Sigmund Freud

Howard Markel's "An Anatomy of Addiction" starts, like a shot, on May 5,1884. A Bellevue Hospital orderly summons Dr. William Stewart Halsted to save the leg of a laborer who has fallen from a scaffolding. Famous for the speed and virtuosity of his surgery, Halsted notes the shattered shinbone piercing through the skin — and abruptly retreats from the examination table, because he's not fit to operate. He takes a cab home and sinks "into a cocaine oblivion that lasted more than seven months.

Howard Markel's "An Anatomy of Addiction" starts, like a shot, on May 5,1884. A Bellevue Hospital orderly summons Dr. William Stewart Halsted to save the leg of a laborer who has fallen from a scaffolding. Famous for the speed and virtuosity of his surgery, Halsted notes the shattered shinbone piercing through the skin — and abruptly retreats from the examination table, because he's not fit to operate. He takes a cab home and sinks "into a cocaine oblivion that lasted more than seven months.

WASHINGTON -- In the dark hall at the Library of Congress, the curator's staff members gingerly take hold of the death mask of "Wolf Man," a plaster casting of one of Sigmund Freud's most famous patients.Studying how a small spotlight hits the narrow eyes and stubby mustache of the deranged man's final pose, the assistants position it forward and back, struggling to keep the mask from getting lost in the darkness of the case.But as the largest-ever exhibit on Freud's life's work is unveiled today at the library's Great Hall, it is really his ideas, not his artifacts, that are doing battle with the shadows.

"This is a complete farce," says a character in Terry Johnson's "Hysteria." "If I saw it in the theater, I wouldn't believe it." You might feel the same if you catch the stylish Rep Stage production of this 1993 play at Howard Community College, but you're likely to find yourself absorbed, amused, even a little astonished, as well. "Hysteria" has a historical starting point, the 1938 meeting in London between the fatally ill Sigmund Freud and the fanatically self-absorbed Salvador Dali.

It's over, nobody wins" is a verse from a Sinatra ballad about a love affair gone sour that one could apply to America's intellectual love affair with Freudian doctrine. What W.H. Auden once described as a "whole climate of opinion" proved, with experience, to be an ideological blunder typical of this century, producing more victims than victories.Oxford's Isaiah Berlin, in a powerful essay on political ideas of the 20th century, saw it all coming in 1949 when he identified a crucial shift from 19th century views about human nature.

CLEMENT FREUD, 84 Writer, politician, grandson of Sigmund Freud Clement Freud, a grandson of Sigmund Freud who became a well-known writer, politician and urbane regular on British radio, died Wednesday at his home in London. The cause of death was not announced. He was best known from his three decades appearing on the BBC game show Just a Minute, in which panelists compete to see who can talk the longest without hesitation, deviation or repetition. Mr. Freud's well-stocked vocabulary and his slow, deadpan speech made him a master of the game.

All about oranges, from art to juiceIf you think there's nothing new under the sun to see in the Sunshine State, start planning now: In addition to the grand tradition of theme parks and beaches, Florida will now be offering tourists access to one of its greatest assets -- its citrus groves. Sun Harvest Citrus, which produces Indian River oranges, now offers tours of its packing house in Fort Meyers. In a free 20-minute presentation, visitors get to see the entire cycle in which oranges progress from grower to grocery store.

Who was Sigmund Freud? What was he about? What is the impact of his vision? These are the questions that fill "Eating Pavlova" by D. M. Thomas, who has examined parts of this subject before ("The White Hotel" and "Lying Together"). So what is different about this treatment?Plenty. The earlier work used Freud as a garnish that accented a meal whose main course was another entree. In this novel, Herr Doktor is in the center of the plate. It is 1939 in London, one year before Sigmund Freud and his family were allowed to leave Vienna for England.

"This is a complete farce," says a character in Terry Johnson's "Hysteria." "If I saw it in the theater, I wouldn't believe it." You might feel the same if you catch the stylish Rep Stage production of this 1993 play at Howard Community College, but you're likely to find yourself absorbed, amused, even a little astonished, as well. "Hysteria" has a historical starting point, the 1938 meeting in London between the fatally ill Sigmund Freud and the fanatically self-absorbed Salvador Dali.

I HAVE been taking surveys and making analyses of heroes and heroism since the mid-1980s. And in most surveys, Mom is the No. 1 hero.We use a very simple technique. We ask people to list and rank their top heroes -- male and female -- living or dead. I do not define hero, leaving that up to the respondents.I question such research done by others because often they skew the results by asking respondents to list their most admired public officials.Thus, a false impression has been created that the public largely regards public figures such as former U.S. presidents as heroes.

