I am definitely not a professional in this field, and I highly suspect that most people who engage in a professional practice of some kind have some secrets. For lawyers, certain privileges prevent the disclosure of confidential information, and certain corporations are run by executives who feel that any information pertaining to their business deserves the same hidden status.
This book, mainly about a field in which what is secret is mostly what everybody knows, is a very knowledgeable attempt to show how the use of the idea, "Know yourself" by experts in pursuit of some cure for the problems which individuals encounter in life may wreak havoc when combined with the ambitions of those who seek professional advancement. Exposing Freud's secrets is a theme that is so close to the practice of psychoanalysis itself that the approach taken by this book should be obvious to anyone who has taken time to reflect, which his opponents have definitely done here, and have had plenty of time to sharpen their arguments against Freud's theories, in fuller appreciation of the mental catastrophies which have been produced by Freud's own applications of his principles. The examples which strike me most sharply involve a divorce advised by Freud for Horace Frink, the brightest star in the New York Psychoanalytic Association, to allow him to marry heiress Angelika Bijur. According to page 270 of this book, Freud wrote to Frink in November 1921 that "Your complaint that you cannot grasp your homosexuality implies that you are not yet aware of your phantasy of making me a rich man. If matters turn out all right let us change this imaginary gift into a real contribution to the Psychoanalytic Funds."
The Emma Eckstein case, which involved the removal of the middle left concha in her nose by Wilhelm Fliess, who had a theory about a "nasal reflex neurosis," (p. 55) has been explained more fully elsewhere by Max Schur and Robert Wilcocks, duly mentioned by Crews. This might relate more to the generally clueless nature of medical experiments than to Freud's practice if Freud hadn't try to absolve Fliess for a botched, superfluous operation. I would just like to add that if anyone wants to be friends, or maybe just colleagues, with people like this, get used to this kind of thing.
