Customer Reviews

The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (Psychopathology of Everyday Life, the Interpretation of Dreams, and Three Contributions To the Theory of Sex)

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This is an excellent work for Freud enthusiasts. The work discusses the theoretical underpinnings for behavioral characteristics popularized by Freud. For instance, the proclivity to forget is related to a personal motivation to
suppress unpleasant memories. Dreams tend to depict unfulfilled wishes. Pain and disgust are more frequent aspects of dreams than pure pleasure. The author explains how childhood experiences both good and bad may resurface in our dreams. Our memory can be challenged to recall things long dormant. Night hallucinations can be due to perceived rejected sexual impulses.
Freud explains how seemingly contradictory thoughts can coexist side by side. The concept of psychological tension may be related to a displeasure or aversion. Freud discussed sexuality.
For instance, he noted that bisexual tendencies could be interpreted within the context of a female brain in a male body.
The book brings out many aspects of human behavior that we rarely dwell on consciously. It is perfect for a class project in
science, psychology or medicine. Freud's theories tend to be very
complex. This work reduces some of the deepest complexities to
simple English.Finally, the book helps us to understand the dynamics of why we behave as we do. This book explains important strategies to the classic flight/fight phenomena and accomodative
strategies aimed at reducing behavioral tensions/conflicts.

....of some of Freud's basic writings. Included here are writings from THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE, THREE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEORY OF SEX, WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS, TOTEM AND TABOO, THE HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT. Also included is a fine introduction by translator A. A. Brill, who explains that the selections are intended to give the reader a feel for Freud's thought, especially with regard to wit, dreams, and the unconscious.

The Brill translation of the basic early writings of Sigmund Freud, although arguably not the most accurate translation, provides a good introduction to Freud's early work. We can read the critics and followers, yet sometimes we just have to go back to Freud's actual work. I keep my copy handy for reference and review.

Hey, I bought this book for reference. BUT, if you have never understood 'Hamlet', buy this and all will become clear. For the price, one of the great mysteries of life made clear. What more could one ask? Enjoy!

Frued's approach to sex and psychoanalytic interpretations are legendary and changed the culture we live in. They tend to be Id-based theories, but interesting nevertheless. Freud's "principles" like libidinous sexual urges that operate without benefit of developmental growth a' la Erik Erikson, permeate modern thinking and language ("the Freudian slip") even though they fell out of favor to some more modern interpreters like Carl Jung, Eric Erickson, and Object Relations experts like Donald Winnicott. But Freud is ALWAYS interesting. If you'd like some lighter Freudian reading, you might try Freud's Revenge. It's a mystery by a modern Freudian psychotherapist. Plenty of Id, Ego, and Superego angst to keep you going at night! --PJ Adams

This book was a hard read BUT it was written by one of the best there is. It is packed with all the information one will need for research on Freud and his beliefs. It is an excellent book to have, especially if you are a psychology major.

Book was in perfect condition, arrived in a timely manner, and was exactly what I wanted!

My favorite part of the book is the fourth major topic, "Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious." The jokes might seem a bit stale. My printing of this book is copyright 1938, and comparison of its index with the online version of pages shown indicates that the newer version is not quite the same number of pages, but the book itself is the same as the original. For people who have trouble remembering psychological concepts or intellectual approaches to anything, but who never forget a joke, Freud's ability to keep referring to the same joke in different contexts offers an ideal opportunity to see how an expert in a field can intertwine basic concepts with known ideas to create the sensation of intellectual progress. Speaking of experts, the index has 16 entries for Heine, the first of which is merely a footnote on how dreams might work like Heine, who was famous for making the bad poetry of the King of Bavaria (Herr Ludwig?) ridiculous, in THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS. The poem is only in German in the edition I have, so the comment, "He does it by using even worse rhymes," might only be funny for people who know what German sounds like. The final mention of Heine, which might be to a joke that Freud had not told before, is to a verse in which he complained, "until at last the buttons tore from the pants of my patience," in Freud's discussion of the various forms of the comic. You might not appreciate how big this book is until you have read it.

As so many scientifically minded people our behaviourist friend below is quick to condemn literature one could view as decidedly outside the realm science after submitting it to a scientific reading. The great questions of sanity and the pathological must be considered to fall largely outside the domain of science. How one answers these questions have important ethical implications which are often obscured by the blinkers of science. You wish to treat mental illness? I will ask you, then, to what end? And let me suggest that if you attempt to answer that question with an appeal to science you do nothing but shirk from the ethical dimension of the question. Dismissing the question by declaring the answer self evident and therefore not in need of elaboration amounts to the same.

Serious, extensive, criticism can be levied at the scientific treatment of mental illness. For considerations of brevity I raise only the most obvious one: To draw scientific conclusions one needs measurable quantities, and their determination must be anything but scientific since it unfailingly requires a choice, which I maintain, is an ethical one. Cracks can be seen to emerge, if not in the edifice of science itself, atleast then at the junction of science and our human experience, where the question of mental health must unquestionable be located. The answers one gets, and thus the conclusions one draws, depend on the questions asked, and the manner of asking. One is always in the business of putting words to science, engaging thus, as one must, the dimension of the symbolic, which defines us as humans, beings of language. There is value in reading non-scientific literature, not measured with the yardstick of science, but properly misunderstood on its own terms. After Freud, read some Lacan, see the graphs and schemas, and note specifically the conclusion that psychoanalysis is not a science.

While reviewers Ms."Oph" and her "behavorist friend" spar in the ring of modern man's thought, let's take a break while the round card girl walks the ring counter-clockwise for all to see and admire.

Bah; humbug. Freud was a novelist, a writer, a teller of tales. A mythologist, he admits it; sought after it. Dismiss those who dismiss someone that in part formed western man's thought. Despite his human follies, which were certainly no greater or worse than yours or mine, the old man was brillant. He surely has something to offer here.