Freud and the Rat Man

Mahony has three general aims in this book. One, his main purpose, is to show how dynamic, transference, and countertransference issues influence Freud's expressive style and are also revealed in the linguistic and para-linguistic characteristics of patient/therapist verbal interactions. His second aim is to demonstrate the inadequacy of much of Strachey's English translation of Freud's writings. The third, and, in the view of this reader, the most interesting theme of the book focuses on the degree of congruence between Freud's process notes and the published case history of the Rat Man. One finds in this book two contradictory stances--on the one hand, there is Mahony the skeptic uncovering inaccuracies in Freud's published case history and raising some critical issues. On the other hand, a good part of the book reflects some of the difficulties that afflict a good deal of psychoanalytic writing--difficulties that, given Mahony's impressive critical abilities, one would have expected him to avoid.