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The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
Parapraxes, that is to say, everyday errors such as slips of the tongue, forgetting names and misreadings, had a special fascination for Freud, enabling him to extend to normal mental life the discoveries he had first made in connection with neuroses. This book is a comprehensive analysis of such errors and shows a penetrating insight into complex human behaviour, explained in terms readily grasped by the lay mind.
This edition supersedes the Brill translation first published in 1914 and reprinted nineteen times. It was commissioned for the Standard Edition of Freud's works published by the Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. The Brill translation had "modified and substituted some of the author's cases by examples comprehensible to the English-speaking reader." This new version is an exact rendering of the German text, with explanations where linguistic differences occur. It incorporates new material added by Freud to the later German editions and is almost half as long gain as the former English version.
This edition supersedes the Brill translation first published in 1914 and reprinted nineteen times. It was commissioned for the Standard Edition of Freud's works published by the Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. The Brill translation had "modified and substituted some of the author's cases by examples comprehensible to the English-speaking reader." This new version is an exact rendering of the German text, with explanations where linguistic differences occur. It incorporates new material added by Freud to the later German editions and is almost half as long gain as the former English version.
116 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1901
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About the author
Sigmund Freud
4,415 books8,466 followersDr. Sigismund Freud (later changed to Sigmund) was a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, who created an entirely new approach to the understanding of the human personality. He is regarded as one of the most influential—and controversial—minds of the 20th century.
In 1873, Freud began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating, he worked at the Vienna General Hospital. He collaborated with Josef Breuer in treating hysteria by the recall of painful experiences under hypnosis. In 1885, Freud went to Paris as a student of the neurologist Jean Charcot. On his return to Vienna the following year, Freud set up in private practice, specialising in nervous and brain disorders. The same year he married Martha Bernays, with whom he had six children.
Freud developed the theory that humans have an unconscious in which sexual and aggressive impulses are in perpetual conflict for supremacy with the defences against them. In 1897, he began an intensive analysis of himself. In 1900, his major work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was published in which Freud analysed dreams in terms of unconscious desires and experiences.
In 1902, Freud was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a post he held until 1938. Although the medical establishment disagreed with many of his theories, a group of pupils and followers began to gather around Freud. In 1910, the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded with Carl Jung, a close associate of Freud's, as the president. Jung later broke with Freud and developed his own theories.
After World War One, Freud spent less time in clinical observation and concentrated on the application of his theories to history, art, literature and anthropology. In 1923, he published 'The Ego and the Id', which suggested a new structural model of the mind, divided into the 'id, the 'ego' and the 'superego'.
In 1933, the Nazis publicly burnt a number of Freud's books. In 1938, shortly after the Nazis annexed Austria, Freud left Vienna for London with his wife and daughter Anna.
Freud had been diagnosed with cancer of the jaw in 1923, and underwent more than 30 operations. He died of cancer on 23 September 1939.
In 1873, Freud began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating, he worked at the Vienna General Hospital. He collaborated with Josef Breuer in treating hysteria by the recall of painful experiences under hypnosis. In 1885, Freud went to Paris as a student of the neurologist Jean Charcot. On his return to Vienna the following year, Freud set up in private practice, specialising in nervous and brain disorders. The same year he married Martha Bernays, with whom he had six children.
Freud developed the theory that humans have an unconscious in which sexual and aggressive impulses are in perpetual conflict for supremacy with the defences against them. In 1897, he began an intensive analysis of himself. In 1900, his major work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was published in which Freud analysed dreams in terms of unconscious desires and experiences.
In 1902, Freud was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a post he held until 1938. Although the medical establishment disagreed with many of his theories, a group of pupils and followers began to gather around Freud. In 1910, the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded with Carl Jung, a close associate of Freud's, as the president. Jung later broke with Freud and developed his own theories.
After World War One, Freud spent less time in clinical observation and concentrated on the application of his theories to history, art, literature and anthropology. In 1923, he published 'The Ego and the Id', which suggested a new structural model of the mind, divided into the 'id, the 'ego' and the 'superego'.
