Book Description
For the 75th anniversary, a new edition of the seminal work with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Menand.
Civilization and Its Discontents may be Sigmund Freud's best-known work. Originally published in 1930, it seeks to answer ultimate questions: What influences led to the creation of civilization? How did it come to be? What determines its course? In this seminal volume of twentieth-century thought, Freud elucidates the contest between aggression, indeed the death drive, and its adversary eros. He speaks to issues of human creativity and fulfillment, the place of beauty in culture, and the effects of repression.
Louis Menand, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Metaphysical Club, contributor to The New Yorker, and professor of English at Harvard University, reflects on the importance of this work in intellectual thought and why it has become such a landmark book for the history of ideas.
Not available in hardcover for decades, this beautifully rendered anniversary edition will be a welcome addition to readers' shelves.
Customer Reviews:
Civilization and Its Discontents.......2007-10-05
I am officially in love with Freud. He doesn't write from a philosopher's point of view, so his work doesn't have the dry, didatic tone to it. Freud is direct and concise, his vocabulary is relatable; and he even has some comic undertones. Once you get into this piece, you'll finish in no time, no doubt with a new appreciation for Doc Sigmund : )
Patriarchy and its discontents.......2007-09-28
These days there is talk of the collapse of civilizations. For example, Jared Diamond's massive tome "Collapse." It is therefore timely to see what an influential thinker like Freud said on the subject of civilization. Freud thought that mankind was over-sexed and innately aggressive. He favored civilization as the way to curb these instinctual drives. The sublimated energy can be channeled into the creation of (high) culture and scientific "progress." Freud does admit that the repression of instincts is a problem of civilization, but it is the price we have to pay for order, culture and "progress." Further, he advocated psychoanalysis in order to manipulate people so they would accept the discontents of civilization. But Freud bases his defence of civilization on false premises. There is nothing wrong with healthy outlets for the sex drive. Culture can be created without sublimation. Repression causes more problems than it is worth. Man is not innately aggressive.This is a fallacy propounded by the patriarchy to justify its aggression and repression. On the last page Freud questions his own assumptions about man's aggression. He states that man's power over nature gives him the ability to destroy himself. We can't avoid the fact that that civilizations promote devasting weapons and wars. By exploding Freud's ingenuous arguments we can see civilization as a tool of patriachy for dominance and repression. Civilizations collapse because they are inherently corrupt. Just a bunch of agggressive men who want to screw the world for power and profit.
am i crazy? or dumb?.......2007-09-06
I am reading this book for a THIRD time. It's a required book for an introductory composition class I'm taking. The fact that my teacher asks his students to read this book AT LEAST three times should have been a clear warning sign. It is the most round-about, long-winded and dense book or writing I have ever come across. I'm shocked that it's such a popular book, a landmark they say. Although Freud does have many interesting ideas, they could be stated MUCH more simply. What a HEADACHE!
Nevertheless, those who enjoy convoluted, intricate and time-intensive reading are likely to seriously appreciate this book. HOWEVER, for those who prefer simple sentences and straightforward writing, like myself, this is NOT the book for you.
Ultimate Summation of Freud's Thought.......2007-07-12
`Civilization and its Discontents' is Freud's miniature opus. It is a superficial masterpiece that stretches further than any of his other works; he is reaching for an explanation for human nature in terms of the id-ego-superego structure of the individual as he exists in civilization. For Freud, human beings are characterized by Eros (Sex Drive) and Thanatos (Death Drive), which remain in opposition to one another. This small book is filled with as many interesting ideas as any work of modern philosophy. Freud adopts (perhaps a bit hastily), a Nietzschean position with regard to the role of religion and institutions of social morality which curb and shape primordial human drives. As a result, human beings, and civilizations as a whole remain unsatisfied and suffer from neuroses. He concludes with a discussion of human aggression, which manifests itself in the form of communalized human aggression. He wonders as to whether or not human beings will be able to overcome this drive. It seems to me that this question remains the most important for human beings in the 21st century. Will we be able to overcome our Thanatos and survive the destructive powers that we have created? I suspect that Freud will be better remembered as a thinker and philosopher than as an analyst or doctor precisely because he asks the questions that remain relevant for civilization today, and are likely to remain imperative in the future.
Western civilization is part of our unconscious mental history as well.......2007-05-01
This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities.
Sigmund Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents," written in 1930, was his attempt at using his theories of psychoanalysis to observe and critique the psychological affect Western civilization had on the human subject. In his book, Freud sets the stage for his analysis by comparing the development of Western civilization with the development of the individual. In a sense, Freud is using Darwin's evolutionary theory to link social constructs and psychic constructs (Freud 3-9).
In essence, Freud postulated that the history of Western civilization is part of our unconscious mental history as well. Since Freud had an extensive classical education, it is no wonder that his works were replete with classical analogies. In this book, Freud relied on the city of Rome to represent the historical birthplace of society, and to explain the ill effects civilization had on the human psyche. Rome has been destroyed and rebuilt, in situ, numerous times since its founding. Rome contains ruins from all its previous eras, which allows one to observe every stage of its developmental history and character. Thus, Freud uses Rome as a metaphor for the observation of the developmental process in the human psyche. Similar to Rome, our unconscious psyche possesses ruins and traces of the past, which make up the structure of the mind as well. The mind is the repository for all of its earlier stages of development and it allows them to coexist with the latest stages of development. By using Rome as his metaphor for psychic development in both the subject and humankind, Freud is answering the criticism that was often leveled against psychoanalysis. Freud's psychoanalytical theories often came under criticism for depending too heavily on the psychological traits of the individual without taking into account the interaction of individuals within society.
Freud believed that the individual would always find it hard to feel content with life in civilization, because unbeknownst to the individual, the individual was under tremendous pressure from their unconscious guilt. Thus, civilization acted as a kind of superego; its conscience, repressing the individual's unconscious desires manifested by their id (Freud 86). What Freud theorized, was that in a sense, civilization, had a life of its own and that it had to control and punish the individual's two great primal instincts in order for civilization to survive and flourish (Freud 69). The two primal instincts are: 1) the death instinct, which in Greek is Thanatos, where one's aggressive impulses reside; and 2) Eros, which is his name for the life instinct or sex drive, also known as the libido. Both Thanatos and Eros reside within an individual's unconscious id and are in a constant state of struggle with each other. In fact, Freud believed that the history of civilization was a struggle between Thanatos and Eros (Freud 80-82). Thus, civilization acting as a superego and protecting itself from destruction, represses humankind's death instinct towards each other through the implementation of authoritative agencies, religion, and by enacting laws (Freud 36, 69, 73-74). Thus, aggression is turned inward towards the individual's ego and forms a person's "conscience," giving the individual their sense of guilt and frustration with life in civilized society (Freud 82-84). Therefore, civilization, acting as the superego, subdues the individuals death instinct; "...setting up an agency within him to watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city" (Freud 84).
Recommended reading for anyone interested in psychology, philosophy, and history.
Amazon.com
Whether we love or hate Sigmund Freud, we all have to admit that he revolutionized the way we think about ourselves. Much of this revolution can be traced to The Interpretation of Dreams, the turn-of-the-century tour de force that outlined his theory of unconscious forces in the context of dream analysis. Introducing the id, the superego, and their problem child, the ego, Freud advanced scientific understanding of the mind immeasurably by exposing motivations normally invisible to our consciousness. While there's no question that his own biases and neuroses influenced his observations, the details are less important than the paradigm shift as a whole. After Freud, our interior lives became richer and vastly more mysterious.
