The distinguished American bibliophilic website, Shepherd.com, has kindly chosen Professor Brett Kahr’s book on sexual fantasies, Who’s Been Sleeping in Your Head?: The Secret World of Sexual Fantasies (New York: Basic Books) – published in the United Kingdom as Sex and the Psyche (London: Allen Lane / Penguin Books) – as one of its core titles.
In response, Professor Kahr has supplied brief reviews of his five favourite books on the “secret underbelly of sexual psychology”.
The best books on the secret underbelly of sexual psychology
By Brett Kahr
Why am I passionate about this?
I have worked in the mental health profession for over forty years. Currently, I serve as Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London, and as Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health at Regent’s University London, as well as Honorary Director of Research at the Freud Museum London. I also hold posts as Chair of the Scholars Committee of the British Psychoanalytic Council and as Honorary Fellow of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, and I have authored eighteen books and have served as series editor for some eighty-five further titles. Read more…
The Balint Consultancy is delighted to announce that Professor Brett Kahr has just published his eighteenth book, entitled Hidden Histories of British Psychoanalysis: From Freud’s Death Bed to Laing’s Missing Tooth, which appears as one of the inaugural titles in the “Freud Museum London Series”, published by Karnac Books.
On Friday, 17th November, 2023, at 4.00 p.m., Professor Kahr will have the opportunity to discuss this book “in conversation” with Susanna Abse, the former Chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council and a current Trustee of Freud Museum London, at Sigmund Freud’s old home at 20, Maresfield Gardens, London NW3 5SX.
And here are the endorsements for the book, written by several esteemed members of the psychoanalytical community:
BOOK ENDORSEMENTS FOR PROFESSOR KAHR’S NEW TITLE.
“Based upon painstaking archival research and personal interviews with the London glitterati of psychoanalysis (e.g., John Bowlby, Enid Balint, Pearl King, R.D. Laing), Brett Kahr, the most eloquent, enlightened, and entertaining historian of psychoanalysis, offers us yet another masterpiece. Replete with luminous and dark glimpses into the development of psychoanalysis in the United Kingdom and into the virtuosity and whims, even madnesses, of his dramatis personae, Kahr’s book is as informative as it is a pleasure to read!”
Professor Salman Akhtar, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College, and Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, whose many books include Tales of Transformation: A Life in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and, more recently, the multi-volume Selected Papers of Salman Akhtar.
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“This is a very sneaky book. Ostensibly it is a series of tales from the history of Anglophone psychoanalysis in the twentieth century. But, in reality, it is a readable, often funny, account by the best historian of psychoanalysis of his generation, Brett Kahr. As much autobiography as historical account, it shows what happens when a brilliant mind meets an intractable object. The essay on the young student Brett Kahr and R. D. Laing’s missing tooth is itself worth the price of the volume, and has the possibility of becoming the classic essay on the pitfalls of celebrity.”
Professor Sander L. Gilman, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at Emory University, and author of numerous books, including Seeing the Insane: A Cultural History of Madness and Art in the Western World and The Case of Sigmund Freud: Medicine and Identity at the Fin de Siècle.
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“Using storytelling, clinical and research tools, Brett Kahr’s sorcery brings to life several well-known personalities in the British psychoanalytic panoply – its “superstars” as well as its “bad boys”. While profoundly respectful, Kahr’s thoughtful critique of rigorously sourced archival papers, oral history research, and personal interviews rewards the readers with much wisdom and inspiration from foundational figures of psychoanalysis.”
Professor Joan Raphael-Leff, Ph.D., Retired Professor of Psychoanalysis at University College London and at the University of Essex, and Leader of the Academic Faculty of Psychoanalytic Research at the Anna Freud Centre, whose many books include Between Sessions and Beyond the Couch, and, more recently, The Marion Milner Tradition: Lines of Development: The Evolution of Theory and Practice Over the Decades.
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“Brett Kahr has earned a reputation as the eminent narrator and in-depth analyst of the vagaries and the most protracted motifs that animate the legacy of psychoanalysis. In an engaging and well-documented fashion, Kahr takes us back to the contingent elements that, together, gave psychoanalysis in the United Kingdom its inescapable force and necessary radiance. Kahr’s Hidden Histories is a labour of love that in its caring attentiveness humanises the great figures on whose shoulders it stands. Highly readable and greatly enticing, this latest addition to the Freud Museum’s and Karnac’s new promising series, will speak to professionals, historians, and the wider public alike.”
Professor Orna Ophir, Ph.D., Associate Director of The DeWitt Wallace Institute for Psychiatry, Weill-Cornell Medical College, New York, and a Member of the History of Psychoanalysis Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and author of Schizophrenia: An Unfinished History.
The likes of Andrew Tate want to return to an imagined idyll in gender relations. It would be a disaster for everyone.
