Freud Reader


Book Description

Selections span Freud's career from early case histories through his work on dreams, essays on sexuality, and his later philosophical writings. Most are reproduced in full and have been selected from the standard edition. Gay ties all together with an analytical introduction, chronology of life and work, and commentary throughout. Ideal size book for reading and browsing marred only by the inexplicable use of poor quality (and acidic) paper. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




On Freud's Observations On Transference-Love


Book Description

This is the third volume in the series Contemporary Freud: Turning Points and Critical Issues, published for the International Psychoanalytical Association. Each volume presents a classic essay by Freud with commentaries by prominent psychoanalytic teachers and analysts from different theoretical backgrounds and geographical locations."Observations on Transference-Love" may have been inspired, say the contributors, by the unfortunate emotional involvements of two of Freud's colleagues with female patients. In his paper, Freud speaks of the inevitability of "transference-love" in every well-conducted analysis, its important therapeutic functions, and its potential hazards. Transference love is discussed in the larger context of transference in general. The essays illuminate a persistent problem in all modalities of psychotherapy: unfortunate, often tragic, enactments of erotic transference and countertransference.This volume also includes the original essay by Freud.




Psychotherapy: An Erotic Relationship


Book Description

Psychotherapy: An Erotic Relationship challenges the traditional belief that transference and countertransference are merely forms of resistance which jeopardize the therapeutic process. David Mann shows how the erotic feelings and fantasies experienced by clients and therapists can be used to bring about a positive transformation. Combining extensive clinical material with theoretical insights and new research on infants, the author traces erotic development back to the parent-child relationship, drawing parallels between this relationship and the therapist/client dyad. Individual chapters explore the function of the erotic within the unconscious, pre-Oedipal and Oedipal material, homoeroticism in therapy, sexual intercourse as a metaphor for psychological change, the primal scene and the difficulties of working with perversions.




The Truth About Freud's Technique


Book Description

In this unusual and much-needed reappraisal of Freud's clinical technique, M. Guy Thompson challenges the conventional notion that psychoanalysis promotes relief from suffering and replaces it with a more radical assertion, that psychoanalysis seeks to mend our relationship with the real that has been fractured by our avoidance of the same. Thompson suggests that, while avoiding reality may help to relieve our experience of suffering, this short-term solution inevitably leads to a split in our existence. M. Guy Thompson forcefully disagrees with the recent trend that dismisses Freud as an historical figure who is out of step with the times. He argues, instead, for a return to the forgotten Freud, a man inherently philosophical and rooted in a Greek preoccupation with the nature of truth, ethics, the purpose of life and our relationship with reality. Thompson's argument is situated in a stunning re-reading of Freud's technical papers, including a new evaluation of his analyses of Dora and the Rat Man in the context of Heidegger's understanding of truth. In this remarkable examination of Freud's technical recommendations, M. Guy Thompson explains how psychoanalysis was originally designed to re-acquaint us with realities we had abandoned by encountering them in the contest of the analytic experience. This provocative examination of Freud's conception of psychoanalysis reveals a more personal Freud than we had previously supposed, one that is more humanistic and real.




The Analyst’s Desire


Book Description

Mitchell Wilson explores the fundamental role that lack and desire play in psychoanalytic interpretation by using a comparative method that engages different psychoanalytic traditions: Lacanian, Bionian, Kleinian, Contemporary Freudian. Investigating crucial questions Wilson asks: What is the nature of the psychoanalytic process? How are desire and counter-transference linked? What is the relationship between desire, analytic action, and psychoanalytic ethics?




On Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego


Book Description

The sixth volume in the series "Contemporary Freud: Turning Points and Critical Issues," published with the International Psychoanalytic Association, turns to Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921). In this classic text Freud offered an analysis of the roots of group identity, of the contagions of panic and fanaticism, and of the submission of the individual to the leader that only gained cogency with each passing decade of the troubled twentieth century. And Freud's insights have become more relevant still in the aftermath of the shattering events of September 11, 2001. Following an introduction to the volume by Ethel Spector Person and a summary and abridgement of Freud's text by John Kerr, the contributors to this volume - Didier Anzieu, Robert Caper, Abraham Zeleznik, Andre Haynal, Ernst Falzeder, Yolanda Gampel, and Claudio Laks Eisirik - provide commentaries on Freud's work, explicating the multiple ways in which Freud's insights continue to illuminate the irrational dynamics to which all groups, including psychoanalytic institutions, are prey. Serving as both an introduction to, and an elegant expansion of, Freud's texts, this volume demonstrates the role of psychoanalytic hypotheses in obtaining deeper insight into the tectonic shifts in group psychology underlying today's mass society.




Dora


Book Description

An appealing and intelligent eighteen-year-old girl to whom Freud gives the pseudonym "Dora" is the subject of a case history that has all the intrigue and unexpected twists of a first-rate detective novel. Freud pursues the secrets of Dora's psyche by using as clues her nervous mannerisms, her own reports on the peculiarities of her family, and the content of her dreams. The personalities involved in Dora's disturbed emotional life were, in their own ways, as complex as she: an obsessive mother, an adulterous father, her father's mistress, Frau K., and Frau K.'s husband, who had made amorous advances toward Dora. Faced with the odd behavior of her family and friends, and unable to confront her own forbidden sexual desires, Dora falls into the destructive pattern of a powerful hysteria. in this influential and provocative case history, Freud uses all his analytic genius and literary skill to reveal Dora's inner life and explain the motives behind her fixation on her father's mistress. -- from back cover.




Reading Freud


Book Description

Winner of the 2010 Sigourney Award! 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: The Interpretation of Dreams The 'Uncanny' Civilisation and its Discontents' The clear presentation, with regular summaries of the ideas raised, encourages the reader to fully engage with the texts presented and gain a thorough understanding of each text in the context of its background and impact on the development of psychoanalysis. Drawing on his extensive experience as a clinician and a teacher of psychoanalysis, Jean-Michel Quinodoz has produced a uniquely comprehensive presentation of Freud's work which will be of great value to anyone studying Freud and Psychoanalysis.




Seventeenth Summer


Book Description

Seventeen-year-old Angie, who lives with her family in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, finds herself in love for the first time the summer after high school graduation.




Wild Analysis


Book Description

'Psychoanalytic treatment utilised the patient's capacity to love and desire as a means to an end. The stuff of romance became the stuff of cure. When Freud is writing about technique in psychoanalysis - and these papers [in Wild Analysis] represent his most significant contributions to the subject over three decades of work - it is important to remember that he is talking about what a couple, an analyst and a so-called patient, can do in a room together. For better or worse.' Adam Phillips




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