These mysteries clearly bothered him--he went to great (often absurd) lengths to explain dream imagery in terms of childhood sexual trauma, a component of his theory jettisoned mid-century, though now popular among recovered-memory therapists. His dispassionate analyses of his own dreams are excellent studies for cognitive scientists wishing to learn how to sacrifice their vanities for the cause of learning. Freud said of the work contained in The Interpretation of Dreams, "Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once in a lifetime." One would have to feel quite fortunate to shake the world even once. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
Freud's Revolutionary Theory
This ground-breaking work, which Freud considered his most valuable, forever changed the way we think.
Now, in this definitive and bestselling translation by James Strachey, Freud's timeless exploration of the unconscious through the dream world is clearly and precisely rendered. Including dozens of case histories and detailed analyses of actual dreams, The Interpretation of Dreams remains an invaluable tool in helping us all discover the truth about ourselves.
Download Description
In this book Sigmund Freud has attempted to expound the methods and results of dream-interpretation; and in so doing he does not think he overstepped the boundary of neuro-pathological science. For the dream proves on psychological investigation to be the first of a series of abnormal psychic formations, a series whose succeeding members-the hysterical phobias, the obsessions, the delusions- must, for practical reasons, claim the attention of the physician. Please Note: This book has been reformatted to be easy to read in true text, not scanned images that can sometimes be difficult to decipher. The Microsoft eBook has a contents page linked to the chapter headings for easy navigation. The Adobe eBook has bookmarks at chapter headings and is printable up to two full copies per year. Both versions are text searchable.
Customer Reviews:
Don't buy NuVision Edition.......2007-09-04
I just got my 2007 edition copy of "Interpretation of Dreams" in the mail so I haven't had a chance to read it. So this rating is only on the particular edition that is published by NuVision. They did not include an index or any information about who translated this version. Also, the table of contents is nearly worthless; no detail what-so-ever about the chapters, not even titles of the chapters, just Chapter 1 etc. and a page number. Even though you may think a newer publication is better, this one is much much worse and more expensive. Go with the 1980 publication. I'm returning the book to Amazon (who gets 5 stars for customer service!)
Plenty of facts and a wrong theory.......2007-05-19
Freud's book must be read by anyone who studies dreams, because it contains about 220 dreams and valuable information about the dreamers' life experiences related to their dreams. But, his wish fulfillment theory of dreams is definitely wrong both concerning its origin and its consequences, as explained below.
Freud began to interpret his patients' spontaneously reported dreams by likening them to daydreams and psychotic hallucinations. Everyone knows that daydreams are produced for fulfilling wishes in an imaginary way, and psychologists know that most psychotic hallucinations constitute imaginary fulfillments of wishes frustrated in the waking state. But, likening waking-state products to sleep-state products does not look realistic, because the waking state is a time for fulfilling wishes, whereas the sleep state is known to realize resting and self-restoration rather than realizing new successes and gains. So, Freud's first step in dream interpretation was most probably wrong.
Nevertheless Freud became convinced that dreams meant wish fulfillments because of two dreams that he misinterpreted, as explained below.
Pepi's dream: Medical student Pepi H. was late to wake up one morning, and the landlady called through the door: "Wake up, Herr Pepi! It's time to go to the hospital!" He dreamed that he was lying in bed in a room in the hospital, and there was a card over the bed on which was written: "Pepi H., medical student, age 22." He went on sleeping, thinking that he was already in the hospital.
It is evident that Pepi had, in the disabling state of half-sleep, the incompatible wishes of staying in bed and going to the hospital. Both of these wishes were fulfilled by the image of him in bed in the hospital. This cannot be considered a true dream because of several reasons: (1) Pepi was in a state between sleep and wakefulness; (2) both of his wishes belonged to the waking state instead of being activated in the sleep state; (3) his two wishes frustrated each other; and (4) therefore the image of him in bed in the hospital, which fulfilled both of his wishes in an imaginary way, looks more like a psychotic hallucination than a true dream.
On the other hand, the image of the card on the bed, which was apparently produced after he fell asleep, can be considered a true dream element seeking to terminate the failure to go to the hospital by conveying the following message: "You are not a patient, and you are not a child; you are a medical student of age 22! So, get up and do what you have to do!" The last part of this message was only implied.
We see that, after baselessly likening dreams to psychotic hallucinations, Freud had the bad luck of encountering a mental product that was half hallucination and half dream and took it for a true dream. Below is a dream that is similar to Pepi's dream.
A man who had been driving all night was desperately trying to stay awake and to keep the car on the road, or rather to keep the road in front of the car, as he later remembered. The car jolted twice with no apparent reason, and he woke up in a cornfield. We understand that the image of the road in front of the car had become a hallucination caused by the wish and the failure to keep the road in front of the car in the disabling state of half-sleep. It is also possible that this hallucination was then replaced by a "sleep-preserving" dream when sleep prevailed. Thus, a hallucination was produced in the state of half-sleep and was then transformed into a dream when sleep took over, just like it happened to Pepi.
Freud's dream "Irma's injection" (Freud 1900). This dream of Freud's about a hysterical patient of his gave to him the final conviction that dreams meant wish fulfillments. He had it 9 months before he delivered his lecture The Etiology of Hysteria, in which he exposed his seduction theory of hysteria, according to which this disorder is caused by sexual abuse suffered in childhood. This means that the thoughts expressed in this dream were produced in conformity with the seduction theory. But when he published the interpretation of this dream in his book on dreams, he had already switched to the fantasy theory of hysteria, which said that this disorder was caused by repressed unacceptable fantasies, or wishes, of sexual nature. Thus, the dream's thoughts were based on the seduction theory of hysteria, whereas its interpretation presented by Feud in his book was based on the fantasy theory. But despite this discrepancy, Freud produced an interpretation that is correct to a great extent. He misinterpreted only the part of the dream that explained the cause of hysteria and the part that said that hysteria was incurable, as shown below.
The dream is about Freud's failure to cure his patient Irma. Many psychologists believe that Irma represented Freud's patient Emma Eckstein and others like her, whom he had failed to cure. Freud recognized correctly the subject of the dream as the presentation of several causes of his failure to cure Irma. For example, Irma did not cooperate with Freud and did not believe his interpretations, which must have been based on the seduction theory, and physicians ignorant of hysteria influenced the therapy negatively. Freud interpreted these parts of the dream correctly, including even the part that accused Freud of believing a physician's wrong diagnosis without examining the patient himself. He had to say, "the material was, one might say, impartial." We can say that the dream expressed the truth, as it was known to the dreamer, as Jung believed. The accusations directed to the physicians were realistic external attributions of Freud's failure. Freud interpreted them as "revenge on other doctors" and "derision of physicians who are ignorant of hysteria." The dream accused physicians of ignoring that hysteria was caused by sexual abuse, as explained below, whereas Freud implied that they ignored its cause explained by the fantasy theory.
The dream explained the cause of her illness as sexual violation and declared that it was incurable because it was impossible to undo the violation. This is the part that Freud misinterpreted, knowingly or by mistake, which in reality carried the following message: "Physicians thought that hysteria could be cured by physical, physiological intervention, but this is absurd, because hysteria is caused by sexual violation which cannot be undone. You all directly know that your colleague who was staying with her gave her an injection. Injections of that sort should not be made so thoughtlessly. That was a dirty injection, and you know very well what it was." The negative idea that hysteria could not be cured by physical/physiological intervention is expressed in the dream through an absurdity (this being one of the means of expressing negative ideas in dreams): Someone suggested in the dream that dysentery would intervene and Irma would be cured. This absurd thought exposed the physicians' ignorance, but also the fact that sexual violation could not be undone and therefore hysteria could not be cured. This dream shows clearly why Freud chose to lie about the cause of hysteria and switched from the seduction theory to the fantasy theory of it. Evidently, he had thought that the only means of curing hysterical patients was to deny that the sexual abuse had happened. That was the only means of "undoing" the abuse which was said by his dream to be impossible.