In 1933, the Nazis publicly burnt a number of Freud's books. In 1938, shortly after the Nazis annexed Austria, Freud left Vienna for London with his wife and daughter Anna.
Freud had been diagnosed with cancer of the jaw in 1923, and underwent more than 30 operations. He died of cancer on 23 September 1939.
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April 26, 2020I felt reading that perhaps the best review would be to simply refer to this picture.
This because Freud in this book is pointing towards a range of everyday phenomena: forgetfulness, slips of the tongue or pen, mis-printings, misreadings, inadvertent actions, and asserting that they are not what they appear. For social reasons we class these things as forgetfulness or accidents, but in some cases, such as the ones Freud describes and explains in this book, there is purpose and meaning.
It was a fun book to read, partly because many of the stories and examples of Freudian slips were funny, and partly because it sparked off reminiscences, many of which like putting the keys to the fire proof safe in my pocket and taking them home over the weekend rather than back in the key cabinet where they belonged would amuse no one other than myself.
One theme of Freud's psychology is how it emerges from his reading of literature in general, but from culture more generally, he is in his writings making explicit what we already subconsciously understand - some of the points he makes are literally proverbial. On the other hand one can see in this grounds for the rejection of Freud, generally because we rely on fictions and lies to get through our daily lives, and professionally one can hear some people shouting beyond the pages that one can't learn about human psychology by reading Shakespeare and Goethe! No! To learn about human psychology one has to put rats in a cage and see if they prefer to drink a morphine solution or sugar water once you give them electric shocks, or take a monkey baby away from its mother and see if it prefers a wire replacement mother from which they get food, or a wire replacement mother covered in towelling when you frighten it!
I felt the text was in many ways a mirror to Freud and perhaps more autobiographical than he (consciously) wanted. It is like other Freud books I have read relentlessly convivial full of friends, colleagues and conversation, this I imagine was the life that Freud wanted to live but as a Jew who had come to the big city as a child from the provinces, who found himself in his development of psychoanalysis outside the mainstream of Viennese professional society, he must have had many lonely years. And since many of the anecdotes are drawn from his own experiences he shares with us evidence of his frustrations, of feeling under valued, slighted, and ignored. There's a sense that he wanted to talk about sex, anti-semitism, money - but that all those topics (and no doubt many others too) were socially unacceptable, and so pop up, corks in water, in curious ways - in Freudian slips.
"Those symptomatic actions that can be observed in almost inexhaustible profusion in both the healthy and the sick deserve our interest for several reasons. They often give the doctor valuable help in finding his way in new or unfamiliar circumstances, and they are extremely revealing to the observer of human nature, sometimes uncovering even more than he wanted to know. Anyone with a good understanding of them must sometimes feel like King Solomon, said in oriental legend to know the language of animals." (p.191) Could it be that Freud describes his own feelings in this passage and those of his circle - we, as students of human nature, can now read a person sometimes before they say a word. This legendary sill of cold reading would have allowed the august Freud to have become a great palm reader or clairvoyant, his words also put me in mind of someone else with remarkably similar skills - Sherlock Holmes. His skills were derived by Conan Doyle from one of his instructors at medical school. Doctors at the turn of the nineteenth century, lacking the tools and technologies that we are used to, had to be far more alert to their patients it seems.
This was a new translation by the late Anthea Bell (famous to me for translations of various Asterix stories) that aimed to avoid the terminology developed for and by English speaking Freudian psychoanalysts, I think this helped to produce a more approachable text.
This because Freud in this book is pointing towards a range of everyday phenomena: forgetfulness, slips of the tongue or pen, mis-printings, misreadings, inadvertent actions, and asserting that they are not what they appear. For social reasons we class these things as forgetfulness or accidents, but in some cases, such as the ones Freud describes and explains in this book, there is purpose and meaning.
