Sigmund Freud

Rating:
Summary: Freud's Analytic System of the Mind
Review: Richard Wollheim has made a contribution to the way one can come to understand the life and writings of Sigmund Freud that may go on for years as being unsurpassed. The preface alone is worth the price of the book. It is true that Wollheim does not address the issues Bettleheim does in _Freud and Man's Soul_. Rather, he remains specific to his project, which appears to address solely Freud's views, their emergence, development, alterations, and even their incompleteness in certain cases, as comprising a system of the mind.

Wollheim reinforces the stronger feeling, that it is in the original writings that kernals of brilliance and understanding are to be found. He applauds the Standard Edition. The bibilography he provides, for the most part, appears to circumscribe the issues more commonly sought for by readers of Freud who relish in, and ascribe, mis-interpretations and construals that more or less support the avoidance of the very issues Freud was most concerned with.

In perhaps a way that is his most valuable contribution, Wollheim reveals the personality and disposition of Freud in a manner that is totally convincing: that Freud's works are for the most part either ignored, falsely attacked, or misunderstood. Further, Wollheim shows that throughout Freud's lifeÑmore particularly demonstrated by the way he continued his life until its endÑof how his life is a paradigmatic demonstration of consistently rewarding labor and of irrefutable courage.

Wollheim causes one to appreciate Freud even further, in that while being almost continually challenged, ignored, and even despised, Freud fought to reveal for us the hidden pathways of the mind. It is in virture of this effort and bequeathal, that being Freud's corpus, his literary genius, a quest for a knowledge of the truth, and his intention to be able to skillfully lead and guide us through our defenses and our darkened fears, that we are able to gain and accept a deeper understanding of ourselves and of others. It is this that consists of Freud's heroic legacy.

Rating:
Summary: Freud's Analytic System of the Mind
Review: Richard Wollheim has made a contribution to the way one can come to understand the life and writings of Sigmund Freud that may go on for years as being unsurpassed. The preface alone is worth the price of the book. It is true that Wollheim does not address the issues Bettleheim does in _Freud and Man's Soul_. Rather, he remains specific to his project, which appears to address solely Freud's views, their emergence, development, alterations, and even their incompleteness in certain cases, as comprising a system of the mind.

Wollheim reinforces the stronger feeling, that it is in the original writings that kernals of brilliance and understanding are to be found. He applauds the Standard Edition. The bibilography he provides, for the most part, appears to circumscribe the issues more commonly sought for by readers of Freud who relish in, and ascribe, mis-interpretations and construals that more or less support the avoidance of the very issues Freud was most concerned with.

In perhaps a way that is his most valuable contribution, Wollheim reveals the personality and disposition of Freud in a manner that is totally convincing: that Freud's works are for the most part either ignored, falsely attacked, or misunderstood. Further, Wollheim shows that throughout Freud's lifeÑmore particularly demonstrated by the way he continued his life until its endÑof how his life is a paradigmatic demonstration of consistently rewarding labor and of irrefutable courage.

Wollheim causes one to appreciate Freud even further, in that while being almost continually challenged, ignored, and even despised, Freud fought to reveal for us the hidden pathways of the mind. It is in virture of this effort and bequeathal, that being Freud's corpus, his literary genius, a quest for a knowledge of the truth, and his intention to be able to skillfully lead and guide us through our defenses and our darkened fears, that we are able to gain and accept a deeper understanding of ourselves and of others. It is this that consists of Freud's heroic legacy.