Today, nearly sixty years after his death, the field of psychoanalysis still swarms with controversy about Sigmund Freud's career. His work has been picked apart by fellow theorists, who seek either to canonize his intellectual prowess or to vilify both the man and his work.

Paul Ferris's new biography avoids this fashionable polemic, attending to the details of Freud's personal existence. A balanced, fair-minded work, free from the technicalities of psychoanalytic jargon, Dr. Freud is a robust and sympathetic portrait-a stunning look at a complex soul.