It was a fun book to read, partly because many of the stories and examples of Freudian slips were funny, and partly because it sparked off reminiscences, many of which like putting the keys to the fire proof safe in my pocket and taking them home over the weekend rather than back in the key cabinet where they belonged would amuse no one other than myself.
One theme of Freud's psychology is how it emerges from his reading of literature in general, but from culture more generally, he is in his writings making explicit what we already subconsciously understand - some of the points he makes are literally proverbial. On the other hand one can see in this grounds for the rejection of Freud, generally because we rely on fictions and lies to get through our daily lives, and professionally one can hear some people shouting beyond the pages that one can't learn about human psychology by reading Shakespeare and Goethe! No! To learn about human psychology one has to put rats in a cage and see if they prefer to drink a morphine solution or sugar water once you give them electric shocks, or take a monkey baby away from its mother and see if it prefers a wire replacement mother from which they get food, or a wire replacement mother covered in towelling when you frighten it!
I felt the text was in many ways a mirror to Freud and perhaps more autobiographical than he (consciously) wanted. It is like other Freud books I have read relentlessly convivial full of friends, colleagues and conversation, this I imagine was the life that Freud wanted to live but as a Jew who had come to the big city as a child from the provinces, who found himself in his development of psychoanalysis outside the mainstream of Viennese professional society, he must have had many lonely years. And since many of the anecdotes are drawn from his own experiences he shares with us evidence of his frustrations, of feeling under valued, slighted, and ignored. There's a sense that he wanted to talk about sex, anti-semitism, money - but that all those topics (and no doubt many others too) were socially unacceptable, and so pop up, corks in water, in curious ways - in Freudian slips.
"Those symptomatic actions that can be observed in almost inexhaustible profusion in both the healthy and the sick deserve our interest for several reasons. They often give the doctor valuable help in finding his way in new or unfamiliar circumstances, and they are extremely revealing to the observer of human nature, sometimes uncovering even more than he wanted to know. Anyone with a good understanding of them must sometimes feel like King Solomon, said in oriental legend to know the language of animals." (p.191) Could it be that Freud describes his own feelings in this passage and those of his circle - we, as students of human nature, can now read a person sometimes before they say a word. This legendary sill of cold reading would have allowed the august Freud to have become a great palm reader or clairvoyant, his words also put me in mind of someone else with remarkably similar skills - Sherlock Holmes. His skills were derived by Conan Doyle from one of his instructors at medical school. Doctors at the turn of the nineteenth century, lacking the tools and technologies that we are used to, had to be far more alert to their patients it seems.
This was a new translation by the late Anthea Bell (famous to me for translations of various Asterix stories) that aimed to avoid the terminology developed for and by English speaking Freudian psychoanalysts, I think this helped to produce a more approachable text.
December 17, 2025
Freud published "Psychopathology of Everyday Life" quite early in his career. The author details omissions, slips, errors, and blunders that are involuntary but carry an essential hidden meaning. According to Freud, they are all the tip of the iceberg constituted by the set of repressed ideas. Therefore, the patient's work on these anomalies is the best way to discover some representations of his unconscious.
This book is essential on a theoretical level, but for the average reader, it can seem a little tedious.
This book is essential on a theoretical level, but for the average reader, it can seem a little tedious.
June 2, 2008
I learned why I have lost so many umbrellas in my life. Why I try to open my office door with my house key. Now, why should my hats and caps have half-lives of less than a year? Where is that mosquito control association cap I got from the World's Leading Authority? Freud pretty much convinced me that what my grandma told me - "Lost objects go to the Moon" - is not true. Venus, maybe.
January 25, 2024
How to make people really self-conscious when they drop, slip on, miss-spell, forget, are late for, or bump into something.
July 12, 2019
Brilliant and accessible, demonstrating a wide variety of examples and phenomena that are posited by Freud as essentially repressed/unconscious associations coming to the forefront (i.e. the first number that pops into your head isn't really "random", the classic "Freudian slip" [translated as speech-blunder here], when you forget the name of something but "know you'll recognize it when you see it", etc.)