Freud's overall interpretation of the dream was that it "represented a particular state of affairs as I should have wished it to be. Thus its content was the fulfillment of a wish and its motive was a wish." So, Freud became convinced that dreams meant wish fulfillments by summarizing the meaning of Irma's dream taking into consideration only what he liked in the dream and ignoring, for example, the accusations directed to him by the dream and the fact the dream said that the real cause of hysteria was being sexually abused.
Freud's final belief about the meaning of dreams is this: "A dream is a (disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed or repressed) wish."
One of the arguments that Freud used to support his wish fulfillment theory was that the mind could do nothing but fulfilling wishes, and because realistic wish fulfillment was impossible during the sleep state, it was done in the form of perception. This argument is obviously wrong, because the mind does plenty of preparatory work before it can actually fulfill a wish, and much of such work can be non-pleasurable. Ignoring these facts, Freud interpreted everything in a dream as an actual wish fulfillment, as exemplified by his misinterpretation of his Irma dream, which presented, for example, several non-pleasurable causes of his failure to cure Irma. I have shown elsewhere that a complete dream contains three types of thought (expressed in Freud's terminology): the frustration of a wish, the causes of the frustration, and the means of fulfilling it. Irma dream was about Freud's failure to cure her but did not present a means of fulfilling it and said instead that curing her was impossible, this being his honest opinion.
Freud's idea of the disguised fulfillment of suppressed or repressed wishes had one more source. He wrote in his letter of January 3, 1899 to Fliess: "I now understand why in spite of all my efforts I have not yet finished the dream book . . . . I shall be able to present the psychic process in dreams in such a way that it also includes the process in the formation of hysterical symptoms." How Freud "discovered" that psychic process is explained below.
Freud's friend Fliess claimed that hysteria could be cured by a surgical operation performed on the nose of the patient. Freud believed him, and Fliess performed an operation on Emma's nose on February 20, 1895. On March 6, 1895, a second operation was performed by another friend of Freud, and half-a-meter of gauze was removed from Emma's nose. The gauze had been accidentally left in by Fliess and had caused excessive bleeding that had nearly killed her. Nose-bleeding continued even after the second operation and was probably a consequence of the two operations. But Freud wrote to Fliess about Emma on May 4, 1896: "She became restless during the night because of an unconscious wish to entice me to go there, and since I did not come, she renewed the bleeding, as an unfailing means of rearousing my affection." And he wrote to him on February 19, 1899: "It is not only dreams that are fulfillments of wishes, but hysterical attacks as well. This is true of hysterical symptoms, but it probably applies to every product of neurosis."
We see that Freud's wish fulfillment theory of dreams and symptoms was a consequence of baseless generalizations, misinterpretations of some dreams, invalid arguments, and the wrong and wishful interpretation of a physiological phenomenon. Thus, Freud's theory is untenable as far as its origin is concerned. It is equally without proof concerning its consequences, as explained below.
Freud believed that every event that a dreamer could associate with the images of his or her dream in the waking state was part of the meaning of the dream. And he interpreted all that material as wish fulfillment by using devices such as displacement, inversion, and other types of disguising to make the dream fit his theory. It is evident that any event can be interpreted in any way one wishes by using such devices. Even this procedure shows that Fred's theory is wrong.
Freud's theory is refuted also by the difficulty he experienced in explaining the emergence of anxiety in dreams and his total failure to interpret the so-called "incest dreams." He wrote in a footnote added to a later edition of his book on dreams that anxiety was experienced in dreams by consciousness when an unacceptable wish was fulfilled without being sufficiently disguised. But if this were true, "incest dreams" interpreted as wish fulfillments would be dreams of highest anxiety, which is not the case. They are found revolting in the waking state by being interpreted wrongly as wish fulfillments. I explained elsewhere that "incest dreams" mean that sex partners must intimately know, love, and respect each other. The wish fulfillment theory has not been useful in psychotherapy either.
However, to repeat, Freud's book must be read by anyone who studies dreams, because it contains about 220 dreams and valuable information about the dreamers' life experiences related to their dreams. The book also contains some of Freud's own dreams, of which the correct interpretations tell much about his life experiences and the true geneses of his theories. Moreover, the book exposes the importance of unconscious thinking, although Freud misinterpreted the contents of the unconscious and the aims of its products, as I further explained elsewhere.
Cognitive-Behavioral Cybernetics of Symptoms, Dreams, Lateralization: Theory, Interpretation, Therapy
Theory Construction and Testing in Physics and Psychology
Dreams = Wish Fulfillment .......2006-03-19
Freud's thesis, The Interpretation of Dreams, can be summed up as follows - all dreams are the mind's subconscious effort at wish fulfillment. For some dreams this is obvious - if you eat salty foods before going to bed, you may then dream that you are drinking water. This is a simple example of you wanting something and your subconscious trying to fulfill that wish. For most dreams, quite a bit more analysis is required to undercover what exactly you are wishing for, and Freud dedicates the bulk of his book to giving examples of such analysis. Freud argues that dreams are distorted because the upper layer of the mind is trying to censor what the lower layers of the mind are wishing for - usually out of embarrassment, guilt, etc. For example, I may be envious of my friend's success, so I will dream that my friend fails, but I am also embarrassed at wishing ill will on my friend, so the dream is distorted - perhaps the activity that he fails at will be obscure, twisted, strange, etc. Freud also makes the point that all dreams have their trigger in the preceding day's events, and once triggered the dream has access to all the experiences a person has gathered during his lifetime, as long as the experiences can be linked back somehow to the trigger event. Since the mind thinks in terms of symbols, the dreams must by analyzed by trying to understand how the various symbols can be translated into wishes, or the suppression of wishes. Thus the inner layers of the mind, or the Ego (prime desires), will generate a basic wish based on the experiences of the previous day. The Super Ego (refined sense of culture, guilt, morality, consciousness, etc.) then regulates the Ego's basic wish to fit within the mind's framework of right and wrong behavior. The greater the conflict between the Ego and Super Ego, the more distorted the dream becomes. All dreams are wish fulfillment, without exception.
Freud successfully makes his point within the first 75 pages of the book - the remaining 400 pages are a dry, archaic, tiresome, and in my opinion are not worth the time to read. Much of the book is dedicated to analysis of the dreams of either Freud or Freud's patients. Since Freud lived in early twentieth century Germany, the dreams described are anachronisms and for the most part are irrelevant. Also, I think a lot of meaning is lost in the translation from German to English.
Bottom line, Freud successfully explains the fundamental truth on dreams, put this pioneering analysis is archaic and difficult to read by today's standards. For the layman, I would look for something more current.
an outstanding read that delivers esteemed perceptivity to t.......2005-05-03
My version of this book has a translation by Joyce Crick (ISBN 0192823523). She gives an insightful introduction to Freud that is well referenced. However, her style is absolutely monotonous and was far more difficult to complete than Freud's writing which was to follow. What Crick has done well with this version is that she has retained certain significant or vague tests in German (original) with their translations as parentheses, footnotes, or explantory notes. She has also added value to the version with an extensive package of explanatory notes after Freud's work. In addition, her translation of Freud's work "captures the lightness and pace of Freud's style, freed from the jargon and Victorian elaborations of James Strachey's famous version."
On Freud's work itself, The Interpretation of Dreams was a revoluationary paper of its time, discussing for the first time, concepts such as the Oedipus complex and the practice of psychoanalysis. Freud explores his personal life with this paper, enriching the reader with his self-analyses. However, I felt he over did the case studies, presenting several examples of a single concept, which was for me perhaps a little long-winded and tiring to read, especially if his first examples were good ones, and presented the concept/s acutely.
The pace of the paper picks up at the start of each new concept and tends to wind down and even drag at the middle or end portions. Towards the end however, his pace dramatically picks up (and no, it's not a placebo effect), as he summarises and pulls all his concepts together in an attempt to hold on to the reader and deliver his final call to action. Overall this is an outstanding read that delivers esteemed perceptivity to the faculty of psychoanalysis, how we perceive and interpret the arts and literature, and on the variety of complex languages with which we do so. However, be prepared for an intense read, but remain assured that upon completion of this work, you will be duly facinated, inspired, and impelled to re-examine your psyche.
