Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition (Dover Books on Biology, Psychology, and Medicine)

Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition (Dover Books on Biology, Psychology, and Medicine) Review

Bakan starts this intriguing book with a quote from Freud "Everything new must have its roots in what was before." So what were the roots for Freud's revolutionary ideas?

Bakan presents an excellent argument that either consciously or unconsciously, Freud drew on the mystical Jewish tradition in formulating psychoanalysis. His preface to the New Edition adds additional information that was not available to him when he wrote the original in 1958, and is well worth reading.

Aside from its insights into psychoanalysis, this book provides a valuable history of Jewish mysticism, including some surprising detours. It also educated me on turn-of-the-century Vienna's virulent anti-Semitic environment -- something of which I had not been fully aware.

As with Richard Noll's "Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung" (also reviewed by me), it provides some unusual viewpoints on the psychoanalytic revolution and is well worth reading.

A pioneering scholarly investigation into the intersection of personality and cultural history, this study asserts that Freudian psychology is rooted in Judaism — particularly, in the mysticism of the Kabbalah. It examines how Freud's Jewish heritage contributed, either consciously or unconsciously, to his psychological theories and clarifies the foundations of modern psychoanalysis.

Lou von Salome: A Biography of the Woman Who Inspired Freud, Nietzsche and Rilke

Lou von Salome: A Biography of the Woman Who Inspired Freud, Nietzsche and Rilke Review

Lou von Salome: A biography of the woman who inspired Freud, Nietzsche, and Rilke is set in the backdrop of the European cultural revolution at the turn of the last century. An extraordinary woman, far ahead of her time Lou von Salome, was writer, critic, inspiration, and cultural revolutionist.

In Vickers biography we can see the patterns, habits, loss, frustrations, fears, and joys of Lou von Salome. Lou, through her writing, gives to the world a fresh viewpoint to the male dominated cultural revolution of Europe at the turn of the last century. In her quest to understand herself she reaches out to and inspires some of the greatest minds of the time. Ms. Vickers provides a clear vision of Lou's life from fairy tale childhood, questing adolesence, confident adult, to inspired old age. Vickers writing style has a delicate touch, and at times is almost lyrical. At times I believed the author must even have known Lou personally, although that can not be possible.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in psychology, philosophy, religion, or poetry. I didn't want to put it down.
The daughter of an illustrious Russian general, Lou von Salome left her home in the heart of Tsarist Russia to conquer intellectual Europe at the tender age of 18. Eventually settling in Germany, she became a best-selling novelist, a groundbreaking essayist, and a well-known literary critic. In addition to all this, Salome was a real-life muse for some of the most brilliant men of her time.

This biography tells the story of Salome's entire life and career, focusing on her young adulthood; celibate marriage with linguistics scholar Carl Friedrich Andreas; rumored affairs with Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainier Maria Rilke, and several other authors and poets; and her relationship with Sigmund Freud, which was marked most notably by their contrasting views of psychoanalysis.

Cutting the Body: Representing Woman in Baudelaire's Poetry, Truffaut's Cinema, and Freud's Psychoanalysis (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)

Cutting the Body: Representing Woman in Baudelaire's Poetry, Truffaut's Cinema, and Freud's Psychoanalysis (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism) Review

This book is about how poets, filmmakers, and psychoanalysts look upon the female body, how they examine it as if dissecting it--at times relishing it, at others anguishing over its fragmentation. Eliane DalMolin examines how Charles Baudelaire, François Truffaut, and Sigmund Freud, based on their inheritance of lyricism, shaped and perpetuated a cultural understanding of women that they continued to represent in late romantic images, despite their respective innovative talents and influences in bringing about three decisive cultural moments: modernism, New Wave cinema, and psychoanalysis.
The work's originality comes primarily from its unique summoning of three distinct disciplines around the notion of the cut. It places the complex desire to cut the woman's body at the center of an investigation of male identity in Western culture through incisive discussions of poetry, cinema, and psychoanalysis. The terms of this inquiry disclose an uncanny male disposition to femininity and motherhood, and its direct implication in productive acts of cutting. Cutting the Body will appeal to literary scholars, film specialists, feminist theorists, and experts in psychoanalytical theory.
Eliane DalMolin is Associate Professor of French, University of Connecticut. She is coeditor of Sites: The Journal of 20th-Century/Contemporary French Studies.

