The Letter, Issue 48, Autumn 2011, Pages 63 - 64
BOOK REVIEW
By
Lionel Bailly
FREUD’S SCHREBER BETWEEN PSYCHIATRY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS
On Subjective Disposition to Psychosis
Thomas G. Dalzell
Karnac Books, London, 2011.
This book of Thomas Dalzell’s is a tour de force. Despite stating that his text is not intended as ‘another general exploration of Sigmund Freud’s 1911 Schreber text’, he does in the end provide us with a subtle exploration of the case from which the most experienced analysts could learn a lot. Beyond this, he uses Schreber’s case like a chemical reagent, which reveals, as in the development of a photographic print, hidden aspects of Freud’s thinking, and also the state of thinking of the Viennese psychoanalysts, of Emile Kraepelin, Eugen Bleuler etc.