ysilverman's blog

“Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one.”

- Albert Einstein, genius

In the Freud Archives is famous in the journalistic community both for its quality as a piece of careful, investigative reporting and storytelling, but also for the controversy it caused after its publication: the main subject of the piece, Jeffrey Masson, sued the author Janet Malcolm, claiming she made up certain quotes attributed to him in the work. Still, for a reader interested in the life of the mind, Archives is even more powerful as a carefully crafted set of two tales, each one a parable of the other. In the forefront is the story of the meteoric rise and fall of young Freud scholar and analyst Masson at the hands of revered analyst K.R. Eissler. In the background

On occasion, everyone finds that emotions have bested them. The person we have a crush on doesn’t call us back for two days, and suddenly the world feels just a bit less bright. We do poorly on a test, and though we recognize that in the scheme of things it’s not a big deal, we can’t help but imagine that our future has been ruined. And then, another piece of ourselves works to quell the fire: the moment passes, the crush calls (or doesn’t), we watch a TV show or two, we get a good grade on the next test (or we don’t), we call a supportive friend and talk briefly, and life goes on. But for some people,