Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst Paperback - 2003

Media reviews

More praise for Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
and Final Analysis

“For all the light Masson sheds once again on the Freudians, this is most of all a fascinating and highly unusual kind of autobiography–a truthful account of the subject’s own professional training–a side of life we hardly ever hear about.”
–KATE MILLETT

“Even if only a fraction of psychoanalysts and analysands have suffered experience quite so gross as that revealed by Jeffrey Masson, his candid and fascinating account of his unique trajectory through the world of psychoanalysis should cause widespread soul-searching on the real value of years spent on or behind the couch.”
–DOUG ELLSBERG

“A powerful volume which–along with his other books–must be read by all mental-health professionals because of Masson’s passionate insistence that we confront the social realities, the value systems, and the arbitrary abuse of power in actual life.”
–DR. MARGARET BRENMAN GIBSOM
Clinical professor of psychology
at Harvard Medical School


“Dr. Masson, once the wunderkind of psychoanalysis, tells the inside story of that most pretentious of cults from the unique perspective of one who spent five years on his back on the couch-altar. Final Analysis delivers a lethal injection of skepticism not only to the moribund body of Freudian folklore, but generically to the booming business of mind therapy.”
–JOHN FRIEDBERG, M.D.
Author of Shock Treatment Is Not
Good for the Brain

“A terrific story, full of passion, insight, wit, and revelation.”
–The New York Times Book Review



“A POWERFUL WORK, especially important for its warning about the power that psychoanalysts can wield over patients.”
–Los Angeles Times

“As provocative as might be expected from so controversial a figure, [this] is a fascinating and very readable book.”
–The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“A lively, juicy account . . . A fascinating insider’s view.”
–Kirkus Reviews