Dimensions
162 x 242 x 33mm
In recent years there has been a revival of early critiques that psychoanalysis is unscientific and therefore unreliable. But if, as Joseph Schwartz so coherently argues, it is not a science, then what is it? Psychoanalysis can be seen as a systematic attempt to understand the inner workings of the mind, sharing contested boundaries with literature, psychiatry and academic psychology. Cassandra's Daughter draws together the great events of the century and the theoretical shifts and developments of psychoanalysis to describe the attempts of the last 100 years to understand the workings of the subjective mind. This is essentially a humane and non-didactic view of a complex and schism-ridden history that suggests that the similarities between many of the major theorists is perhaps greater than we think. The story of psychoanalysis is not the story of the shunned prophet Cassandra whose power was denied, but is perhaps that of her daughter, a strange newcomer on the world stage. How much we believe her is up to us.