On Freud S Formulations On The Two Principles Of Mental Functioning

This book is a collection of papers by leading contemporary psychoanalysts who comment on the continuing important relevance of Freud's (1911) paper, Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning. The contributors gathered here represent current European, Latin American, and North American perspectives that elaborate the continuing value of Two Principles for present-day psychoanalytic thinking. Each author examines Freud's paper through a personal lens that is coloured by the psychoanalytic culture from which he or she comes. In each instance, the writers' chapters demonstrate the heuristic value of Two Principles for twenty-first century psychoanalytic theory and technique. A common thread that runs through all the chapters is the view that this brief paper by Freud, which he humbly introduced by stating, "The deficiencies of this short paper, which is preparatory rather than expository ...", is a masterpiece that contains within it the seeds of much of his later writing. The distinction he draws between the pleasure principle and the reality principle are profound and raise questions that still preoccupy analysis today. A central concern of many of this book's papers has to do with those factors that account for the emergence of the reality principle in early mental life. Freud only pays lip service to the role of the infant's object relations, especially to its mother, in the evolution of the capacity to know and tolerate reality, which represents a vital adaptation yet paradoxically also exposes the individual to the painful emotional realities that are part of the human condition.

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

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

'There is no doubt that "phantasy" or "unconscious phantasy", as it started to be used in the English translation of Freud's work in the late 1920s and 1930s to differentiate it from "fantasy", is one of the most important theoretical and clinical concepts of psychoanalysis.'- Riccardo Steiner, from the IntroductionIn this outstanding new collection, the vital concept of unconscious phantasy is debated and examined by such luminaries as Joseph and Anne-Marie Sandler, Jean Laplanche, J-B Pontalis, Susan Isaacs and Hanna Segal. Sigmund Freud's seminal paper Formulations of the Two Principles of Mental Functioning heads an impressive collection and provides a welcome reminder of the beginnings of this theory. The inherent difficulties in translating Freud's work have contributed to the conflicting interpretations that are so illustrated so well in the following articles. By collecting together such diverse opinions of Freudians, Kleinians, Lacanians and Neuroscientists on unconscious phantasy, Riccardo Steiner has created a fresh and compelling elucidation of this fascinating subject.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.