Psychoanalysis eats its own: or, the heretical Saint Roazen

The author attempts a "Roazenesque" interpretation of Paul Roazen's life and work, and situates his career vis-á-vis that of other revisionist critics of Freud. To these ends, the essay charts the highs and lows of Roazen's long career as a biographer-historian of psychoanalysis. His career is divided into four phases, the first of which is arguably the most important. It was also the most controversial, producing classic books on Victor Tausk and on Freud's followers. Roazen's later work fares less well, even undermining his standing among scholars. If there is a commonality to the work of all four phases, it is Roazen's fairly constant recourse to interviews he conducted in the mid-1960s with many people intimate with Freud. On the good side, these interviews provided him unique access to details about Freud's everyday life and practice. Roazen thus became known as the historian of arcane detail. On the bad side, Roazen came to rely too heavily on these interviews and on his own singular role as interviewer. As a result his work became increasingly self-regarding and nostalgic, and thus less original, interesting, or discerning. His legacy is therefore mixed, although secure enough that future scholars will not easily ignore his contribution in a handful of good books.