Classic contribution to psychoanalytic theory.......2005-02-02
Although Freud's ideas and psychoanalytic theory haven't fared that well in recent decades (Jung's views and reputation have actually done much better), there is no doubt that Freud's ideas were a major contribution to the understanding of human behavior and the mind and remain at least historically important today. Although perhaps superceded by the cognitive and neurobiological approaches that have developed in the last few decades, Freud was still a brilliant thinker who changed our undestanding of the mind for the better.
For example, although his idea of the ego, super-ego, and id are now being supplanted by more physiological explanations (the limbic system of the brain being a very good analog to the id), nevertheless, basically what Freud was saying was that a shaping process goes on during early childhood that results in the formation of relatively enduring personality characteristics. There is no doubt that this developmental idea still has validity to this very day.
However, while I certainly respect and admire many of the early psychologists, and they were great pioneers in many ways, and some of their ideas are still important, nevertheless, a lot of what they said has to be taken now with a considerable grain of salt, and the area of dream interpretation is one them. It doesn't mean that dreams are completely valueless, but they're of much less significance than has been claimed in the past. The most serious critique of the psycholanalytic (and others) view of dreams comes from recent research into the brain and neurobiology. The problem is that dreams are really not what people think at all most of the time--which is some sort of cyptic but profound message from the unconscious mind.
For example, consider the question of why most dreams seem to consist of collections or sequences of difficult to interpret images, thoughts, and memories that seem to be combined or strung together in a not very logical and difficult to interpret fashion. The reason why, contrary to the popular belief that this reflects some profound and not easily discernible meaning, is that the order really is almost random, or is governed by very weak associational processes. The reason why this is, and why most dreams seem so puzzling and difficult to understand is that when you go to sleep, the memory areas of the brain located in the temporal cortex become more active through a process known as corticocipedal disinhibition, allowing memories, images, and thoughts to flood into consciousness willy-nilly. This is prevented or inhibited during normal waking, otherwise the flood of thoughts and images would interfere with normal memory retrieval and thinking processes.
This is a little off the subject, but one area of pseudo or quasi-scientific theory and speculation that has been getting a lot of attention lately (and shows how much more sophisticated the more fantastically oriented or perhaps "mystically" oriented types in psychology are getting) is the idea that the brain is a "quantum computer" and uses quantum mechanical and even multi-dimensional spatial capabilities to do its work. At least one world-famous physicist and mathematician, Roger Penrose, has suggested it himself. (I critique Penrose's proposal on this in my Amazon review of his book, The Large, The Small, and the Human Brain).
However, although a fascinating idea, there is still no real evidence that this is in fact the case. Neurobiologists have drawn analogies between devices like SQIDs (super-conducting quantum interference devices) and nerve cells, but this is reaching a bit.
One main problem for me would be the noise factor. There is already a huge amount of random noise in the firings of nerves in the human brain and quantum mechanisms are far below the level of this noise. The brain seems to ignore the high noise level just fine and to operate pretty well despite it and so I don't see how quantum effects which would be far more subtle would have much of an effect.
The other main problem is that the brain typically shows a huge amount of integration and convergence in its mechanisms, and phenomena at the level of quantum effects would probably just get lost in the overall convergence process or even the resting level of noise. Another way to think about it is how likely quantum effects are to manifest themselves at the molecular level, let alone the cellular level or the level of a neural circuit or the entire brain.
So until there's some real evidence, I remain sceptical, and this is probably another "mystical" idea that will probably go the way of all the others.
But anyway, getting back to the present book, that little digression was really by way of pointing out that unscientific speculation has been rife in psychology from its birth in the mid-19th century with thinkers such as Rudolph Lotze, Paul Brentano, Wilhelm Wundt, Johann Fechner, Hartmann and the Scottish faculty psychologists, Janet, Freud and the other psychoanalytic theorists, and many others. It's just getting harder for the layman to recognize this sort of thing when he sees it since their ideas are more and more taking on the language of physics and engineering and neurobiology. But that doesn't mean it's not the same old unfounded speculation and mystical nonsense.
Customer Reviews:
Open door on psychoanalysis.......2007-07-26
If you, like me, are curious and fascinated about psychology and psychoanalysis, have confusedly heard some bits & pieces about Freud and his weird but intriguing ideas, and think that it has finally come the time when you want to find out what it's all about, this book will serve you as a gentle and effective introduction. You will gain an historical perspective of the main theories and school of thoughts, with enough material to get you started and further stimulate your curiosity, avoiding overwhelming details. Of course to really appreciate psychology and psychoanalysis you eventually have to read the main authors directly... as this discipline is not clear cut like mathematics or computer science, and the interpretation and relative weights given to the original ideas can play a major role. But you have to start somewhere, you need to have a bird's view of the discipline so that you find your orientation and decide where to go digging for more. This book serves exactly this purpose, with a synthesis of Freud's views, and an exposition of the derivation of his theories . the psychology of the ego, the Psychology of the Self, and Freudian revisionism. Alongside this historical development some case studies are presented, a nice addition to help keep the discussion on practical and realistic terms. As a minor criticism to this book, I wish there cases had been discussed in more depth. Also, you cannot help getting the impression that , like in philosophy, psychology is a field where bs is standard practice, there are no experiments like in physics and biology that can disprove the impostors. As a general rule, avoid the most convoluted and obscure authors. Freud might be weird, he might be wrong, but at least he was very clear about his ideas. Almost invariably, here and elsewhere, complexity is just a cover for emptiness.
Historical foundation.......2006-01-30
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone wanting a historical perspective of the development of psychoanalytic theory. This book takes you through different offsprings of psychoanalysis beginning with Freud's contribution. It also offers a comparison of each new theory with classic Freudian psychoanalytic thought so you have an idea of which aspects were further developed and which ones were "trashed." It's a good foundational book for anyone beginning an interest in psychoanalysis.
"and Beyond" could have been a good read...........2005-12-15
This could have been a valuable reference. The front cover lists 39 names, some well known, others so obscure as to invite interests to learn more. Try to find these 39 when opening the book. Only in the Index. At least two pages, as chapters, should have provided insight into the thoughts of these 39 names who appeared under the caption, "A History of Modern Psychoanalytic Throught." However, Chapter headings only cover Freud, Sullivan, Klein, Fairbairn/Winnicott, Erikson/Kohut, and Kernberg/Schafer/Loewald/Lacan--and that's it. Eleven theorists.
Toward the end of the book, the last two chapters appear to be the mission of the book--Controversies. Two pages are devoted to why the authors think homosexuality is normal. Uh-huh! They emotionally vent against the psychoanalytic view that includes binding mothers and detached fathers. They grouse over psychoanalytic notions of homosexuality as a "pathological defensive, phobic retreat from castration fears" and renounce employing a "directive/suggestive" approach to treatment. The authors cite at least one well-known activist by only calling him a "contemporary author."
While Chapter 8, Controversies in theory notes that "Freud regarded sexual orientation as largely constitutional" (p223), the reader must flip to the "Notes" section (p263) to read, "Freud termed homosexuality a perversion, because he considered only heterosexual genital intercourse to be the 'normal' sexual organization. In the Freudian lexicon, perversions are pregenital fixations caused either by constitution (an overabundance of one or another component drive) or conflict."