Fundamentally changed my outlook on the psyche and got me into the world of psychoanalysis...
Fundamentally changed my outlook on the psyche and got me into the world of psychoanalysis...
November 22, 2023
3,5☆
Tak interesujące zagadnienie jak pojęcie przypadkowości, a także związane z nim ludzkie pomyłki można było zpsychologizować w znacznie bardziej konstrukcyjnie zasadny i uporządkowany sposób. I tu jest mój główny zarzut do tej książki, bo nie dość, że funkcjonuje bardziej jako zlepek anegdot pobieżnie tłumaczących zjawisko, ta okraszona jest przy tym koślawą i momentami niezrozumiałą podbudową języka (dosłownie i w przenośni, bo język faktycznie stoi tutaj pod wszystkim innym w hierarchii wartości). Ale, żeby nie było, przy dozie skupienia można wyczytać z tych psychopatologicznych dywagacji kilka naprawdę interesujących faktów na temat ludzkiego umysłu. (Czy przekonujących? No cóż, przekonajcie się sami).
Czuję, że kończę naszą nieprzypadkową przygodę z odrobinę powiększonym zapleczem wiedzy i zaspokojoną ciekawością (która przy okazji zweryfikowała znany mi obraz Freuda funkcjonujący w zbiorowej świadomości), ale po tak solidnej dawce literówek i wybijających z rytmu błędów redakcyjnych potrzebuję teraz jakiejś językowej rekompensaty w postaci lepiej zredagowanego tekstu.
Tak interesujące zagadnienie jak pojęcie przypadkowości, a także związane z nim ludzkie pomyłki można było zpsychologizować w znacznie bardziej konstrukcyjnie zasadny i uporządkowany sposób. I tu jest mój główny zarzut do tej książki, bo nie dość, że funkcjonuje bardziej jako zlepek anegdot pobieżnie tłumaczących zjawisko, ta okraszona jest przy tym koślawą i momentami niezrozumiałą podbudową języka (dosłownie i w przenośni, bo język faktycznie stoi tutaj pod wszystkim innym w hierarchii wartości). Ale, żeby nie było, przy dozie skupienia można wyczytać z tych psychopatologicznych dywagacji kilka naprawdę interesujących faktów na temat ludzkiego umysłu. (Czy przekonujących? No cóż, przekonajcie się sami).
Czuję, że kończę naszą nieprzypadkową przygodę z odrobinę powiększonym zapleczem wiedzy i zaspokojoną ciekawością (która przy okazji zweryfikowała znany mi obraz Freuda funkcjonujący w zbiorowej świadomości), ale po tak solidnej dawce literówek i wybijających z rytmu błędów redakcyjnych potrzebuję teraz jakiejś językowej rekompensaty w postaci lepiej zredagowanego tekstu.
January 21, 2016
Hepimizin her gün başına gelen dil sürçmelerimizin anlamını, aklımızdakilerin nasıl direk dile yansıdığına dair açıklamaları oldukça aydınlatıcıydı. Düşündürücü bir kitap ve uzun süredir Freud'dan okuduğum ve yararlı bulduğum, çok da geç kalmadığım için sevindiğim bir kitaptı. Bir yerde, iş yerinde çoğunlukla yanıbaşımda olmasını seçemediğim insanlarla bir aradayken, bu kadar davranış ve cümleleri apaçık eden bir okuma yapmak iyi geldi diyebilirim.
December 4, 2021
YouTube kitap kanalımda Freud'un hayatı, mutlaka okunması gereken kitapları ve kronolojik okuma sırası hakkında bilgi edinebilirsiniz: youtu.be/63ikZqbdnAA
"Sigmund Freud kitaplarına nereden başlamalıyım? Freud kitaplarını hangi yayınevinden okumalıyım? Freud'un anlattığı şeyler tamamen cinsellikten mi ibaret?" şeklinde sorular soruyorsanız doğru incelemedesiniz demektir...
