Originally published: New York : Norton, 1988. With a new foreword.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 741-779) and index.

Foundations : 1856-1905 -- 1. A greed for knowledge -- Food for memories -- The lure of research -- Freud in love -- 2. The theory in the making -- A necessary friend, and enemy -- Hysterics, projects, and embarrassments -- Self-analysis -- 3. Psychoanalysis -- The secret of dreams -- A psychology for psychologists -- From Rome to Vienna : a progress -- A map for sexuality. Elaborations : 1902-1915 -- 4. Sketch of an embattled founder -- At fifty -- Pleasures of the senses -- The Wednesday psychological society -- The foreigners -- 5. Psychoanalytic politics -- Jung : the crown prince -- American interlude -- Vienna versus Zurich -- Jung : the enemy -- 6. Therapy and technique -- A problematic debut -- Two classic lessons -- In his own cause : Leonardo, Schreber, Fliess -- In his own cause : the politics of the wolf man -- A handbook for technicians -- 7. Applications and implications -- Matters of taste -- Foundations of society -- Mapping the mind -- The end of Europe. Revisions : 1915-1939 -- 8. Aggressions -- Comprehensive and momentous things -- Uneasy peace -- Death : experience and theory -- Eros, ego, and their enemies -- 9. Death against life -- Intimations of mortality -- Anna -- The price of popularity -- Vitality : the Berlin spirit -- 10. Flickering lights on dark continents -- Rank and the consequences -- Doctors' dilemmas -- Woman, the dark continent -- 11. Human nature at work -- Against illusions -- Civilization : the human predicament -- The ugly Americans -- Trophies and obituaries -- 12. To die in freedom -- The politics of disaster -- Defiance as identity -- Finis Austriae -- Death of a stoic.

Presents a biography of nineteenth-century Austrian physician Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, discussing his personal life and family, education, career, and professional struggles.