CLEMENT FREUD, 84 Writer, politician, grandson of Sigmund Freud Clement Freud, a grandson of Sigmund Freud who became a well-known writer, politician and urbane regular on British radio, died Wednesday at his home in London. The cause of death was not announced. He was best known from his three decades appearing on the BBC game show Just a Minute, in which panelists compete to see who can talk the longest without hesitation, deviation or repetition. Mr. Freud's well-stocked vocabulary and his slow, deadpan speech made him a master of the game.

IN AN AGE when "reality TV" features people who swallow worms and an aging businessman whose most famous utterance is, "You're fired," true reality is expressed in a television show unlike any other you will see this season, or any season. The Question of God, airing on Maryland Public Television tonight and Sept. 22, creates a "debate" between Sigmund Freud, the atheist and founder of psychoanalysis, and C. S. Lewis, the eminent author, scholar and Christian apologist. The program is based on a popular course taught by Harvard professor Armand Nicholi.

WASHINGTON -- In the dark hall at the Library of Congress, the curator's staff members gingerly take hold of the death mask of "Wolf Man," a plaster casting of one of Sigmund Freud's most famous patients.Studying how a small spotlight hits the narrow eyes and stubby mustache of the deranged man's final pose, the assistants position it forward and back, struggling to keep the mask from getting lost in the darkness of the case.But as the largest-ever exhibit on Freud's life's work is unveiled today at the library's Great Hall, it is really his ideas, not his artifacts, that are doing battle with the shadows.

Limit time, spending on political campaigns to get best candidatesWhat can we do about the power of money and interest groups in our politics? First, can't we limit what each candidate spends to get into office?Then, perhaps we may get the best person rather than the one who spends the most money. It boggles the mind when I read and hear a politician has to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in some cases millions of dollars, to run for office.Also, allow each person three months to campaign.

It's over, nobody wins" is a verse from a Sinatra ballad about a love affair gone sour that one could apply to America's intellectual love affair with Freudian doctrine. What W.H. Auden once described as a "whole climate of opinion" proved, with experience, to be an ideological blunder typical of this century, producing more victims than victories.Oxford's Isaiah Berlin, in a powerful essay on political ideas of the 20th century, saw it all coming in 1949 when he identified a crucial shift from 19th century views about human nature.

ON THIS DAY in 1910 the city of Spokane and the state of Washington (whose name honors the father of our country) officially recognized fathers for the first time.Thirteen months earlier, a woman named Sonora Louise Smart sat in a Spokane church listening to a sermon on behalf of a national Mother's Day celebration.Ms. Smart's father, a Civil War veteran, was a widower who had raised six children.Why, wondered his daughter, should there not be a similar day for fathers? Her father, William Jackson Smart, had been born in June.

Three times a week, year after year, Emily's nights wer brutalized by stark and vivid terror.The nightmare began simply: "I am sitting on a couch with a girlfriend . . . and she says to follow her. We meet a blond woman held hostage by male captors. I realize we are now hostages."The 33-year-old courtroom stenographer tells of being carried into a room where each of the hostages' throats is cut."I awaken, clutching and protecting my throat, crying out, 'Stop!' My heart is pounding and I am sweating all over.

New Orleans. IN 1981, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson abandoned a tenured career as a Sanskrit scholar in Toronto on becoming a psychoanalyst. He has been attacking psychoanalysis ever since.Tossing his books at the therapeutic hierarchy like hand grenades, Dr. Masson is a writer on a quest. His extensive research into Sigmund Freud's early therapeutic cases -- in which Dr. Masson contends that certain female patients were mistreated when their complaints of advances by older men were dismissed as subconscious lust -- have won praise from many feminists and critics of the psychoanalytic establishment.

I HAVE been taking surveys and making analyses of heroes and heroism since the mid-1980s. And in most surveys, Mom is the No. 1 hero.We use a very simple technique. We ask people to list and rank their top heroes -- male and female -- living or dead. I do not define hero, leaving that up to the respondents.I question such research done by others because often they skew the results by asking respondents to list their most admired public officials.Thus, a false impression has been created that the public largely regards public figures such as former U.S. presidents as heroes.

It all seemed innocent enough. The Library of Congress set out to present an exhibition on Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis and also an early stockholder in Broyhill's sofa division.Freud was, as we all know, a great man.He invented, for example, the Freudian slip. Also, the 50-minute hour and the month-long, gotta-get-out- of-the-city-no- matter-how- desperate-my- patients-might- be vacations. Finally, without Freud, there would be no Woody Allen movies. Think about it.Despite all this, the anti-Freudians have attacked the exhibit, on the basis that, in their view, Freud was a fraud.