Reading Freud

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.

Specialists from a wide range of areas - from the history of medicine, to literary scholarship, to the history of classical scholarship - spent two months working on questions raised by Freud's reading and his library at the Freud Museum in London. Such internationally renowned scholars as Harold P. Blum, Ned Lukacher, Phillip McCaffrey, Robin N. Mitchell-Boyask, Michael Molnar, Ursula Reidel-Schrewe, Ritchie Robertson, and Peter L. Rudnytsky gather here to apply a wide range of critical approaches, from depth psychoanalysis to cultural analysis. Together, they present a detailed look at the implications of how and what Freud read, including the major sources he used for his work.

In this engaging introduction, Josh Cohen argues that Freud shows above all that any thought, word or action, however apparently trivial, can invite close reading. Indeed, it may be just this insight that provokes so much opposition to psychoanalysis. By reading short extracts from across Freud's work, addressing the neuroses, the unconscious, words, death and (of course) sex, How to Read Freud brings out the paradoxical core of psychoanalytic thinking: that our innermost truths only ever manifest themselves as distortions. Read attentively, our dreams, errors, jokes and symptoms - in short, our everyday lives - reveal us as masters of disguise, as unrecognizable to ourselves as to others.

Here are the essential ideas of psychoanalytic theory, including Freud's explanations of such concepts as the Id, Ego and Super-Ego, the Death Instinct and Pleasure Principle, along with classic case studies like that of the Wolf Man. Adam Phillips's marvellous selection provides an ideal overview of Freud's thought in all its extraordinary ambition and variety. Psychoanalysis may be known as the 'talking cure', yet it is also and profoundly, a way of reading. Here we can see Freud's writings as readings and listenings, deciphering the secrets of the mind, finding words for desires that have never found expression. Much more than this, however, The Penguin Freud Reader presents a compelling reading of life as we experience it today, and a way in to the work of one of the most haunting writers of the modern age.

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

Winner of the 2021 ABAPsa Book Prize Award! What would the story of analysis look like if it were told through the eyes of the analysand? How would the patient write and present the analytic experience? How would the narrative as written by the analysand differ from the analytic narrative commonly offered by the analyst? What do the actual analytic narratives written by Freud’s patients look like? This book aims to confront these intriguing questions with an innovative reading of memoirs by Freud’s patients. These patients—including Sergei Pankejeff, known as the Wolf Man; the poet H. D.; and the American psychoanalyst Abram Kardiner—all came to Vienna specially to meet Freud and embark with him on the intimate and thrilling journey of deciphering the unconscious and unravelling the secrets of the psyche. A broad psychoanalytic and literary-historical reading of their memoirs is offered in this new entry to the popular Routledge History of Psychoanalysis Series, with the purpose of presenting the analysands' narratives as they themselves recounted them. This makes it possible to re-examine the links among psychoanalysis, literature, and translation and sheds new light on the complex challenge of coming to know oneself through the encounter with otherness. This book is unique in its focus on multiple memoirs by patients of Freud and presents a fresh, even startling, close-up look at psychoanalysis as a clinical practice and as a rigorous discourse and offers a new vision of Freud’s strengths and, at times, defects. It will be of considerable interest to scholars of psychoanalysis and intellectual history, as well as those with a wider interest in literature and memoir.

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

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