The authors have an agenda to discredit theory and call it "expansion" and "transformation" hoping to convert readers to their own way of thinking. In perusing earlier reviews of this book, they appear somewhat successful. You might ask, are the authors simply preaching to the choir, or have these reviewers not thought through the material in order to provide credible opinion? As far as this book being required reading for a doctoral class in Psychodynamic Theory, as one reviewer states, I would hope that expectations of a critical read would accompany such a requirement. Some of the reviewers appear to be thirsting for knowledge...any knowledge concerning psychoanalytic theory and will drink from the first cup available, without question.
The book's authors, by using vague phases such as "In many cases" to denote Freudian thought to which they disagree, offer no examples to support their attack and leave the reader guessing. Basic Books is a reputable publisher. The reader deserves better. I bought this book but returned it after a selective skimming through its contents. Finding that the mission of transformation is a failure, the reader will only note that it accedes to political motivation of coveted views.
Pschoanalysis in Layman's terms.......2005-08-28
Very good book for someone who is just learning about pschoanalysis. Good examples of clinical application and a very common sense approach to psychology. A much easier read than other texts such as The Freud Reader. Good stuff.
Excellent introduction.......2004-09-16
This book is very well written. An excellent introduction to the topic, if you are a guy like me, who had been thru psychoanalisys but really didn't understand what the foundations of the process were. The author explains that there are many different theories and kinds of psychoanalisys, not only one (freud), like most of us think. Even though the subject is hard and complex, the author makes it easy to understand with his fluent prose.
Book Description
In 1923, in this volume, Freud worked out important implications of the structural theory of mind that he had first set forth three years earlier in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The Ego and the Id ranks high among the works of Freud's later years. The heart of his concern is the ego, which he sees battling with three forces: the id, the super-ego, and the outside world.
Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey. Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.
Newly designed in a uniform format, each new paperback in the Standard Edition opens with a biographical essay on Freud's life and work—along with a note on the individual volume—by Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History at Yale.
Customer Reviews:
The Ego and the Id.......2007-09-06
The book was delivered to me complete and in the condition that it was sold to me in. I would recommend and use this seller for future transactions.
Understand the self.......2007-04-01
This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. In 1923, Freud introduced new terms in his book "The Ego and the Id," to describe the division between the conscious and unconscious: 'id,' 'ego,' and 'super-ego.' He thought these terms offered a more compelling description of the dynamic relations between the conscious and the unconscious. The "id" (fully unconscious) contains the drives and those things repressed by consciousness; the "ego" (mostly conscious) deals with external reality; and the "super ego" (partly conscious) is the conscience or the internal moral judge.
The id is the source of our drives and Freud considered it to be the reservoir of libido. 'The libido' or simply 'libido', is the form of energy cathected upon objects or an effect received from objects, predominantly sexual, which underlies all mental processes. Our drives (Freud had very theoretically specific "-drives" such as the death-drive, but drives can often be equated to 'instincts') surge forth from the id and apply libidinal energy to objects, which may result in aggressive or erotic attachments/actions upon chosen objects. The drives of the id are considered to be inborn, operating within the primary psychical processes (those of the unconscious) and are absolutely determined according to the pleasure principle. It is said that the id behaves as though it were unconscious, the reason thought to be is that our ego and our super-ego's ideals and pressures are often in conflict with the id's, causing repression, as the gratification of the id's drives would often be devastating in terms of social- and self-image. The word "id" is taken from the nominative single neuter Latin demonstrative pronoun (is, ea, id) meaning "it" or "that thing."
In Freud's theory, the ego mediates among the id, the super-ego and the external world. Its task is to find a balance between primitive drives, morals, and reality while satisfying the id and superego. Its main concern is with the individual's safety and allows some of the id's desires to be expressed, but only when consequences of these actions are marginal. Ego defense mechanisms are often used by the ego when id behavior conflicts with reality and either society's morals, norms, and taboos or the individual's expectations as a result of the internalization of these morals, norms, and taboos. Although in his early writings Freud equated the ego with the sense of self, he later began to portray it more as a set of psychic functions such as reality-testing, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory. The word ego is taken directly from Latin where it is the nominative of the first person singular personal pronoun and is translated as "I myself" to express emphasis. Ego is the English translation for Freud's German term "Das Ich."
Freud's theory says that the super-ego is a symbolic internalization of the father figure and cultural regulations. The super-ego tends to stand in opposition to the desires of the id because of their conflicting objectives, and is aggressive towards the ego. The super-ego acts as the conscience, maintaining our sense of morality and the prohibition of taboos. Its formation takes place during the dissolution of the Oedipus complex and is formed by an identification with and internalization of the father figure after the little boy cannot successfully hold the mother as a love-object out of fear of castration. "The super-ego retains the character of the father, while the more powerful the Oedipus complex was and the more rapidly it succumbed to repression (under the influence of authority, religious teaching, schooling and reading), the stricter will be the domination of the super-ego over the ego later on -- in the form of conscience or perhaps of an unconscious sense of guilt" (The Ego and the Id, 1923). In Sigmund Freud's work Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) he also discusses the concept of a "cultural super-ego". The concept of super-ego and the Oedipus complex is subject to criticism for its sexism. Women, who are considered to be already castrated, do not identify with the father, and therefore form a weak super-ego, apparently leaving them susceptible to immorality and sexual identity complications.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy.
Why we call him Freud.......2006-08-18
I started reading this again and I can't believe how fresh and relevant Freud remains. The text is clear and considering how much the world has changed it remains as useful as it always has been. I suppose that it is not an accident that his writings are the foundation of an entire discipline.
One of Freud's major models .......2005-01-11
This work presents one of Freud's major theoretical models for understanding human personality. The three- fold division into ego- id- super-ego in some sense parallels the three fold division in Plato's thought. For Freud the Id is the unconscious instinctual animal element in us. It is our ' drives our hungers our lusts, our sexual lust centrally. The ego is the social self, the construct with which we meet the world. It is our rational self, our self as we present ourselves to the world through. The superego is the conscience, the what we should be. For Freud it is the voice of others, and especially of our parents telling and teaching us the difference between right and wrong. As Freud understood these three aspects of self are in constant interaction, and the kind of personality we are is determined by which of these faculties is predominant.
It is possible to regard this theory as insight and useful and draw conclusions from it.Or it is possible to simply put it aside as one more human construction aimed at understanding what must be understood in many different ways.
The book is small but not easy to read. A great mind is at work making order out of the minds of all of us. Whether he succeeds for you , you alone must judge.
i would give this classic a 4.5..........2004-08-26
reading Freud is a must for anyone who is interested in psychology or "psycho-analysis." He is the founding father for modern psychology and "psycho-analysis" and has become a household name. He has made many other contributions: he coined the famous terms, ego, id, super-ego, "psycho-analysis," unconscious, Oedipus Complex, reaction-formation, identification, free association, object-cathesis, etc. Although he is known to be extremely hard to understand I did not find this is so. This book does have a complex terminology but if you bookmark this page for the other reviewers great work on defining and getting at what Freud really means by the terms ego, id, and super-ego (ego-ideal) and do active reading (taking notes on the margins, underlining, and that type of stuff) its not as hard as everyone thinks. Take into account though, that Freud homophobic, sexist, anti-semetic, and was alive before many of the modern technological advances were made so brain study was unthinkable back then, and psychology was mainly sexual or childhood development theories used to explain parts of the brain and consciousness. Although Freud was wrong about alot of things and his method of free association was great for most of his patients (who volunteered to be studied by Freud) it takes too much time for people who dont want to be analyzed or who have trouble talking about their feelings. Even so, this is a great book and a must read plus its incredibly short. You also as someone else suggested might want to draw a new model of the brain since freud's one in this book does not include a lot of important details, check the new lectures book for an improved one.
