A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York, Bonomi Patricia U.

The first of three parts explores how the mind of the child was viewed prior to Freud, what events led Freud to formulate and later abandon his theory of actual trauma, and why Freud turned to the phylogenetic past. Bonomi delves deeper into Freud's self-analysis in part two and reexamines the possible reasons that led Freud to discard the impact and effects of trauma. The final part explores the interpersonal effects of Freud's self-dissection dream, arguing that Ferenczi managed to dream aspects of Freud's self-dissection dream on various occasions, which helped him to incorporate a part of Freud's psyche that Freud had himself failed to integrate.

This book questions the subject of a woman's body, using discourse between Freud and Ferenczi to build a more integrated and accurate narrative of the origins and theories of psychoanalysis. It will therefore be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychologists and social scientists, as well as historians of medicine, science and human rights. Bonomi's work introduces new arguments to the contemporary debate surrounding Female Genital Mutilation.