In the late nineteenth century, Sigmund Freud’s colleague Wilhelm Fleiss successfully diagnosed an illness in one of Freud’s relatives, without even having met them. Freud was so impressed by Fleiss’s “diagnostic acumen” that he went on to advocate the method in certain circumstances. Freud would write that diagnosing someone without personally examining them was acceptable […]

Freud, Fliess and the clinical consultation At the turn of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud and his otolaryngologist friend Wilhelm Fleiss parted ways in bitter disagreement. The men’s vexation arose before a lethiferous background of cocaine use and abuse, and was ultimately ended by that same route, with the pair discovering they had developed a difference […]

Academic blogging and the value of work Busywork, or work that keeps one busy but serves no value in and of itself, is variously familiar to us all. But busywork seems just as likely to affect the lives of researchers, of “knowledge workers,” as it is to bear upon those of other professionals—if not more likely. Indeed, […]