Customer Reviews:
a brilliant synthesis.......2007-01-15
Stephen Mitchell was one of the original group of analysts who began to differentiate (along with Jay Greenberg) between drive/defense models of the self (e.g., Freud) and relational models. In this book Mitchell applies the relational perspective to several areas of clinical concern, including sexuality, childhood development, narcissism, and theories of change and healing. I recommend this book in the Theories of Depth Psychology graduate courses I teach; it is clear and refreshing and brings analytic thought a new and vitalizing emphasis on image, metaphor, story, and other aspects of the weave of relations we all remain in even when alone.
most influential book in psychoanalysis I've read.......2004-11-18
I know people say this all the time, but I cannot recommend this book enough. As a developing clinician, this book has given me a tremendous advantage in conceptualizing cases. Mitchell draws on the best of the best in psychoanalysis and presents a very clear, convincing, and amazingly helpful integration.
Impressively clear and careful.......2000-06-27
This book is one of the most clear, careful, and rigorous contemporary psychoanalytic theoretical texts around. Mitchell writes with the logic and incisiveness of an analytic philosopher or logician. Although one might wish his depictions of specific clinical examples were a bit more textured and colorful, the theoretical arguments here are some of the best and most clearly stated around. I hope that more contemporary psychoanalytic theorists will become able to achieve this level of theoretical clarity and rigor.
Customer Reviews:
Analysis of Freud's Book of Psychoanalysis.......2007-09-21
Freud, surprisingly, does a fine job in explicating the basic ideas behind Psychoanalysis. Unlike other texts which can use pretty complicated and verbose language, Freud (and the editors) used clear and easy to read syntax. I recommend this book for any looking to get a basic understanding of Psychoanalysis or to further enhance an undergraduate or graduate class.
Freud was interesting, but troubled..........2006-11-04
Frued was an interesting figure in history but a very troubled individual. He theorized based on his own feelings and beliefs about things (i.e. - Oedipus Complex, a son wants to kill his father and marry his mother) and also made a lot of generalizations from a handful of case studies of equally troubled individuals. When held up to scientific scrutiny, Freud is little more than an interesting appearance on Jerry Springer. He was addicted to cocaine, smoked dozens of cigars a day, and in the end took his own life. He should be surplanted as "the Father of Psychology" by B.F. Skinner or possibly Watson. They have done much more to make Psychology a science.
A study on human behavior.......2003-01-03
I would do great injustice if I attempt to provide my thoughts on the works of Sigmund Freud. I admit my knowledge in this area is shallow and limited; and I took this read more out of curiosity than a scientific study. With this said I would ask you to bear with me in the following paragraphs and at the same time suggest taking this read with a caution that undertaking this read requires immense patience.
The ego has the task for self-preservation; it performs that task by becoming aware of the stimuli, by storing up experiences about them in the memory. It handles it by avoiding strong stimuli, by dealing with moderate stimuli and finally by learning to bring about expedient changes in the external world to its own advantages. It performs that task by gaining control over the demands of the instincts, by deciding whether they are to be allowed satisfaction, by postponing the satisfaction to times and circumstances favorable to the external world or by suppressing their excitation entirely. It is in this activity that tensions are produced by the stimuli. The raising and lowering of these tensions cause unpleasure and pleasure. It is probable however that what is felt as pleasure or unpleasure is not the absolute heights and lows but something in the rhythm of the changes in them. The ego strives after pleasure and seeks to avoid unpleasure. An increase in unpleasure which is unexpected is met by a signal of anxiety.
In contrast to ego; the id expresses the true purpose of the individual organisms life. This consists for the satisfaction of its innate needs. No such purpose as keeping itself alive or protecting itself from dangers by means of anxiety can be attributed to the id. That is the task of the ego to figure out the most favorable and the least perilous method of obtaining satisfaction; which entails taking the external world into account. The forces which hide behind the tensions caused by the needs of the id are called instincts. Freud proposed the existence of two basic instinct Eros and destructive instinct. The aim of the first is to establish greater unities and to preserve them thus in short to bind them together. The aim of the second is to undo connections and to destroy things. Modifications in the proportions of the fusion between the two instincts have the most opposite result. A surplus of sexual aggressiveness will turn a lover into a sex murderer, while a sharp diminution in the aggressive factor will make him bashful or impotent.
excellent resource...........2000-05-28
well-organized and well-written; very compact and filled with formulations useful to a comprehension of some of Freud's core concepts.
This book was informormative and well written.......1999-05-04
I found that this book was on a higher level than most of Freud's literary pieces. Though many of the same information is presented here, it is presented in a wholey different manner, and a much more understandable one. I personaly find this a fairly good source of reference. Though one can not rely completely on anyone of Freud's ideas; they give good background to new ones.
Average customer rating:
- Repetition is bequeathed; the legacy repeated...
- The first time is still best
- Hungry Hungry Hippos
- A book which can only be read among *other* books.
- A book which can only be read among *other* books.
|
The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond
Jacques Derrida
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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ASIN: 0226143228 |
Book Description
17 November 1979
You were reading a somewhat retro loveletter, the last in history. But you have not yet received it. Yes, its lack or excess of address prepares it to fall into all hands: a post card, an open letter in which the secret appears, but indecipherably.
What does a post card want to say to you? On what conditions is it possible? Its destination traverses you, you no longer know who you are. At the very instant when from its address it interpellates, you, uniquely you, instead of reaching you it divides you or sets you aside, occasionally overlooks you. And you love and you do not love, it makes of you what you wish, it takes you, it leaves you, it gives you.
On the other side of the card, look, a proposition is made to you, S and p, Socrates and plato. For once the former seems to write, and with his other hand he is even scratching. But what is Plato doing with his outstretched finger in his back? While you occupy yourself with turning it around in every direction, it is the picture that turns you around like a letter, in advance it deciphers you, it preoccupies space, it procures your words and gestures, all the bodies that you believe you invent in order to determine its outline. You find yourself, you, yourself, on its path.
The thick support of the card, a book heavy and light, is also the specter of this scene, the analysis between Socrates and Plato, on the program of several others. Like the soothsayer, a "fortune-telling book" watches over and speculates on that-which-must-happen, on what it indeed might mean to happen, to arrive, to have to happen or arrive, to let or to make happen or arrive, to destine, to address, to send, to legate, to inherit, etc., if it all still signifies, between here and there, the near and the far, da und fort, the one or the other.
You situate the subject of the book: between the posts and the analytic movement, the pleasure principle and the history of telecommunications, the post card and the purloined letter, in a word the transference from Socrates to Freud, and beyond. This satire of epistolary literature had to be farci, stuffed with addresses, postal codes, crypted missives, anonymous letters, all of it confided to so many modes, genres, and tones. In it I also abuse dates, signatures, titles or references, language itself.
J. D.
"With The Post Card, as with Glas, Derrida appears more as writer than as philosopher. Or we could say that here, in what is in part a mock epistolary novel (the long section is called "Envois," roughly, "dispatches" ), he stages his writing more overtly than in the scholarly works. . . . The Post Card also contains a series of self-reflective essays, largely focused on Freud, in which Derrida is beautifully lucid and direct."—Alexander Gelley, Library Journal
Customer Reviews:
Repetition is bequeathed; the legacy repeated..........2007-02-13
Contrary to the reviews thus far reported in regards to this "work in the traditions of Finnegans Wake," i would reccomend reading this book to all who are interested in Derrida's philosophy of ethics. Herein we may find ephemerally expounded glimpses at Postmodernism's notions of continuity and of the legacy of ideas: a gift which we neccessarely both receive and reinscribe - "What is tragic is not the possibility but the neccessity of repetition" (Writing and Difference). Many Derrida readers have shied away from this text because of its disparate and fragmented stuttering...Don't if you have patience to listen read this treasure. It is a pastiche, a montage and a rebus. An exquisite rendition on tradition and inheritance, on presence and absence. A reminder to never stop giving and giving and giving because the most ethical one can be is through the dissemination of ideas, the transformation of the recurring within which each becomes a relative of all and none. Finnegans Wake approximates the same themes with Vico's philosophy of history as an addendum. By the way Vico was an avid reader of the Cabbala...Only Walter Benjamin can better inspire the re-visions that we need for a tragic becoming tragic. This book is extremely personal and one of Richard Rorty's favorites I might add...he was not very fond of the early Derrida...Rorty understands Derrida as only Caputo and Bennington have...This is our modern day Novalis, we may dream of dreaming our dreams!
