Description Where to Buy Related Interview Excerpt Reviews Quotes DESCRIPTION The 1950s saw waves of Freudian disciples set up practices. In The Last Good Freudian, Brenda Webster describes what it was like to grow up in an intellectual and artistic Jewish family at that time. Her father, Wolf Schwabacher, was a prominent entertainment lawyer whose clients included the Marx Brothers, Lillian Hellman, and Erskine Caldwell. Her mother, Ethel Schwabacher, was a protegee of Arshile Gorky, his first biographer, and herself a well-known abstract impressionist painter. In her memoir, Webster evokes the social milieu of her childhood -- her summers at the farm that were shared with free-thinking psychoanalyst Muriel Gardiner; the progressive school on the Upper East Side where students learned biology by watching live animals mate and reproduce; and the attitude of sexual liberation in which her mother presented her with a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover on her thirteenth birthday. Growing up within a society that held Freudian analysis as the new diversion, Webster was given early access to the analyst's couch: The history of mental illness in her mother's family kept her there. As a result, Freudian thought became something that was impossible for Webster to avoid. What unfolds in her narrative is both a personal history of analysis and a critical examination of Freudian practices. Hardcover, 208 pages. ISBN 0841913951 (Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc., April 2000) Back to the index WHERE TO BUY --Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc. Order online or call 1-800-698-7781. --Amazon.com --Barnes and Noble Back to the index RELATED INTERVIEW The Perfect Freudian Child: An Interview with Brenda Webster was originally broadcast on KPFA-FM on April 19 and April 26, 2000 on Jack Foley's Cover to Cover show. --Part I --Part II --Part III --Part IV Back to the index EXCERPT --Courtesy of The Alsop Review Back to the index REVIEWS San Francisco Chronicle, May 7, 2000 The Last Good Freudian offers a powerful critique of orthodox psychoanalysis without engaging in Freud bashing...Paradoxically, Webster remains a good Freudian throughout the memoir, for even though she rejects psychoanalysis as a therapy, she embraces it as an interpretive technique... The Last Good Freudian is a lively and well written book. Publishers Weekly, March 6, 2000 In this forthright memoir, Webster looks back with painful honesty at her priviledged but emotionally troubled Manhattan childhood and her life in analysis. Citing a maternal history of mental illness, she explains, "I was born and brought up to be in psychoanalysis. As a result, much of my adult life was spent on the couch." Capably narrating her voyage of self-discovery, she offers a personal perspective on the uses and misuses of Freudian theory. Surrounded by the children of a tight group of early Freudians at the progressive Dalton School, Webster started seeing a therapist before she was out of high school. It wasn't until midlife that she broke free from her therapists' advice to submit to a higher male authority in her duties as student, wife and mother, and finally found her true voice, which resonates powerfully in this absorbing tale of discovery and pain. Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2000 Soul-bearing memoirs of a woman "born and brought up to be in psychoanalysis," who discovers rather late in life that writing fiction has taught her more about herself than years of psychotherapy. Webster was born in New York in the 1930s into a family of wealthy nonobservant Jews and grew up in a segment of society immersed in the culture of psychiatry. "It became, in effect, our family faith," she writes. Her portrait of her eccentric mother is compelling, as is her description of her own therapy-ridden adolescence. Now, seemingly at peace with herself and bearing no resentment toward the very unmotherly mother whose faith in Freudian psychiatry shaped both their lives, she concludes, "The great thing about being human is that you can recreate yourself, not by analyzing but by active imagining. A difficult family isn't fate." A fresh take on the poor-little-rich-girl theme, whine-free and surprisingly frank. Booklist, April 15, 2000 Webster's memoir affords a fascinating glimpse into the heyday of American psychotherapy. Webster describes her childhood, growing up with a mother, the painter Ethel Schwabacher, who was so obsessed with Freudian psychoanalysis, that she could not make a decision without consulting her therapist. As Webster grew older and unhappier, she submitted to years of fruitless analysis before rejecting Freudian dogma and finding her own path to sanity. Looking back she identifies the problems in her own life that were caused bu her mother's application of Freudian theory to their family, and she discusses her own analysts' inability to help her cope with the death of her father and the disintegration of her first marriage. Her book is a heart-wrenching and ultimately inspiring remembrance of an era in which Freud's theories reigned supreme--one that reveals the darker side of psychoanalysis.--Bonnie Johnston Back to the index QUOTES "Brenda Webster's compelling memoir provides an illuminating insight into the subculture of psychoanalysis that dominated a significant sector of American life. Growing up in a Manhattan family that embraced psychoanalysis as a kind of secular faith, she was guided or misguided by some of the leading figures of the American movement to renounce her own ambitions and submit herself to a higher male authority. The Last Good Freudian is a moving story of self-discovery and at the same time a vivid exposŽ, all the more convincing because it is conveyed as a personal experience, without special pleading or polemic insistence." --Robert Alter author of Pleasure of Reading in an Ideological Age "Brenda Webster has written a riveting account of how she cured herself of a life-long addiction to Freudian analysis, freeing herself from tyrannous mentors. the book is a must for the many persons who have struggled--and often failed--to achieve personal autonomy. Brenda Webster tells us it is never too late to find confidence and freedom." --Carolyn Kizer Pulitzer-Prize winning Poet and author of Yin "A very moving, painfully honest memoir of a poor little rich girl who finally breaks free of her madcap family and overbearing helpers to find her true voice as a woman and a writer when she is well into mid life. A tribute to growth and courage in adulthood. A very absorbing read." --Judith S. Wallerstein Ph.D author of The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts "A wry, gossip-filled memoir about the penetration of psychoanalysis into the everyday life of a wealthy New York family. Even to this confirmed non-believer, Webster's reflections in a Freudian vein are exotic, enjoyable, and revealing." --Alix Kates Shulman author of Good Enough Daughter: A Memoir "Brenda Webster's account of her life spent 'on the couch' is sharp, irreverent, funny, good-natured, and wise. Everything that psychoanalysis so often falls short of being. Not only does she survive the wildly off-the-mark interpretations of her string of famous analysts, but she wittily constructs her own case history, making use of her native gifts: a writer's appreciation for human folly and a compelling way with words. The payoff is that improbable thing-a happy life. Through her own hard-won victory, she demonstrates the truth of Freud's pronouncement that the key to personal fulfillment lies in two things: love and work." --Madelon Sprengnether author of The Spectral Mother: Freud, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis Back to the index