The Psychology of Nursery Education (Freud Museum)

The Psychology of Nursery Education (Freud Museum) Review

The various essays examine the impact of nursery education and make a plea for a unified understanding of child development which appreciates the pleasures and fears of children as much as their cognitive performance. Contributors include Anne-Marie Sandler, and Adam Phillips

Against Freud: Critics Talk Back

Against Freud: Critics Talk Back Review

From Freud's Wednesday Seminars, over 100 years ago, until very recently "dynamic psychiatry" has been a closed book, both in its theory and praxis. This is not to say that a careful student could not get the low down on this black art by critical reading of the original fifteen, or so, foundational writings of Freud. Rather, that finding historians and knowing professionals to acknowledge the shell game that is psychoanalysis requires parsing cryptic references and reading between the lines of the professional commentary. As recently as Nietzsche's Presence in Freud's Life and Thought: On the Origins of a Psychology of Dynamic Unconscious Mental Functioning, Ronald Lehrer (1995); Nietzsche and Depth Psychology, Jacob Golomb (1999); Nietzsche and Jung: The Whole Self in the Union of Opposites, Lucy Huskinson (2005) Assoun, Paul-Laurent's Freud and Nietzsche (2006); otherwise praiseworthy authors have lacked the courage to tell the simple truth about Freud and Freudianism.

Plainly speaking, Freud was a liar, a plagiarist, and a con man. Or to use my terminology, Freud was a `pale criminal'.

With Todd Dufresne's book the charade should be over. Against Freud is a collection of interviews with people who either had first hand experience with Freud, or historians and practitioners who have parted the veil that has shrouded Freud scholarship. Although the interviews are said to be "edited", the feel of each is of sitting over the shoulder of the nine (or ten) interviewers, listening as the interview takes place--being present. The final chapter "Suggested Reading" is even-handed and complete. Dufresne's article of February 18, 2004, "Psychoanalysis Is Dead" for the Los Angeles Times should have laid many of the questions to rest. But the persistence of the Freudian illusion continues to today. (An illusion without a future, I would say.) Now there is no further reason to claim to be duped.

The language of the interviewee's is straightforward--as, for example, Frank Coiffi, in chapter 6, who analogizes the animal practice of "marking out an area as belonging to them", reminding me of the several, well-respected Yale scholars who have marked out entire disciplines based on a belief in and misreading of Freud. Or, the report of Hans Israel at page 124, "People still want to see Freud as a hero or as a villain, while, in fact, he was just an ambitious fellow who made stupid mistakes". Equally to be noted is the honesty and relative neutrality of the interviews, as marred by (or more precisely informed by) the reflexive question put to Hans Israël by the interview team of Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and Sonu Shamdasani at page 119: "How do you know his motive? Are you his analysts?" The attentive reader (or listener) will immediately recognize interviewer bias from the formation of the question, from the implication that assignment of "motive" requires certification or credential. Israël's comments about the French Freudian psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, are, as the Master Card commercial puts it, "priceless" - "I've always hesitated about whether Lacan was a pure swindler or something more that that...Now, if what you are saying is true, this clearly shows that the man was swindler" (page 127). Powerful stuff.

I ordered Dufresne's book as a potential reference for my next book, left it on the shelf waiting for the time to be ripe; but pulled it down, on lark, or during a lull in the research. Against Freud: Critics Talk Back leaves nothing more for me to say on the subject; except, perhaps to refer my readers to this excellent account of Freudian revisionism.

Bravo, Mr. Dufresne!





