What Freud Really Meant


Book Description

This book presents Freud's theory of the mind as an organic whole, built from first principles and developing in sophistication over time.




What Freud Really Meant


Book Description

Through an exacting yet accessible reconstruction of eleven of Freud's essential theoretical writings, Susan Sugarman demonstrates that the traditionally received Freud is the diametric opposite of the one evident in the pages of his own works. Whereas Freud's theory of the mind is typically conceived as a catalogue of uninflected concepts and crude reductionism - for instance that we are nothing but our infantile origins or sexual and aggressive instincts - it emerges here as an organic whole built from first principles and developing in sophistication over time. Sugarman's exciting interpretation, tracking Freud's texts in the order in which he wrote them, grounds his claims in the reasoning that led to them and reveals their real intent. This fresh reading will appeal to specialists and students across a variety of disciplines.




Freud's Megalomania


Book Description

What if Freud had left a final paper declaring that morality arises not from the guilt caused by Oedipal desires but, instead, from fear of the unchallengeable authority demonstrated in megalomania? CUNY history professor Rosenfield makes this the premise of his novel debut--and produces a wonderful, chewy, intellectual delight.




The Question of God


Book Description

Compares and contrasts the beliefs of two famous thinkers, Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis, on topics ranging from the existence of God and morality to pain and suffering.




Freud: Dictionary of Psychoanalysis


Book Description

This is a book that should satisfy a longfelt need. Freud's writings comprise a small library. To know how the founder of psychoanalysis defined his original terms, how he changed or amplified them in his later writings; to have his exact statements at hand on all possible psychoanalytic questions will be of considerable assistance to students and practitioners alike. Some analysts, known as specialists in Freudian quotations, have been receiving constant requests to supply references to those who sorely needed them. This book will safeguard them from the penalty of specialization, and will place all Freudiana within easy reach of professional and non-professional researchers.




On Freud's ''Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning''


Book Description

This book is a collection of papers by leading contemporary psychoanalysts who comment on the continuing important relevance of Freud's (1911) paper, Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning. The contributors gathered here represent current European, Latin American, and North American perspectives that elaborate the continuing value of Two Principles for present-day psychoanalytic thinking. Each author examines Freud's paper through a personal lens that is coloured by the psychoanalytic culture from which he or she comes. In each instance, the writers' chapters demonstrate the heuristic value of Two Principles for twenty-first century psychoanalytic theory and technique. A common thread that runs through all the chapters is the view that this brief paper by Freud, which he humbly introduced by stating, "The deficiencies of this short paper, which is preparatory rather than expository ...", is a masterpiece that contains within it the seeds of much of his later writing. The distinction he draws between the pleasure principle and the reality principle are profound and raise questions that still preoccupy analysis today.




Wittgenstein Reads Freud


Book Description

Did Freud present a scientific hypothesis about the unconscious, as he always maintained and as many of his disciples keep repeating? This question has long prompted debates concerning the legitimacy and usefulness of psychoanalysis, and it is of utmost importance to Lacanian analysts, whose main project has been to stress Freud's scientific grounding. Here Jacques Bouveresse, a noted authority on Ludwig Wittgenstein, contributes to the debate by turning to this Austrian-born philosopher and contemporary of Freud for a candid assessment of the early issues surrounding psychoanalysis. Wittgenstein, who himself had delivered a devastating critique of traditional philosophy, sympathetically pondered Freud's claim to have produced a scientific theory in proposing a new model of the human psyche. What Wittgenstein recognized--and what Bouveresse so eloquently stresses for today's reader--is that psychoanalysis does not aim to produce a change limited to the intellect but rather seeks to provoke an authentic change of human attitudes. The beauty behind the theory of the unconscious for Wittgenstein is that it breaks away from scientific, causal explanations to offer new forms of thinking and speaking, or rather, a new mythology. Offering a critical view of all the texts in which Wittgenstein mentions Freud, Bouveresse immerses us in the intellectual climate of Vienna in the early part of the twentieth century. Although we come to see why Wittgenstein did not view psychoanalysis as a science proper, we are nonetheless made to feel the philosopher's sense of wonder and respect for the cultural task Freud took on as he found new ways meaningfully to discuss human concerns. Intertwined in this story of Wittgenstein's grappling with the theory of the unconscious is the story of how he came to question the authority of science and of philosophy itself. While aiming primarily at the clarification of Wittgenstein's opinion of Freud, Bouveresse's book can be read as a challenge to the French psychoanalytic school of Lacan and as a provocative commentary on cultural authority.




The Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud


Book Description

The long-awaited Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (RSE) is founded on the canonical Standard Edition (SE) translation from the German by James Strachey, while adding a new layer of revisions and translations. Conceptual and lexicographic ambiguities are clarified inextensive new annotations. Drawing on established conventions and intellectual traditions, the Revised Standard Edition supplements Freud’s writing with substantial editorial commentaries addressing controversial technical terms and translation issues through the lens of modern scholarship—a living text in dialogue with itself and the reader. The RSE also includes 56 essays and letters which were not included in the SE. In the RSE text and footnotes a subtle underlining distinguishes, in an easy and accessible way, Mark Solms’s revisions and additions, from the historical translation and commentaries of James Strachey’s Standard Edition. Readers can examine what Strachey contributed before the revisions in tandem with Solms’s updates, new translations, annotations, and commentaries, collectively bringing Freud’s text and Strachey’s translation into dialogue with five decades of research, including the most recent developments in the field. Commissioned by the British Psychoanalytical Society and co-published by Rowman & Littlefield, the Revised Standard Edition brings together decades of scholarly deliberation concerning the translation of Freudian technical terms while retaining the best of Strachey’s original English translation.This landmark work will captivate a wide audience, from interested lay readers to practicing clinicians to scientists and scholars in fields related to psychoanalysis.




Freud Evaluated


Book Description

Since its initial publication this critique of Freud's methods for gathering and evaluating evidence has become a classic in Freud scholarship. foreword by Frederick Crews Psychoanalysis: science or belief system? Since its initial publication this critique of Freud's methods for gathering and evaluating evidence has become a classic in Freud scholarship. Malcolm Macmillan's exhaustive analysis of Freud's personality theory describes the logical and other assumptions on which Freud's work was based and shows how these assumptions interacted with his clinical observations to produce all-embracing but faulty methods for gathering and evaluating evidence. Macmillan provides a meticulous account of the historical evolution of Freud's thought and its background in Freud's contacts with the books and people that influenced him and evaluates the entirety of the Freudian system. Included is a compilation of major criticisms of the methodology and assumptions of Freudian theory and a new comprehensive afterword by the author surveying the relevant literature published since 1989. (cloth published by Elsevier-North Holland in 1991)




The Other Freud


Book Description

First published in 1998. The Other Freud undertakes an exciting and original analysis of Freud's major writings on religion and culture. James DiCenso argues that Freud's works on religion are unjustifiably ignored or taken for granted and demonstrates that they are rich, multifaceted texts which deserve far more attention. Using tools and concepts derived primarily from contemporary French theorists Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva, DiCenso draws an unparalleled and unprecedented portrait of the 'other' Freud. The author admirably analyses and closely examines the discrepancies in Freud's central texts on religion and addresses important issues in the fields of psychoanalytic theory, postmodern thought, cultural theory and religious studies. The Other Freud is a seminal work, free of jargon and rich with fresh insights and interpretations.