The first time is still best.......2003-06-01
It took me a long time to crack the Derrida nut. But when I did, I did it with this book. Thus it will always be my favorite philosophical novel by Derrida. When I finished this book I picked up Badiou's book on Deleuze and he said I got everything right, only he said it better than I would have.
So far, all the other readers seem to have missed the point. First, this book is not about anything so feminine and smacking of vulgar Christianity as love and cushy feelings. Derrida says it's a poison pen letter. It's about hate. It may be "between lovers," but it's published for the whole world to admire and appraise, a radically different context than the relationship of husband and wife. Which the careful Derrida-phile will note was handled very carefully, almost cynically, in the Derrida "documentary." (Has there ever been a greater and more hilarious take on oral sex?)
One wag commented that the book is only good for beach-reading. But that misses the serious side of Derrida, which is also the point. Rhetoric can be philosophy. Derrida is one hundred percent hilarious. But he's always pushing the philosophical envelope with his puns. To resort to a distinction that has a pragmatic value even though it utterly lacks any philosophical foundation, the use-mention distinction, when Derrida uses the word 'this,' he also means _that_. (Why does the use-mention distinction make no sense? Because when you say 'horse,' a _horse_ comes out of your mouth. As per Wittgenstein and the Stoics.) It's up to us lesser mortals to tease out the strands and levels until we can produce something as thoroughly competent. And simultaneously beautiful and ugly. Like orgasm.
Which brings us to Lacan. Some say he's a charlatan. And you have to be suspicious of anyone who declares that they're not interested in truth, but falsity. But when the postmodernists say this what they mean is that the truth, which can potentially be known, is in being aware that you actually don't know. The idea goes back to Plato and his early Socratic dialogues. Stated like that, it isn't too far from Kant, who also believed that we can't actually know much, other than that there are stars above and some sort of moral rules within. (Nobody has ever agreed with him on his rules, including his great heir John Rawls.) Derrida doesn't differ much from Lacan. He abandons Oedipus for the same reasons as Deleuze (it's a self-fulfilling prophecy and alienated from real life). But the argument on the postal system only looks different from Lacan's account because Derrida says it is. That he got Lacan to agree with him says something about Derrida's prestige, so there must be something there. (Though Lacan's submission looks suspiciously like he doesn't submit--republishing the Ecrits in an edited down version where the offensive passages have been actively forgotten.) But when Lacan says that a letter always gets to its destination he means that it always misses its destination, because the person it's intended for is going to sometime pass away. ("The living is a species of the dead." Nietzsche.) Which is also Derrida's point. I haven't read Derrida's latest writings on Lacan but apparently there's a whole lot of a rapprochement. In his interviews with Roudinescu, A Quoi Demain, he considers his style to be Lacanian and a lot of his conclusions to be similarly disposed.
Here's hoping the most consistently amusing of the post-Heideggerians remains a liberal individualist. Though it's probably going to be tough for him, given that the Straussists of the Whitehouse talk a similar talk and walk a similar walk. ("Jewgreek is Greekjew.") I believe the fact that Derrida is explicitly against the death penalty is the deciding difference. QED.
Hungry Hungry Hippos.......2002-12-10
I like this book better than the game hungry hungry hippos. Catch all the marbles as fast as you can, beat your opponents with a slight of the hand!
A book which can only be read among *other* books........2000-12-27
Derrida has stated that one of the main purposes of his decontructive readings, writing, and ruthless re-contextualization of various philosophical ideas is to minimize the "violence" of various philosophical practices- those ways of speaking, writing, which silently privilege various terms, and ideas and, perhaps unknowingly repress others. Given the other "esoteric" reviews here, its my duty to minimize the "violence" for those people who really want to know about the book, and not about namedropping, three lines of praise.
The Postcard is a "collection" of various love-letters, supposedly burned in a fire, which has left pieces of text missing. Derrida has also included a few essays which he believes continues the analysis begun in the loveletters [envois]. The content of the loveletters covers a broad range of philosophical and personal questions - from philosophy of language - to the relation b/w Socrates and Plato - to personal encounters in (I suppose) Derrida's life as a philosopher. But the over all effect of this - this "re-contextualization" or in other words, this casting of philosophical questions in a format not usually considered "serious" -> love letters... the profundity, the importance, the dissemination of the questions take on a wholly different feel and effect. The feel and effect, of course, is hard to describe, but it is a way of playing with "philosophical sensibilities" -- what is "real" philosophy? What is "serious" philosophy? And what is the meaning of such questions in the most private of all communications - love letters between two intimate lovers.
Of course, in typical Derridean style, he puns, and jokes his way, throwing punchlines out of every page. The envois are not an easy read. They can be tough, and confusing, especially with the 'missing text" which link ideas. The other essays included in The Postcard are equally a tough read, with a very interesting, but treacherous deconstruction of Lacan's analysis of Poe's "The Purloined Letter".
The Postcard can only be understood as continuation of previously examined (Of Grammatology), argued (Limited Inc.), and illustrated (Glas) philosophical strategies employed by Derrida. And yes, Richard Rorty (an american post-enlightenment philosopher) totally misses the boat on this one. While, i believe Derrida is attempting to "play" with various aspects of the philosophical tradition (Derrida is by far the funniest philosopher, since, Nietzsche), The Postcard is merely an new way of asserting those same ideas Derrida laid out in Limited Inc and other books, that conceptual meaning is not fixed but disseminated and deferred [differance] to all possible contextual usages and instantiations.
I know, this is merely one small aspect of Derrida's enterprise. But it is, I believe, the main purpose of The Postcard: to see how the meaning of philosophical questions regarding language, history, and the sequence of events, take on new meanings in the context of lost love lettes-- the same way a Post Card, which never reaches its destination-- takes on new meanings for the unintended third reader.
A book which can only be read among *other* books........2000-12-27
Derrida has stated that one of the main purposes of his decontructive readings, writing, and ruthless re-contextualization of various philosophical ideas is to minimize the "violence" of various philosophical practices- those ways of speaking, writing, which silently privilege various terms, and ideas and, perhaps unknowingly repress others. Given the other "esoteric" reviews here, its my duty to minimize the "violence" for those people who really want to know about the book, and not about namedropping, three lines of praise.
The Postcard is a "collection" of various love-letters, supposedly burned in a fire, which has left pieces of text missing. Derrida has also included a few essays which he believes continues the analysis begun in the loveletters [envois]. The content of the loveletters covers a broad range of philosophical and personal questions - from philosophy of language - to the relation b/w Socrates and Plato - to personal encounters in (I suppose) Derrida's life as a philosopher. But the over all effect of this - this "re-contextualization" or in other words, this casting of philosophical questions in a format not usually considered "serious" -> love letters... the profundity, the importance, the dissemination of the questions take on a wholly different feel and effect. The feel and effect, of course, is hard to describe, but it is a way of playing with "philosophical sensibilities" -- what is "real" philosophy? What is "serious" philosophy? And what is the meaning of such questions in the most private of all communications - love letters between two intimate lovers.
Of course, in typical Derridean style, he puns, and jokes his way, throwing punchlines out of every page. The envois are not an easy read. They can be tough, and confusing, especially with the 'missing text" which link ideas. The other essays included in The Postcard are equally a tough read, with a very interesting, but treacherous deconstruction of Lacan's analysis of Poe's "The Purloined Letter".
