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Introducing Freud by Richard Appignanesi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s difficult to figure out what this book is trying to achieve and what audience it’s trying to pitch to but it’s a good springboard to jump from.

Pros
– Easily the best part of this book is the artwork, it keeps the text engaging and adds a nice touch of humour to the whole thing (plus the many subtle penises hidden everywhere kept it interesting!)
– It can be read in under two hours making this a bite-size way to get a little more familiar with the topic
– The ‘Little Dictionary’ at the back was brilliantly helpful but it should’ve been at the beginning!

Cons
– This is an overview rather than an introduction, I found it quite hard to access and needed a bit of help from dear old Google
– The explanations could have done with more/better examples, I found them confusing rather than helpful
– I get a strong impression that this book is aimed at a psychology/sociology student audience rather than a layman or someone with a casual interest in psychology, despite its title

I found the title of this book misleading – it wasn’t so much an introduction to Freud but a brief summary of his ideas accompanied by very brief examples of them in action and the tiniest mentions of his personal life. Unless you already know what’s going on, it just doesn’t make all that much sense as the explanations and technical terms come at you hard and fast. At the very end of the book, I found the ‘Little Dictionary’ of terms. This added much greater understanding to the book, I only wish the dictionary was at the beginning (or that it was mentioned at the beginning) so I could’ve used it alongside the reading. I do think this would be far more useful as a revision tool rather than an introductory text, there have got to be simpler ways to introduce Freud than this book.
Though the book is short, be prepared to spend some time online digging around for simpler explanations or further examples to the theories that are mentioned.

I’ve now read a handful of books from this series and the comic-book style never fails to disappoint. As I’ve come to expect, the illustrations manage to be funny, entertaining and are a brilliant addition to the text. They really stood out here as the memorable drawings creatively flow with the text to make the whole book more engaging and the complemented the ideas, particularly the more sensitive areas regarding the discussions on incest and the sexuality of prepubescent children as it gave such taboo issues a different degree of approachability. Some of the illustrations were a bit distasteful but if you’re reading anything to do with Freud and you’re not at some point squirming in your chair, you’re probably doing it wrong (or at least, too often!).

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