[...] "This is a fascinating work. Dufresne has taken a complex problem of great importance to contemporary culture and made it into a highly accessible volume that holds the reader's interest throughout."
--Joel Paris, McGill University

"Todd Dufresne is the leading student of the Freud Wars of recent vintage. In his fascinating new book he assembles interviews with some of the leading Warriors, among them Frank Sulloway, Frederick Crews, and Edward Shorter. Dufresne himself is a Freud revisionist, but a judicious and learned one."
--Paul Robinson, Stanford University

Everyone agrees that Sigmund Freud has had a profound impact on Western society and intellectual life. But even today few people know much about his life and work beyond the legends that Freud and his adherents created, fostered, and repeated. The result is an enormous cross-disciplinary field characterized by contradiction and confusion. Only the experts could possibly make sense of it all--but not always, since no field is as thoroughly undercut by ideology, acrimony, and bad faith as psychoanalysis.

Against Freud collects the frank musings of some of the world's best critics of Freud, providing a convincing and coherent "case against Freud" that is as amusing as it is rigorously presented. Hailing from diverse academic backgrounds--history, philosophy, literary criticism, sociology, psychotherapy, and psychiatry--this diverse group includes renowned international figures such as Edward Shorter, Frank Sulloway, Frederick Crews, and Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, as well as those who knew Freud and his family. Listen in on the critics and then decide for yourself whether or not "Freud is dead."

Evolution of Consciousness: Of Darwin, Freud, and Cranial Fire : The Origins of the Way We Think

Evolution of Consciousness: Of Darwin, Freud, and Cranial Fire : The Origins of the Way We Think Review

Attempts to provide an outline of how the mind functions, including a summation on brain research at the end of the twentieth century. 306pp.

Freud's Dream: A Complete Interdisciplinary Science of Mind

Freud's Dream: A Complete Interdisciplinary Science of Mind Review

This excellent book is both an interesting discussion of Freud's research program and an illustrative example for one who wishes to understand contemporary cognitive science. Kitcher is both sympathetic and critical to Freud --- this is sure to bother both die-hard Freudians and die-hard anti-Freudians. Highly recommended! "Freud's Dream is a first-rate study in the philosophy of science which traces the undoing of Freud's program to the interdisciplinary nature of his project, the closed epistemological structure of the psychoanalytic institutes, and the resulting homogeneity of the psychoanalytic community. Kitcher makes a convincing case that the interdisciplinary commitments of contemporary cognitive science makes it prone to some of the same problems that undid Freud's program." -- Owen Flanagan, Professor of Philosophy, Duke University

By examining the rise and fall of psychoanalysis, Freud's Dream provides an extended case study of the appeal and potential dangers of the interdisciplinary approach to theory construction now guiding cognitive science, as well as a novel interpretation of Freud's own program. Kitcher argues that Freud's grand scheme for psychoanalysis was nothing less than a blueprint for a complete interdisciplinary science of mind, that many of its strengths and weaknesses derived from this fact, and that Freud's errors are instructive for current work in cognitive science. A Bradford Book

The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days

The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days Review

"The Death of Sigmund Freud" is a timely look at the last days of Freud since he was facing the march of Nazism, and since after 9-11, the US has tilted quite a bit to the Right, and it is wise to weigh into possible reasons to be concerned about tilting further, and a look from Freud's perspective is certainly interesting.

Since anti-Semitism was rampant at the time, from the book, critics did say that psychoanalysis was right, just that it was a 'Jewish Science' only applying to Jews, an attempt to discredit it. Some of Freud's thoughts on the matter were:

1. Freud called the relationship crowds form with an absolute leader, erotic. Hitler, himself, in his speeches said that he made love to the German masses. Essentially, the crowds become hypnotized. Not that we are anywhere near such a situation, but one surely can notice a more 'patriotic' tone to many of the current presidential supporters and calling dissenters un-patriotic.

2. Inner conflict, between one's ego, id, and superego, is not only inevitable, but desirable to better modify behavior. Seeking some perpetual, peaceful state is dangerous because it is more likely to erupt into really bad behavior. So, public dissent is healthy and should be encouraged.

