Basic Psychoanalytic Concepts On Metapsychology Conflicts Anxiety And Other Subjects

Originally published in 1970 and in contrast to the previous three volumes, which each dealt with a single subject, this volume is a miscellaneous one. Seventeen subjects were selected on the basis of their relevance for the understanding both of psychoanalytic theory and of human behaviour in general. In this volume the reader can follow the development of Freud’s theories regarding important subjects such as Fixation, Regression, Cathexis, Conflicts, Anxiety, Ambivalence, Reality Testing, Transference and Counter- Transference. Some of these subjects were chosen because of the many misconceptions and misunderstandings that surrounded them. As in previous volumes, the development of each concept is described from its conception to Freud’s final formulation and detailed references are given for the guidance of the student, the psychoanalyst, the psychiatrist, the social worker, the psychologist and the general reader.

This 4-volume set, originally published between 1969 and 1970, traces the basic psychoanalytic concepts evolved by Freud. Each volume takes a single theme in Freud’s thought and gives a concise but exhaustive account of the historical development of the concepts relating to it. Whenever there is any change in formulation or amplification, the change and Freud’s reasons for it are clearly noted. Out of print for some time, it is now available again both as a set and individual volumes. In order to present his thought most clearly and graphically, Freud’s own words have been used, and references are always given to the appropriate volumes of the standard edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, and to Freud’s letters and other writings. This enables the reader to pursue any subject of special interest in a minimum of time – a possibility that will prove of enormous help to students, teachers, lecturers, research workers and seminar leaders alike. The preparation of these volumes involved the active collaboration of fifteen psychoanalysts and child psychotherapists from the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic (now the Anna Freud Centre). Organized in the form of a study group under the chairmanship of Dr Humberto Nagera , they worked intensively on the project for six years before completing these four volumes. Usually it will take a student several years of intense reading to become conversant with these basic concepts let alone to master and integrate them fully. Dr Nagera and his colleagues aimed at making this task lighter.

In clear language and with an extraordinary depth of scholarship, Dreher describes the history of psychoanalytic research and dissects the structure of empirical and conceptual research endeavours.

Sigmund Freud evolved his theories throughout his lifetime. This entailed many revisions and changes which he himself never tried to standardise rigidly into a definitive conceptual system. The need for some sort of a reliable guide which would spell out both the pattern of the evolution of Freud’s thinking, as well as establish its inherent logic, was felt for a long time by both scholars and students of psychoanalysis. Drs Laplanche and Pontalis of the Association Psychanalytique de France succeeded admirably in providing a dictionary of Freud’s concepts which is more than a compilation of mere definitions. After many years of creative and industrious research, they were able to give an authentic account of the evolution of each concept with pertinent supporting texts from Freud’s own writing (in the Standard Edition translation), and thus have endowed us with an instrument for work and research which is characterised by its thoroughness, exactitude and lack of prejudice towards dogma. The Language of Psychoanalysis is an established classic that will long continue to be of invaluable use to both the student and the research-worker in psychoanalysis.

This volume heralds the appearance, for the first time in many years, of a totally new document by Sigmund Freud. It is the draft of a lost metapsychological paper, one of twelve essays written during World War I at the peak of the master's powers. Freud intended to publish all twelve in book form, under the title Preliminaries to a Metapsychology, and thereby set out the theoretical foundations of psychoanalysis. Scholars have long lamented the disappearance without a trace of seven of these important essays. Only in 1983 did Ilse Grubrich-Simitis happen upon this draft, in Freud's handwriting, in an old trunk containing papers and documents of his Hungarian collaborator Sándor Ferenczi. With the help of a brief letter Freud had written on the back of the last page, she soon realized that the manuscript she had found was the draft of the final paper in the series. That draft is published here in facsimile, together with a transcription in German of the facsimile and the English translation. In the first part of the draft, which is written in a kind of shorthand, Freud contrasts the three classic transference neuroses: anxiety hysteria, conversion hysteria, and obsessional neurosis. In the second part, which is written in complete sentences, Freud undertakes a daringly speculative "phylogenetic fantasy" He explores whether the debilitating illnesses of the neurotic and the psychotic today might have originated long ago as adaptive responses of the entire species to threatening environmental changes or to traumatic events in the prehistory of mankind. In the draft "Fantasy" Freud modifies and expands the line of reasoning he began in Totem and Taboo (1912-13) after an intensely productive exchange with Ferenczi about Lamarckian concepts, making this recovered draft of major significance to students not only of psychoanalysis but also of the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences. Ilse Grubrich-Simitis has contributed a detailed essay, setting the overview in the context of Freud's life, his work, and his historical and scientific prominence. She quotes from relevant letters of Freud and Ferenczi, some published here for the first time.

First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.