ABSTRACT
A review essay of a book by Joel Whitebook: Freud: An Intellectual Biography. This chapter focuses on the persistent problem of idealisation in the psychoanalytic world, in relation in particular to the “legend” of Freud's life, deriving partly from Freud himself and partly from disciples such as Ernest Jones. This tendency to idealisation has often made it difficult to think clearly about psychoanalytic ideas and has inhibited the freedom of psychoanalytic thinkers to move into new territory. Whitebook's biography shows very clearly the roots of this idealisation in Freud's personal history.
