Freud's Thinking
An Introduction

A step-by-step explanation of Freud's psychoanalysis by a leading Freud scholar.

Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen (Author), Katy Masuga (Translated by)

9781009371131, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 October 2023

188 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

'This volume will interest students and scholars of psychoanalysis as well as historians of thought. Recommended.' R. H. Balsam, CHOICE

In this brief but comprehensive introduction to Freud's theories, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen provides a step-by-step overview of his ideas regarding the unconscious, the cure, sexuality, drives, and culture, highlighting their indebtedness to contemporary neurophysiological and biological assumptions. The picture of Freud that emerges is very different from that of the fact-finding scientist he claimed to be. Bold conceptual innovations – repression, infantile sexuality, the Oedipus complex, narcissism, the death drive – were not discoveries made by Freud, but speculative constructs placed on clinical material to satisfy the requirements of the general theory of the mind and culture that he was building. Freud's Thinking provides a final accounting of this mirage of the mind that was psychoanalysis.

Introduction
1. The unconscious
2. The analytic cure
3. Sexuality
4. Drives
5. Culture
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Psychology [JM]