3. Freud, a Jew, recognized in monotheism, that the ability to internalize an invisible god prepares a person to think more abstractly. He saw Jews' long history with that as allowing Jews to distinguish themselves in math, sciences, law and literary arts, ways which effect some control over nature. Better to have some invisible god, than some human authoritarian one, be it political or some religious one who tries to have crowds focus on him or her. Freud felt that such thinking made Jews more likely to reject pageantry and less susceptible to elevating humans to god-like status, one reason for anti-Semitism to run rampant as Nazis knew they would meet resistance from Jews. Not that one should conclude that Judaism is superior, just that the internalizing of an invisible god is the important part of monotheism.

4. Rather than blame something about Germany, Japan or Italy for the rise of 20th century fascism, Freud felt that internally we are all fascists/fundamentalists, at least potentially. So, it is the inner conflict we need to use to overcome it. Once again, dissent is healthy.

A very interesting book!

“The Death of Sigmund Freud offers a compelling redescription of why the founder of psychoanalysis retains his relevance today…a stirring account of Freud's final months in Vienna…This is the disruptive legacy of Freud's last year, and Edmundson has found the words to bring it alive today.”—Los Angeles Times

When Hitler invaded Austria in March of 1938, Sigmund Freud was among the 175,000 Viennese Jews dreading Nazi occupation. Though Freud was near the end of his life—eighty-one years old, battling cancer of the jaw—and Hitler’s rise on the world stage was just beginning, the fates of these two historical giants were nonetheless intertwined. In this gripping and revelatory historical narrative, Mark Edmundson traces Hitler and Freud’s oddly converging lives, then zeroes in on Freud’s escape to London, where he published his last and most provocative book, Moses and Monotheism.

By taking a close look at Freud’s last years—years that coincided with the onset of the Second World War—Edmundson probes Freud’s prescient ideas about the human proclivity to embrace fascism in politics and fundamentalism in religion. At a time when these forces are once again shaping world events, The Death of Sigmund Freud suggests new and vital ways to view Freud’s legacy.

Mark Edmundson is a professor of English at the University of Virginia. A prizewinning scholar, he has published a number of works of literary and cultural criticism, including Literature Against Philosophy, Plato to Derrida, Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference,and Why Read?; he wrote the introduction to Beyond the Pleasure Principle in Adam Phillips’s celebrated reissue of Freud’s work. He has also written for such publications as The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and Harper’s, where he is a contributing editor.

When Hitler invaded Vienna in March of 1938, famed psychologist Sigmund Freud, in failing health at the age of 81, was among the city’s 175,000 Jews dreading Nazi occupation. The Nazis hated Sigmund Freud with a particular vehemence: they detested his “soul-destroying glorification of the instinctual life.” Here, Mark Edmundson traces Hitler and Freud’s oddly converging lives.  He then zeroes in on Freud’s last two years, during which, with the help of Marie Bonaparte, he was at last rescued from Vienna.  He was brought safely to London, where he was honored as he never had been during his long, controversial life. At the same time, he endured the last of more than thirty operations for cancer of the jaw. Confronting certain death, Freud, in typical fashion, did not let fame make him complacent.  Instead, he wrote his most provocative book, Moses and Monotheism, in which he questioned the legacy of the greatest Jewish leader.

Focusing on Freud’s last two years, Edmundson is able to probe Freud’s ideas about death, and also about the human proclivity to embrace fascism in politics and fundamentalism in religion. Edmundson suggests new and important ways to view Freud’s legacy at a time when these forces are once again shaping world events.

“The Death of Sigmund Freud is a thoroughly engaging, solidly informed, and beautifully written book . . . [Edmundson’s] writing is so good and so totally free of off-putting professional jargon that it draws the reader irresistibly into Edmundson’s portrayal of Freud’s last two years . . . a wonderful introduction . . . Those already familiar with Freud’s writings can still learn much from this fine book.”—Journal of American Medicine

"The Death of Sigmund Freud offers a compelling redescription of why the founder of psychoanalysis retains his relevance today . . . an engaging read . . . a stirring account of Freud's final months in Vienna . . . This is the disruptive legacy of Freud's last year, and Edmundson has found the words to bring it alive today."—Los Angeles Times

