Freud’s Paranoid Quest: Psychoanalysis and Modern Suspicion
In Freud’s Paranoid Quest (New York University Press, 1996), John Farrell analyzes the personality and thought of Sigmund Freud in order to give insight into modernity’s paranoid character and into the true nature of Freudian psychoanalysis. John Farrell’s Freud is not the path-breaking psychologist he claimed to be but the fashioner and prisoner of a total system of suspicion. The most gifted of paranoids, Freud deployed this system as a self-heroizing myth and a compelling historical ideology.
“Here the mad hound of Freud criticism, in hot pursuit of analytic prey, has finally bitten its own tail. Where can it go next?” –Sarah Boxer, The New York Times
“Freud’s Paranoid Quest is an exceptionally broad-ranging and well-written book . . . Whether or not one agrees with certain of his arguments and assessments, one must acknowledge the remarkable intelligence that is displayed on nearly every page. –Louis Sass, author of Madness and Modernism
“Freud’s Paranoid Quest is the most trenchant, exhilarating and illuminating book I have encountered in many years. [The book] should be pondered not just by all students of Freud’s thought but by everyone who senses that ‘advanced modernity’ has by now outstayed its welcome.” –Frederick Crews, University of California, Berkeley