Sigmund Freud: Giants of Science #3

Sigmund Freud (or "my golden Siggy" as Mama Freud called him) wanted to be "great," "famous"—someone whose statue would stand prominently in parks. And famous he certainly became. But does he qualify as a "Giant of Science"? Kathleen Krull proves Freud deserves a place in her much-lauded series, for essentially creating a brand-new branch of medicine— psychoanalysis—and a whole new vocabulary to go with it. Before Freud, nobody discussed "unconscious" motives, Oedipal complexes, the id and the ego, or Freudian slips. Krull explains Freud and his still-controversial ideas within the context of his time, presenting a fascinating picture of a complicated, often irascible man, as well as the world of 19th-century Vienna where psychoanalysis or "talk therapy" first took root.