"Mr. Edmundson proves himself a deft and genial explicator . . . a superb mediation on two kinds of authority, and in its sober, qualified reverence for Freud, Mr. Edmundson provides an example of the kind of relationship to greatness that he is advocating. Mr. Edmundson presents us with a figure who still has the power to rouse us from our complacency, whose stern, exacting eyes continue to remind us that we are apt to forget: that we must work to change our lives."—The Sun

“By tracing the intersecting stories of Sigmund Freud and Adolph Hitler in the days before World War II, Mark Edmundson sheds a fresh light on one of the most pressing questions of our day: the allure of fundamentalist politics and the threat it poses to the values of civilization. The Death of Sigmund Freud is a bracing, brilliant, and urgent book.”—Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire

“The Death of Sigmund Freud is a story about just how confused we are by our craving for authority. In Edmundson's riveting book Freud becomes at once more remarkable as a writer, and more ordinary as a person, a figure to be reckoned with rather than to revere. There has not been a better book on why Freud might matter now—and on why culture-heroes matter at all—for a very long time.”—Adam Phillips, author of Side-Effects

"The final shaping of the Promethean psychoanalyst's work amid the opening clashes of war and forebodings of holocaust. Previously acclaimed for his literary and cultural criticism, Edmundson uses Hitler's forced annexation of Austria in March 1938 as a matrix for assembling and framing the thought of Vienna resident Freud . . . Edmundson stresses the areas of Freud's work that pertain to sources of human conflict, both personal and collective. Nothing could be more hideously apt in the age of fascism than the analyst's theory regarding humankind's infantile and, he believed, eternal psychological yearning for authority figures. 'Freud pointed to the twofold horror of . . . the Patriarchal Complex, tyrannical governments and tyrannical religions,' Edmundson writes, 'and began to explain why they will probably be with us forever.' Hitler himself was the perfect foil for this intellectual exercise, someone who despised the Viennese Jew while unwittingly confirming his tenets in both word and deed; Freud found the Fuhrer not a monstrous anomaly but totally predictable. Assisted by morphine doses administered by a doctor who promised to help when the pain from his cancer became intolerable, Freud died on September 23, 1939. His lessons live on,Edmundson avers: 'When religious fundamentalism crosses national borders and aligns itself with authoritarian politics, nations that aspire to democracy must deal with an enormous threat.' Brilliantly buttressed plea for reconsideration of Freud as philosopher and shrink."—Kirkus Reviews

"Teacher and writer Edmundson . . . applies Freud's notion of a universal need for authoritarian father figures as an explanation of Nazism and explores Freud's militant atheism as a protest against that irrational yearning, especially in Moses and Monotheism . . . This portrait of a pessimistic, ambivalent, courageous, rigid, rarely vulnerable man in the context of Moses is valuable . . . Recommended for psychology and history collections."—E. James Lieberman, Library Journal

"Edmundson develops his thesis about the lure of powerful, authoritarian leaders. He begins in 1938 Vienna on the eve of Hitler's invasion and ends less than two years later, when Freud died in London. The crux of the book comes at its very end, where Edmundson, a contributing editor at Harper's, discusses Moses and Monotheism (published in 1939), arguing for Freud's profound insights into the rise of a totalitarian, paternalistic leader like Hitler. In fact, Edmundson's aim seems even grander: to revive Freud's legacy as a sage of human nature in an intellectual climate that has moved beyond many of his ideas."—Publishers Weekly

Killing Freud: Twentieth-Century Culture And the Death of Psychoanalysis

Killing Freud: Twentieth-Century Culture And the Death of Psychoanalysis Review

A tour de force. With this witty book, Dufresne joins the ranks of the sharpest critics of Freud. Put it in your library next to more somber works by scholars such as Roazen, Sulloway, Cioffi, Swales, Holt. The writing is much too wickedly funny to take the title, "Killing Freud," literally. After all, Freud himself, as Dufresne slyly notes, was fond of "killing" himself with asides like, "Moi, je ne suis pas une Freudiste" --"Me, Sigmund Freud, I don't follow him/me. Alienated from himself in this way, from the self-same, Freud was always his own impossible condition of psychoanalysis ..." (Dufresne, p. 70). What a joker! Taking the reader on a journey through the 20th century, this book traces the work and influence of one of its greatest icons, Sigmund Freud. The critique ranges across the strange case of Anna O, the hysteria of Josef Breuer, the love of dogs, the Freud industry, the role of gossip and fiction, bad manners, pop psychology and French philosophy, figure skating on thin ice, and contemporary therapy culture. A map to the Freudian minefield and a masterful negotiation of high theory and low culture, "Killing Freud" is a revaluation of psychoanalysis and its real place in 20th-century history. It should appeal to anyone curious about the life of the mind after the death of Freud.