Aylardır hazırlamak istediğim ve aylardır da yine benden yoğun şekilde beklenen "Freud kitapları okuma rehberi"me hoşgeldiniz. Bu inceleme yüzlerce sayfanın ve sayısız içselleştirmenin ekranlarınıza bir öz olarak yansımasıdır.
Öncelikle kendimize bir soru sormamız gerekir. Sigmund Freud neden önemlidir? Şu an psikoloji bölümünün uzmanlık haline gelmesinde, psikolojiye ilgi duyan dünya çapında milyonlarca insan olmasında Freud isminin nasıl bir önemi vardır? İşte tam da bu kitabın başlangıcında böyle bir bilgiye rastlıyoruz:
"Düşleri ilk kez yorumlamış olan, çocukluk cinselliği olgusunu ilk kez kabul etmiş, birincil ve ikincil düşünce süreçleri arasında ilk kez ayrım yapmış, yani bilinçdışı aklı ilk kez bizim için gerçek kılmış bir adam.” [Günlük Yaşamın Psikopatolojisi, s. 24]
Yani artık bu adama "bilimsellikten uzak", "dediklerinin hepsi çürütüldü", "düşündüğü şeylerin bütün dayanağı cinsellik", "dediği çoğu şey yanlış bilgilerden oluşuyor" gibisinden şeyler demenize gerek yok. Şu an psikoloji bilimine psikoloji dememizin en büyük sebeplerinden biri bu adamın çalışmaları zaten. İtirazı olan var mı buna?
Eğer Freud'un anlattıklarının sadece cinsellikten ve libidodan ibaret olduğunu da düşünüyorsanız büyük bir yanılgı içerisindesiniz. İnsanın iç dünyasının gerçekten bu kadar dar olduğunu hiçbir zaman düşünmedim, keza Freud da öyle düşünmüyor arkadaşlar. Çünkü Freud'un da dediği gibi:
“Oysa durum hiç de sanıldığı gibi değil; cinsel gereksinim ve cinsel yoksunluk, nevrozların mekanizmasında rol oynayan etkenlerden ancak biridir.” [Psikanaliz Üzerine, s. 31]
Eğer Sigmund Freud kitapları konusunda hiçbir bilginiz yoksa başlangıç olarak önerdiğim Louis Breger'ın Freud Görüntünün Ortasındaki Karanlık Freud biyografisinden sonra devam etmeniz gereken ilk nokta Günlük Yaşamın Psikopatolojisi adlı kitap. Bu kitapta uyanıkken bilinçaltımızın bilinç seviyesine gelmesini okuyabilecekken, Psikanalize Giriş kitabında da uykularımız sırasında bilinçaltımızın bize oynadığı oyunlarla tanışma fırsatı bulabiliyorsunuz.
Ayrıca belirtmem gereken bir diğer konu da, Freud'un kitle psikolojisi yönelimli kitaplarını birey psikolojisi içeren kitaplarından daha çok sevmiş olmam. Yani Kitle Psikolojisi, Bir Yanılsamanın Geleceği ve Uygarlığın Huzursuzluğu gibi kitapları kendi adıma çok daha ufuk açıcı bulduğumu söylemem gerek.
İsterseniz bütün bu yazdıklarımı ve diğer detayları bir video olarak da izleyebilirsiniz: youtu.be/63ikZqbdnAA
Benim önerdiğim mutlaka okunması gereken en önemli kitaplar sırası:
1- Günlük Yaşamın Psikopatolojisi (Payel Yayınları)
2- Psikanalize Giriş: Rüya (Cem Yayınevi)
3- Nevrozların Genel Kuramı (Cem Yayınevi)
4- Cinsellik Üzerine (Say Yayınları)
5- Haz İlkesinin Ötesinde Ben ve İd (Metis Yayınları)
6- Kitle Psikolojisi (Cem Yayınevi)
7- Totem ve Tabu (Cem Yayınevi)
8- Bir Yanılsamanın Geleceği (Say Yayınları)
9- Uygarlığın Huzursuzluğu (Cem Yayınevi)
Ek olarak okuyabileceğiniz bazı biyografik ve diğer kitaplar:
- Louis Breger, Freud - Görüntünün Ortasındaki Karanlık
- Freud & Jung & Adler, Psikanaliz Açısından Edebiyat
- Erich Fromm, Freud Düşüncesinin Büyüklüğü ve Sınırları
Daha çok okurun bu rehberden faydalanabilmesi için bu gönderiyi paylaşabilirsiniz. Keyifli ve Freud'un bilinçdışı ile bilinç arasında kurduğu köprülerde kendi iç katmanlarınızı da keşfedebileceğiniz meraklı okumalar dilerim.