Can we think a bit more deeply about masculinity? Toxic masculinity has a certain usefulness and punch as a phrase. It expresses what some men put out into the world but it doesn’t address the whys deeply enough.
To mark the publication of Professor Brett Kahr’s newest book, Freud’s Pandemics: Surviving Global War, Spanish Flu, and the Nazis, the Swiss psychiatrist Dr. med. Sebastian Thrul has conducted a full interview with Kahr, which offers insights into how Sigmund Freud handled the multiple pandemics of his own lifetime and how he would have advised our governments and our health care specialists had he been alive today during the twenty-first century.
This podcast is Kahr’s third appearance on “New Books in Psychoanalysis”. The New Books Network had previously interviewed him about two of his other publications, namely, How to Flourish as a Psychotherapist and, also, Bombs in the Consulting Room: Surviving Psychological Shrapnel.
The New Books Network has recognised that Kahr’s latest title will be of interest not only to members of the psychoanalysis community but, also, to those from other disciplines; consequently, the podcast has been posted not only on “New Books in Psychoanalysis” but, also, on “New Books in Biography”, “New Books in German Studies”, “New Books in History”, “New Books in Intellectual History”, and “New Books in Jewish Studies”.
Kahr’s book is the inaugural title in the new “Freud Museum London Series”, published by Karnac Books of London (an imprint of Confer Limited), in association with Freud Museum London.
To listen to the podcast, please click on either of the following links:
Susie Orbach review of How to Do Things With Emotions: The Morality of Anger and Shame Across Cultures by Owen Flanagan – Don’t shout, let it all out The Observer, 9/1/22
In this compelling book, the first in the new “Freud Museum London Series”, Professor Brett Kahr describes how Sigmund Freud endured innumerable emotional pandemics during his eighty-three years of life, ranging from unsubstantiated accusations by medical colleagues to anti-Semitic abuse, the loss of one daughter to Spanish flu and the arrest of another child by the Gestapo, to his own painful cancer treatments and his final flight from Adolf Hitler’s Austria. Freud navigated these personal and political tragedies while simultaneously creating a method of healing which has helped countless millions deal with unbearable trauma and distress.
Kahr argues that, by having created psychoanalysis, Freud not only saved himself from destruction but also provided the rest of the world with the means to achieve a form of psychological vaccination against emotional and mental distress.
The Freud Museum London and Karnac Books have joined forces to publish a new book series devoted to an examination of the life and work of Sigmund Freud alongside other significant figures in the history of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and depth psychology more broadly. The series will feature works of outstanding scholarship and readability, including biographical studies, institutional histories, and archival investigations. New editions of historical classics as well as translations of little-known works from the early history of psychoanalysis will also be considered for inclusion.
REVIEWS AND ENDORSEMENTS.
“A vivid account of how Sigmund Freud coped with the great ‘pandemics’ of his time, from the Great War and Spanish Flu to cancer and the Nazis. By assessing how my great-grandfather might have addressed COVID-19 – the pandemic of our own times – Professor Kahr opens up a series of insights into the life of the man who championed the radical innovation of actually listening to people suffering from mental affliction. Meticulously researched, and written with real pace, this book is a timely reminder of the psychological roots of our response to national trauma.” – Lord Freud, great-grandson of Sigmund Freud and President of the Freud Museum London
“Never has there been a time when Freud was needed so badly. Post-pandemic blues would not have been new to Freud as Brett Kahr describes in his phenomenal book, which I feel was sent to save us from confusion and turmoil. A must read!” – Jane McAdam Freud, artist, and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.
“Brett Kahr’s immersion in Freud – the gift that keeps on giving – will help us survive the trauma of pandemics in our own lives. Kahr draws insightful parallels from Freud’s own struggles and serves as a timely and fascinating reminder of the ubiquitous nature of pandemics and why suicide isn’t the answer.” – Professor the Baroness Hollins, Past President of the British Medical Association, Past President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Professor Emerita at St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London.
CONTENTS OF THE BOOK.
Prologue: Fundraising for Freud
Introduction: “Wouldn’t it be better if we all killed ourselves?”
Chapter 1: The Fraudulent Jewish Pervert: Navigating Decades of Collegial Hatred
Chapter 2: The Great War and the Spanish Flu: An Imprisoned Son and a Dying Daughter
Chapter 3: From Compulsive Cigar-Smoking to Deadly Carcinoma: Freud’s Battle with Physical Pain
Chapter 4: Death Wishes and the Nazis: How Freud Escaped from Austria
Chapter 5: Freud’s Recipe for Creativity and Survival: The Writing Cure and the Role of Penetrativity
Conclusion: If Sigmund Freud Could Have Supervised Anthony Fauci