Sigmund Freud Doctor of the Mind

Sigmund Freud Doctor of the Mind Review

A brief biography of the Austrian doctor who spent his life analyzing the mind and its illnesses.

Reading Freud: A Chronological Exploration of Freud's Writings (New Library of Psychoanalysis Teaching Series)

Reading Freud: A Chronological Exploration of Freud's Writings (New Library of Psychoanalysis Teaching Series) Review

I have read several comprehensive books on Freud, from the classic "Primer of Freudian Psychology" by Hall, to the recent "Basic Freud." "Reading Freud: A Chronological Exploration of Freud's Writings" is leaps and bounds better than any other overview of Freud currently available. The author does the rare and arduous task of summarizing difficult material in a concise way that brings out the essence of Freud's ideas without glossing over the crucial details and over simplifying the material. That is, the author is able to achieve depth AND brevity. My understanding of Freud's idea were clarified much by this excellent book, and even though I had a fairly good understanding of Freud before reading this, this book certainly enhanced my own comprehension of Freudian psychology. I once had a college professor say to me: "A bad commentator explains the obvious, a good commentator explains things that are not obvious;" Jean-Michel Quinodoz is a GOOD commentator! If you are considering a serious study of Freud, you certainly want this book by your side the whole way, in fact I refer to it as my "Travel Guide" to Freud. I have frequently referred back to this book as I read Freud's original texts, and I would be lost without it; it has been indispensable to me. If you want to have a well written, well crafted, accurate and concise book on Freud, get this...today! The book was originally written in French and the excellent translation by David Alcorn reads well and is engaging. Reading Freud provides an accessible outline of the whole of Freud's work from Studies in Hysteria through to An Outline of Psycho-Analysis. It succeeds in expressing even the most complex of Freud's theories in clear and simple language whilst avoiding over-simplification.

Each chapter concentrates on an individual text and includes valuable background information, relevant biographical and historical details, descriptions of Post-Freudian developments and a chronology of Freud's concepts. By putting each text into the context of Freud's life and work as a whole, Jean-Michel Quinodoz manages to produce an overview which is chronological, correlative and interactive. Texts discussed include:
DT The Interpretation of Dreams
DT The 'Uncanny'
DT Civilisation and its Discontents

This uniquely comprehensive presentation of Freud's work will be of great value to anyone studying Freud and Psychoanalysis.

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious Review

Freud did not see jokes as minor nonsense and insignificance. He saw them as deeper messages delivered to us from our unconscious. He saw them as telling the secrets about ourselves to ourselves and the world that we do not necessarily want to tell. He saw them as acts of aggression and as acts of self- defense. In fact Freud is one of the few theorists of jokes and laughter that the world has had. In my opinion while Freud's understanding of jokes is not exhaustive and all- comprehensive it does illuminate much about a certain kind of humor. And it does teach us something about ourselves which we had not really noticed before Freud taught it to us. Freud himself is of course a source of endless jokes today , but it is not wrong to say that at least some of these jokes should be about his great genius and ability to see and say where others before him did not.

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious Feature

• ISBN13: 9780393001457
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Freud argues that the "joke-work" is intimately related to the "dream-work" which he had analyzed in detail in his Interpretation of Dreams, and that jokes (like all forms of humor) attest to the fundamental orderliness of the human mind. While in this book Freud tells some good stories with his customary verve and economy, its point is wholly serious.