The Postcard can only be understood as continuation of previously examined (Of Grammatology), argued (Limited Inc.), and illustrated (Glas) philosophical strategies employed by Derrida. And yes, Richard Rorty (an american post-enlightenment philosopher) totally misses the boat on this one. While, i believe Derrida is attempting to "play" with various aspects of the philosophical tradition (Derrida is by far the funniest philosopher, since, Nietzsche), The Postcard is merely an new way of asserting those same ideas Derrida laid out in Limited Inc and other books, that conceptual meaning is not fixed but disseminated and deferred [differance] to all possible contextual usages and instantiations.
I know, this is merely one small aspect of Derrida's enterprise. But it is, I believe, the main purpose of The Postcard: to see how the meaning of philosophical questions regarding language, history, and the sequence of events, take on new meanings in the context of lost love lettes-- the same way a Post Card, which never reaches its destination-- takes on new meanings for the unintended third reader.
Book Description
The cornerstone of psychoanalysis-and legacy of the landmark Freud/Breuer collaboration-featuring the classic case of Anna O. and the evolution of the cathartic method, in the definitive Strachey translation. Re-packaged for the contemporary audience with what promises to be an unconventional foreword by Irvin Yalom, the novelist and psychiatrist who imagined Breuer in When Nietzsche Wept.
Customer Reviews:
an inferior translation.......2006-01-11
There is a version available at Amazon translated by Nicola Luckhurst. It is excellent, although almost any version would be preferable to Strachey's mechanistic translations of Freud's work.
STUDIES IN HYSTERIA is a seminal study for both psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. It was written by Freud and Breuer. A long-standing but unfounded lie first told by Freud and passed on by Ernest Jones blames Breuer for abandoning "Anna O"--Bertha Pappenheim, the first analytic patient--because he couldn't handle her falling for him, but in truth he treated her long after the supposed cure he reports here. A case could be made for Breuer and Pappenheim being the actual originators of psychotherapy as a modern healing method.
The hidden drives beneath hysteria.......2001-01-28
A fascinating book that explores the hidden factors behind anxiety, written when Freud was still studying his first hysterical patients that became famous in the psychoanalytic literature. The collaboration with Breur was actually sealed with this book, but ironically it was also the end of their friendship. Apart from the psychoanalytic concepts, the reader can really enjoy the five case studies included in "Study on hysteria". Only one case study was written by Breur and this goes to show that Freud really wanted to go deep into the unconscious whereas Breur after the first patient didn't go any further; basically because he would have had to confront himself with the patient's sexual drives as well as his instincts. This is a very stimulating book that allows the reader to appreciate the kind of female patients affected by hysteria before the 20th century, that were not understood by most psychiatrists. Freud menaged to understand why the repression of the sexual instinct led to a neurosis.
Customer Reviews:
Freud, the Underappreciated Orginator of Psychotherapy.......2005-04-12
Sigmund Freud was the first clinical psychotherapist, the first to discover and investigate the possibilities of "a talking cure". His contributions have made possible effective psychotherapeutic treatments for ailments encompassing not only acute psychological symptoms, such as traumatic, dissociative, phobic, depressive, and conversion disorders. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is also the treatment of choice for broader personality difficulties which often give rise to more generalized problems in living, for example, difficulties in love relationships, self-esteem, and work achievement.
To summarize briefly Freud's views on how psychotherapy works is a daunting task. His psychoanalytic writings spanned some forty-three years, from 1895 to 1938, and fill twenty-three hefty volumes. As the first to enter this clinical and theoretical territory, he had nearly to invent de novo a model of the human mind. Based on observations from both in and outside the clinical setting, his model would include psychological development from earliest infancy, how one eventually arrives, or fails to arrive, at a relatively stable personality structure. Moreover, the Freudian model accounts for the human potential for resumed growth and change throughtout life. Psychoanalysis also seeks to understand the continuous process of mental function from moment to moment, as might be observed through intropsection or in a session of psychotherapy.
Freud recognized that psychological life intrinsically is inseparable from relations with other people, "object relations", starting with an infant's relations to its mother, later continuing with the child's relations to both his parents and siblings, and ultimately to the wider surrounding community. We can fairly say that Freud, in his discovery and description of transference and countertransference in the therapeutic relationship, saw a "relational perspective" as essential to understanding the process of psychotherapy. Nevertheless, his clinical and theoretical work remained primarily focused on the inner life of the patient. From his fundamental model of the human mind and psychological life, he saw implications for broader human concerns, regarding morality, law, politics, the arts, culture, and society, as also explored for example in literature, religion, and philosophy .
Most noteworthy about Freud's thought, in fact, is its evolution. Extraordinarily able to acknowledge his own errors and uncertainties, Freud saw, in the early 1920's, that his original formulations under "the topographic theory" had become a cul de sac, blocking further progress. Unable to account for certain anomolous phenomena, such as his discoveries of unconscious guilt and unconscious ego functions, he was able and willing himself to undertake the necessary, revolutionary shift in thought, leading from the topographic to what has become known as "the structural theory".
Almost all schools of psychotherapy today, including those that see themselves as being opposed to Freudianism, in fact derive from psychoanalysis, as branches derive from a common root.
Samuel T. Goldberg, M.D.
A review of Peter Gay's "The Freud Reader".......2000-11-19
It is fair to say that "The Freud Reader" is the Freudian Bible...perfect for beginners and still useful for the scholarly. This book is perfect for those of us who have never studied Freud at a tertiary level. It supplies the reader with the relevant background information on the life of Freud in an objective but interesting manner.
The Freud Snoozer.......2000-01-24
Warning: This book causes extreme drowsiness. Do not read while operating motorized vehicles, batheing or cooking. Do not mix with alcohol.
just a perfect book perfect for the beginner.......1998-08-14
Followers of Freud across the world should be greatful to Mr Gay for compiling such an enormous and elaborate volume on Sigmund Freud. I have not come across any book on Frued which is so comprehensive yet does not seem to drag on about trivial details. It is like having a converstaion with Freud, perhaps even better because you can skip and chose the subject at will. The book gives a complete run down on all the major and some minor works of Freud, some in the form of lectures for the novice while others are for beginners. It has something for every body. While not many will agree with Freud's prognosis on Da Vinci, Nabokov, Michealangelo etc., we should consider ourselves fortunate enought that soemone offered to traverse through the thought processes of these geniuses and tried to split open their hidden personalities. Until we find a better explanation of what drives humans towards homo sexuality or why success leads people towards melancholy and why do we get recurring dreams about failure or flight fanatasy, Sigmund Freud shall continue to occupy the mantle which is fit only for a 20th century prophet. To bring his work to light in an accessible form, we owe gratitude to Mr Gay
Average customer rating:
- a spotty but valuable supplement to the general introduction
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New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 039300743X |
Customer Reviews:
a spotty but valuable supplement to the general introduction.......2005-03-09
In these seven lectures, written in 1932, Freud supplements the "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis" (also called the General Introduction to Psychoanalysis) delivered in 1915-17, with additions and amendments to his theory developed through the 1920s.
The lectures contain a clear, concise presentation of some of Freud's later theory (the super-ego, eros/thanatos, trauma). They also contain some of his most dubious constructs (the castration complex, penis-envy), and a bizzare treatment of female sexuality and super-ego formation that will seem sexist to the modern reader, if not outright misogynist. Sadly, the most controversial of these concepts are not illustrated with the kinds of clinical examples that readers of Freud will have come to expect, relish, and rely on, and thus are very difficult to come to grips with.
The remainder of the work is a rather cursory attack on various disciples and rivals, and an attempt to place psychoanalytic theory within a scientific worldview in contraposition to religion and Marxism, as well as a suprisingly credulous treatment of the occult.
For the educated layperson seeking a general familiarity with Freud, I would recommend beginning with the Introductory Lectures, and then cherrypicking lectures 31 and 32 of this work for a synopsis of later developments in the theory.
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