"Sigmund Freud kitaplarına nereden başlamalıyım? Freud kitaplarını hangi yayınevinden okumalıyım? Freud'un anlattığı şeyler tamamen cinsellikten mi ibaret?" şeklinde sorular soruyorsanız doğru incelemedesiniz demektir...
Aylardır hazırlamak istediğim ve aylardır da yine benden yoğun şekilde beklenen "Freud kitapları okuma rehberi"me hoşgeldiniz. Bu inceleme yüzlerce sayfanın ve sayısız içselleştirmenin ekranlarınıza bir öz olarak yansımasıdır.
Öncelikle kendimize bir soru sormamız gerekir. Sigmund Freud neden önemlidir? Şu an psikoloji bölümünün uzmanlık haline gelmesinde, psikolojiye ilgi duyan dünya çapında milyonlarca insan olmasında Freud isminin nasıl bir önemi vardır? İşte tam da bu kitabın başlangıcında böyle bir bilgiye rastlıyoruz:
"Düşleri ilk kez yorumlamış olan, çocukluk cinselliği olgusunu ilk kez kabul etmiş, birincil ve ikincil düşünce süreçleri arasında ilk kez ayrım yapmış, yani bilinçdışı aklı ilk kez bizim için gerçek kılmış bir adam.” [Günlük Yaşamın Psikopatolojisi, s. 24]
Yani artık bu adama "bilimsellikten uzak", "dediklerinin hepsi çürütüldü", "düşündüğü şeylerin bütün dayanağı cinsellik", "dediği çoğu şey yanlış bilgilerden oluşuyor" gibisinden şeyler demenize gerek yok. Şu an psikoloji bilimine psikoloji dememizin en büyük sebeplerinden biri bu adamın çalışmaları zaten. İtirazı olan var mı buna?
Eğer Freud'un anlattıklarının sadece cinsellikten ve libidodan ibaret olduğunu da düşünüyorsanız büyük bir yanılgı içerisindesiniz. İnsanın iç dünyasının gerçekten bu kadar dar olduğunu hiçbir zaman düşünmedim, keza Freud da öyle düşünmüyor arkadaşlar. Çünkü Freud'un da dediği gibi:
“Oysa durum hiç de sanıldığı gibi değil; cinsel gereksinim ve cinsel yoksunluk, nevrozların mekanizmasında rol oynayan etkenlerden ancak biridir.” [Psikanaliz Üzerine, s. 31]
Eğer Sigmund Freud kitapları konusunda hiçbir bilginiz yoksa başlangıç olarak önerdiğim Louis Breger'ın Freud Görüntünün Ortasındaki Karanlık Freud biyografisinden sonra devam etmeniz gereken ilk nokta Günlük Yaşamın Psikopatolojisi adlı kitap. Bu kitapta uyanıkken bilinçaltımızın bilinç seviyesine gelmesini okuyabilecekken, Psikanalize Giriş kitabında da uykularımız sırasında bilinçaltımızın bize oynadığı oyunlarla tanışma fırsatı bulabiliyorsunuz.
Ayrıca belirtmem gereken bir diğer konu da, Freud'un kitle psikolojisi yönelimli kitaplarını birey psikolojisi içeren kitaplarından daha çok sevmiş olmam. Yani Kitle Psikolojisi, Bir Yanılsamanın Geleceği ve Uygarlığın Huzursuzluğu gibi kitapları kendi adıma çok daha ufuk açıcı bulduğumu söylemem gerek.