God and Plastic Surgery: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and the Obvious

God and Plastic Surgery: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and the Obvious Review

I have Dr. Barris in class quite often as a Philosophy student. I read immense amounts of dense material every day and see it brought to life by Jeremy in lectures the next day. It follows that, like his lectures, Dr. Barris manages to bring dense material to life in a fun to read and informative manner. Kudos, Jeremy! cultural critique, on "negative capability"

Beyond the Pleasure Principle

Beyond the Pleasure Principle Review

Sigmund Freud's "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" is a key text, not only for psychologists, or literary theorists, but anyone who thinks about why our minds work the way they do. If your mind is open to extreme possibilities, give this text a read. It is short, barely 75 pages, but give yourself time to pore over and make notes, as Freud moves very quickly.

In "Beyond the Pleasure Principle," Freud seeks to discover the causes and effects of our drives. To this end, he begins with the pleasure principle, which basically holds that the job of our 'mental apparatus' is to lower tension and move us towards pleasure and stability. Working against the pleasure principle are our baser instincts, which must be repressed by a vigilant brain. The pleasure principle can also be interrupted by the reality principle, which operates in moments when basic life functions are threatened - to wit, when maintaining life is more important than pleasure.

Examining the pleasure principle, Freud looks at scenarios which may shed light on mental processes that seem to challenge it. These include repetition compulsion, wherein adults seem to fixate and reenact moments of trauma. Seeking a more primal cause for repetition instinct, Freud analyses children's games. Interestingly, the further Freud regresses, the more speculative and intense he gets - from childhood, Freud talks about the brain itself, moving back to simple multicellular organisms, unicellular organisms, and ultimately inorganic matter - all the time looking for an explanation of the origin of instincts themselves.

Freud's queries on instinct and repetition compulsion lead him to the darkest possible places - the revelation of the death instinct. Freud posits that the repetition compulsion manifests itself in all conscious beings in the desire to return to the earliest state, total inactivity. The remainder of his treatise is spent developing the conditions of the death instinct, and trying to find a way out of this shocking thesis. Taking up Hesiodic Eros as symbolic of the life instinct, Freud attempts to argue out of the seemingly inescapable conclusion.

Freud's writing style is direct and fluid, but not necessarily straightforward. If you're not paying attention, Freud can go over your head quickly. For example, on page 50 of this standard edition, his line of argument dismisses Darwin, Marx, and Nietzsche in a matter of two paragraphs to astounding effect. His language is highly figurative, drawing on philosophy, literature, biology, and anecdote to make and illustrate his points. A critical text for anyone interested in psychoanalysis and its figurehead author. In what is considered a turning point in his theoretical approach, Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud outlines core psychoanalytic concepts, including libido, wish fulfillment, and repression. He paints a picture of the human struggle between instincts. The first set, being of creativity, harmony, and sexual connection; and the opposing set, drawing us toward repetition, aggression, and compulsion.

Freud's Vienna & Other Essays

Freud's Vienna & Other Essays Review

From one of the world's leading child psychologists comes a new collection of wide-ranging essays in which he reflects on the people, events, and cultural influences that have shaped him and his work.

Freud's "On Narcissism: An Introduction" (Contemporary Freud Series)

Freud's "On Narcissism: An Introduction" (Contemporary Freud Series) Review

Each book in this series presents a classic essay by Freud and discussions of the essay by psychoanalytic teachers and clinicians differing in emphases and in geographical background. "On Narcissim: An Introduction" is an essay dealing with ideas that are still being debated today - from the role of narcissim in normal and pathological development, and the relationship of narcissim to homosexuality, libido, romantic love, and self-esteem, to issues of therapeutic intervention. The contributors to this volume - Clifford Yorke, R. Horacio Etchegoyen, Nikolaad Treurniet, Leon Grinbert, Willy Baranger, Otto K. Kernberg, Hanna Segal and David Bell, Paul H. Ornstein, Heinz Henseler, and Bela Grunberger - provide diversive viewpoints on Freud's essay. They place the work in the context of Freud's evolving thinking, point out its innovations, review its problematic aspects and examine how its theoretical concepts have been elaborated more recently by analysts of diverse theoretic persuasions. In addition, they use Freud's text to chart new developments in psychoanalysis and point toward still unresolved problems.