Soul Magic

It's the beginning of the twentieth century, and members of the Wednesday Circle hurry through Vienna's darkening streets. Dr. Freud does not tolerate lateness, and the men invited to join his new society sense they are on the brink of something momentous. In his study, through a haze of cigar smoke, these early psychoanalysts alight on a profound and shocking idea that will alter modern life: the existence of the psyche. In this entertaining history, psychologist Steve Ayan introduces the twentieth-century visionaries who ignited a revolution of the mind. It is a story of breakthroughs in the treatment of mental illness, but also of dubious dream interpretations, affairs with patients, and feuding factions. At a moment when therapy has become a cultural commonplace, Ayan offers a captivating portrait of the figures behind these pioneering theories, from Melanie Klein to Carl Jung. Blending immersive storytelling with rigorous research, Soul Magic returns us to the origins of psychotherapy and the thinkers who first pulled back the curtain on the mysterious forces at work within us all.

Steve Ayan is a German psychologist, scientific journalist and author. He studied psychology, literary translation and science journalism in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Reading and Naples. He is editor-in-chief at the magazine Gehirn&Geist. His research specialises in consciousness research, moral psychology and psychotherapy. Ayan lives in Heidelberg, Germany.