Review: 'Freud on Coke' by David Cohen

The hardback edition of 'Freud on Coke' by David Cohen is due to be published on the 31 March 2011. Writer and filmmaker David Cohen has previously published works such as Home Alone (2010) and The Escape of Sigmund Freud (2009), and while the latter dealt with one of Freud's so-called 'secret histories', this offering deals with another; Freud's use of cocaine and its influence on his most famous work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (1899).

David Cohen justly describes Freud on Coke as "half history, half polemic", which is a fair self-declaration about the book, for Cohen does not try to hide what feels like his dislike for the man. However, Freud's theories certainly hold some weight with the author for they are utilised in his analysis: "Any attempt to understand Freud has to confront the fact that he was, at times, a master of denial. The great unanswered question is whether he was aware of that aspect of himself" (Cohen 27). This illustrates how Cohen uses psychoanalytic method to analyse Freud himself – was he in denial? – there is a seduction of his theory involved; as a measure of the man.