Afreud Of Psychoanalysis

Freud's legacy was irretrievably damaged by attacks from feminists and revisionists, and little of his views are put into practice today -- indeed, biochemists (motivated, no doubt by the milk of human kindness and not the balance sheets of pharmaceutical companies) are our new therapists. However, his concepts -- id, ego, superego, libido -- persist in popular memory, and, as Harold Bloom tells us, "Freud matters because he shares in the qualities of Proust and Joyce: cognitive insight, stylistic splendor, wisdom. That remains all on earth we can hope to study and to know."

Update: And, on the 15oth birth anniversary of the man, here's another appreciation that stresses his literary qualities: "Even if you have a nearly complete disbelief in Freud, it's possible to see the literary artist in him as 'superior to his own nature'. Because of him we have a wilderness of insights into the relationship between what stirs inside a child and what disturbs an adult."