is editor of Returns of the French Freud and Freud Under Analysis, and author of Tales From the Freudian Crypt. He is currently working on the origin of the psycho-neuroses and on the sensational 1923 Chicago trial of Leopold and Loeb, at which Freudian ideas first began to influence criminology.
""Dufresne does not attempt a demolition of Freud, though he is equipped to do that. He concentrates his fire on weak points in the enemy's defences: the way Freud systematically distorted his findings in case-histories, and the way psychoanalysis, as a profession, is a fiercely jealous guild. There is a wickedly funny section on the literal-cum-metaphoric ice-skating of Ernest Jones, Freud's English promoter and ""official"" biographer; and, more playful still, a supposedly unpublished memoir by an orthodox practitioner, forced to admit that psychoanalysis is nothing if not ""a bad habit"". Killing Freud requires some knowledge of its subject-matters: Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan, as much as Freud. While it is not a book for the uninitiated, for those minded to follow the Freud Wars, its erudition offers sure-fire caviar. "" - The Independent ' I just spent a couple of enjoyable hours with Todd Dufresne's new book Killing Freud .......I couldn't resist cheering the show he puts on.....Because what Dufresne sets out to do is dance on Freud's grave. ""How did this awful man and his worse ideas ever get themselves taken seriously? What in god's name were people thinking?"" -- these are a couple of the questions Dufresne asks. "" - http://www.2blowhards.com ""Killing Freud begins by reviewing previous studies of the case of Anna O.... Dufresne depicts an unscientific and shamelessly ambitious Freud, eager to found psychoanalysis at anyone's expense.""- Naomi Morgenstern, University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 75 No. 1, Winter 2006 'Its erudition offers sure-fire caviar.' The Independent * Blurb from reviewer * 'A flamboyant and hilarious satire of one of our most revered cultural institutions, Killing Freud combines impeccable and truly original scholarship with great wit. Todd Dufresne, a distinguished Freud scholar, has written a remarkable and delightful book which joyously affirms the death of psychoanalysis without trying to prove 'Why Freud Was Wrong'. People will read this book for the sheer fun of it, but they will also learn a lot about psychoanalysis and its role in twentieth-century culture at large.' MIKKEL BORCH-JACOBSEN, author of The Freudian Subject and Remembering Anna O * Blurb from reviewer * 'Killing Freud is a major attack on both the culture of theory and the culture of therapy, demonstrating that many of the most cherished truths of psychoanalysis are based upon misreadings, misunderstandings and blatant falsifications. Witty, provocative and admirably erudite, this is required reading for anyone with a critical - or in other words sceptical - concern for the history of psychoanalysis and the human sciences.' DAVID MACEY, author of The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory * Blurb from reviewer *
