<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: very useful collection....
Review: ....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.
Rating:
Summary: very useful collection....
Review: ....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.
Rating: 
Summary: Review of Freud by an electrical engineer
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Review of Freud by a cognitive behavioralist
Review: Freud was doubtlessly a seminal thinker who shaped the way 20th century man saw himself and his relationship with the world. Together with Marx and Darwin, Freud created the modern worldview that only recently has begun to crack. These books, then, are a great introduction to Freud's thought. Freud's thought, however, is what concerns us. It's safe to say, in 2002, that Freud was wrong about virtually everything. Not only were his theories and methods ineffective in treating mental illness, they actually made many illnesses worse. Due to the prevalence of Psychoanalytic assumptions in popular culture, people with biologically-based mental diseases such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Tourette's, Schizophrenia, and Bipolarity are treated as weaklings who can't control their emotions rather than as sick people deserving compassion and medical care. All progress in Psychiatry since Freud's day has pointed to the biological basis of mental illness - which is far more sensible than thinking that your entire outlook on life is determined by potty training accidents. Not only has Psychoanalysis failed people with severe mental disorders, it has put some people in great danger. Psychoanalysts "prep" people with severe Body Dismorphic Disorder to undergo sex change operations rather than curing their BDD. Psychoanalysts teach sick people to blame their parents and strain family relationships rather than addressing the neurological roots of their conditions. It is high time for all therapists using Freudian methods and theories to be deprived insurance compensation and expert standing in legal courts. Freud, Marx, and Darwin deserve to be studied together because all shared a common approach: they promoted unverifiable theories that could be used to predict any possible behavior or outcome, and therefore were really only cleverly posed tautologies without real insight or substance. Consider: a patient goes into a Psychotherapist's office complaining of hypochondria. The therapist asks, "How's your relationship with your family?" The hypochondriac says, "My father was a bit of a jerk." Viola - the patient's disease obsession is explained as repressed childhood angst. But MOST people's fathers are jerks, at least part of the time. There is absolutely no proof, merely the arrangement of events in chronological order. The same is true of Darwinism, which talks of "evolution" without really giving us any insight into what rules really govern the creation of life (why was the alligator fit to survive? Because he was the most fit, of course!), and Marxism, which explains any state of affairs as the result of "class struggle" regardless of whatever the situation is. For most of the 20th century, the West's intellectual culture was bogged down in clever word play. It's no wonder the arts, philosophy, ethics, and literature have ceased to offer insight into the human condition. I blame Freud and co.!
Rating:
Summary: Review of Freud by a cognitive behavioralist
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: This is a great deal.
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: "Reader" from Boston
Review: The reader from Boston, while on the money on Freud and Marx, doesn't have a clue as to Darwin. Considering the impact of Darwin on modern biology and related sciences, especially after the evolutionary synthesis, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
Rating:
Summary: Basic Writings of Freud by Brill
Review: 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.
<< 1 >>
|
