Born in 1913, the author has known Jung, Winnicott, Anna Freud, Bion and other major figures of psychoanalysis. During a long and eventful life, Fred Plaut lived, studied and practiced as a psychoanalyst in London (40 years) and Berlin (14 years). In this entertaining and illuminating autobiography, he has interwoven historical events with personal observations and experiences to provide a fascinating record of his life. “When writing the story of my long life I discovered that it had been steered by a childhood theme, the anxiety and sadness of losing and the joy of retrieving, if not all that had been lost, then some of it.” “Loyalty was something Jung officially abhorred. His: "I'm the only Jungian" is frequently quoted. Everyone should become his-or her-self. Yet he was just as susceptible as the next person to admiration, especially from influential or attractive people. Tolerance of criticism was neither his nor Freud’s strong suit”. “Balint …..stockily built and extremely short sighted, he could be very kind as well as satirical. I remember a saying which he translated from the Hungarian. "If you have a friend, you never need to worry about having an enemy." Much of his resigned attitude to the ambivalences of life being what it was, was expressed in that single sentence”. “Self recognition led to my first divorce and three marriages followed. The last one was the reason for my return to Germany, where I practiced the last seventeen years until I retired at 90, to devote myself to writing and painting, and wondering what it had all been about”. Foreword by Andrew Samuels --- from the publisher |