Sites of the Unconscious – Hypnosis and the Emergence of the Psychoanalytic Setting - Hardcover

Mayer, Andreas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022605795X ISBN 13: 9780226057958

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2013

Synopsis

In the late nineteenth century, scientists, psychiatrists, and medical practitioners began employing a new experimental technique for the study of neuroses: hypnotism. Though their efforts to transform hypnosis into a laboratory science failed, soon thereafter Sigmund Freud took up the heritage of hypnotism when establishing psychoanalysis. In Sites of the Unconscious, Andreas Mayer examines the relationship between hypnosis and psychoanalysis, showing how the theories and experimental techniques of hypnosis paved the way for the familiar psychoanalytic setting established by Freud. Mayer analyzes Jean-Martin Charcot's research program in Paris and the so-called Nancy school led by Hippolyte Bernheim, stressing their divergent views on the relation between clinical practice and knowledge and their different ways of deploying hypnosis. Mayer then reconstructs the reception of French hypnotism in German-speaking countries, arguing that Freud's abandonment of hypnosis and subsequent development of the psychoanalytic setting was less a flash of singular genius than a fitting response to the issues raised by the French controversies. In addition, Mayer addresses the distinctive features of Freud's psychoanalytic setting, revealing how Freud's couch emerged out of the clinical laboratories and private consulting rooms of the practitioners of hypnosis.

About this title

Review:

"Can there be a truly innovative and surprising retelling of the origins of psychoanalysis? Andreas Mayer's book demonstrates that possibility emphatically by reexamining the detailed set of practices associated with hypnotism that emerged first in France, to be transferred by Freud and others to German-speaking lands. These practices, Mayer demonstrates, are linked closely in Paris, Nancy, Vienna, and Zurich to the particular novel local sites and spaces--the newly configured clinics, laboratories, public demonstrations, and experimental programs--of the different schools that developed hypnotism and psychotherapy and contested very vigorously with one another for epistemic authority and influence. Perhaps for the first time, Freud's work emerges as fundamentally novel but also completely embedded in the fine-grain development of these practices and debates. Mayer's methodical and original research and argument leads to a fascinating reimagining of, through rigorous demonstration based on supreme command of historical evidence, the mythical origins of psychoanalysis."
--John Forrester, University of Cambridge

"There are few people with such deep knowledge of the early career of Sigmund Freud as Andreas Mayer, and probably no Freud scholar with his grasp of the history of science and medicine in late-nineteenth-century France, Austria, and Germany. Here Mayer couples great erudition with methodological innovations drawn from recent science studies to skillfully reexamine the key sites and experimental cultures of hysteria, hypnosis, and early psychoanalysis. "Sites of the Unconscious" is a tour de force that marks an important advance in our understanding of the origins of psychoanalysis."
--Robert M. Brain, University of British Columbia

"Ingeniously researched and insightfully argued, "Sites of the Unconscious" will revolutionize our understanding of histories and cultures of the mind in fields as diverse as anthropology, science studies, and psychiatry."
--Emily Martin, New York University

"Using ethnographic and historical work on scientific laboratories, this superb study takes the reader through the emergence of hypnosis in the late nineteenth century, tracing the prehistory and the history of what was to become psychoanalysis. In a highly informed and fascinating manner, Mayer recounts the controversies that swirled around the practitioners of hypnosis and carefully considers the material conditions of clinics, laboratories, museums, and consulting rooms to show how hypnosis was central to the notion of the unconscious mind and how this notion was propagated in different clinical settings. Neither hagiographic nor discrediting, Mayer shows how the nineteenth century's new scientific psychology, grounded in hypnosis, needs to be seen in its specific social setting. Among many other contributions, this work gives the most convincing explanation of why Freud abandoned hypnosis as a practice. It also persuasively shows how Freud's consulting room, with its quiet environment of dim light and the famous couch, was in deliberate and direct opposition to the noise, bright lights, and public aspect of the clinical laboratories of hypnosis. A contribution of the first importance to the history of psychoanalysis, this book also makes for great reading."
--Francoise Meltzer, University of Chicago"

Rich in material, the book is a very fluent, informative, and enjoyable read and is recommended to any historian of psychoanalysis and psychiatry.--Martin Wieser, University of Vienna, Austria "Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences "

Can there be a truly innovative and surprising retelling of the origins of psychoanalysis? Andreas Mayer s book demonstrates that possibility emphatically by reexamining the detailed set of practices associated with hypnotism that emerged first in France, to be transferred by Freud and others to German-speaking lands. These practices, Mayer demonstrates, are linked closely in Paris, Nancy, Vienna, and Zurich to the particular novel local sites and spaces the newly configured clinics, laboratories, public demonstrations, and experimental programs of the different schools that developed hypnotism and psychotherapy and contested very vigorously with one another for epistemic authority and influence. Perhaps for the first time, Freud s work emerges as fundamentally novel but also completely embedded in the fine-grain development of these practices and debates. Mayer s methodical and original research and argument leads to a fascinating reimagining of, through rigorous demonstration based on supreme command of historical evidence, the mythical origins of psychoanalysis.
--John Forrester, University of Cambridge"

There are few people with such deep knowledge of the early career of Sigmund Freud as Andreas Mayer, and probably no Freud scholar with his grasp of the history of science and medicine in late-nineteenth-century France, Austria, and Germany. Here Mayer couples great erudition with methodological innovations drawn from recent science studies to skillfully reexamine the key sites and experimental cultures of hysteria, hypnosis, and early psychoanalysis. "Sites of the Unconscious" is a tour de force that marks an important advance in our understanding of the origins of psychoanalysis.
--Robert M. Brain, University of British Columbia"

Ingeniously researched and insightfully argued, "Sites of the Unconscious" will revolutionize our understanding of histories and cultures of the mind in fields as diverse as anthropology, science studies, and psychiatry.
--Emily Martin, New York University"

"A marvelous book for those who wish to read about the history of hypnosis and psychoanalysis. Although most psychoanalytic institutes have copious information available about Freud s cocaine use and the origins of hypnosis, it is rare to find the rich detail that Mayer provides."--Albert Mason "The Psychoanalytic Quarterly ""

"While the subject matter is mostly familiar, Andreas Mayer introduces a striking originality in terms of assumptions, conclusions, and, especially, methodology. Rather than situating hypnotism as a crude precursor to be superseded by psychoanalysis (as did Freud and most subsequent historians), "Sites of the Unconscious" argues for the centrality of hypnotism to the emergence in the late nineteenth century of various practices of investigating the mind. . . . "Sites of the Unconscious" makes a significant contribution by presenting an original, meticulously researched, and densely reasoned narrative. More broadly, it offers an alternative interpretation of scientific change."--Toby Gelfand, University of Ottawa "Bulletin of the History of Medicine "

About the Author:

Andreas Mayer is a research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. He is coauthor of Dreaming By the Book. Christopher Barber's recent translations include Freud Verbatim and The Secession Talks.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 022605795X
• ISBN 13: 9780226057958
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272