İsterseniz bütün bu yazdıklarımı ve diğer detayları bir video olarak da izleyebilirsiniz: youtu.be/63ikZqbdnAA
Benim önerdiğim mutlaka okunması gereken en önemli kitaplar sırası:
1- Günlük Yaşamın Psikopatolojisi (Payel Yayınları)
2- Psikanalize Giriş: Rüya (Cem Yayınevi)
3- Nevrozların Genel Kuramı (Cem Yayınevi)
4- Cinsellik Üzerine (Say Yayınları)
5- Haz İlkesinin Ötesinde Ben ve İd (Metis Yayınları)
6- Kitle Psikolojisi (Cem Yayınevi)
7- Totem ve Tabu (Cem Yayınevi)
8- Bir Yanılsamanın Geleceği (Say Yayınları)
9- Uygarlığın Huzursuzluğu (Cem Yayınevi)
Ek olarak okuyabileceğiniz bazı biyografik ve diğer kitaplar:
- Louis Breger, Freud - Görüntünün Ortasındaki Karanlık
- Freud & Jung & Adler, Psikanaliz Açısından Edebiyat
- Erich Fromm, Freud Düşüncesinin Büyüklüğü ve Sınırları
Daha çok okurun bu rehberden faydalanabilmesi için bu gönderiyi paylaşabilirsiniz. Keyifli ve Freud'un bilinçdışı ile bilinç arasında kurduğu köprülerde kendi iç katmanlarınızı da keşfedebileceğiniz meraklı okumalar dilerim.
August 21, 2025
Sigmund explores the underlying psychic reasons behind everyday mundane experiences: forgetting the name of a place or person, breaking a glass, misplacing an item, or even making errors when reading or writing.
It is a very interesting book for those who find the mechanisms of human brain magnificent and as Sigmund puts it are not a member of the spiritual class:
“I am sorry to confess that I belong to that class of unworthy individuals before whom the spirits seize their activities and the supernatural disappears so that I have never been in a position to experience anything personally that would stimulate belief in the miraculous. Like everybody else, I have had forebodings and experienced misfortunes, but the two weighted each other so that nothing followed the foreboding and misfortune struck me unannounced.”
I also found his comments on the subject of ‘déjà vu’ quite interesting:
“Those psychic processes which, according to my observation, are alone responsible for the explanation of the déjà vu, namely the unconscious fantasies, are generally neglected by the psychologists even today.
I believe that it is wrong to designate the feeling of having experienced something before as an illusion. On the contrary, in such moments something is really touched that we have already experienced, only we cannot consciously recall the latter because it never was conscious.
In short, the feeling of déjà vu corresponds to the memory of an unconscious fantasy. There are unconscious fantasies or daydreams just as there are similar conscious creations which everyone knows from personal experience.”
It is a very interesting book for those who find the mechanisms of human brain magnificent and as Sigmund puts it are not a member of the spiritual class:
“I am sorry to confess that I belong to that class of unworthy individuals before whom the spirits seize their activities and the supernatural disappears so that I have never been in a position to experience anything personally that would stimulate belief in the miraculous. Like everybody else, I have had forebodings and experienced misfortunes, but the two weighted each other so that nothing followed the foreboding and misfortune struck me unannounced.”
I also found his comments on the subject of ‘déjà vu’ quite interesting:
“Those psychic processes which, according to my observation, are alone responsible for the explanation of the déjà vu, namely the unconscious fantasies, are generally neglected by the psychologists even today.
I believe that it is wrong to designate the feeling of having experienced something before as an illusion. On the contrary, in such moments something is really touched that we have already experienced, only we cannot consciously recall the latter because it never was conscious.
In short, the feeling of déjà vu corresponds to the memory of an unconscious fantasy. There are unconscious fantasies or daydreams just as there are similar conscious creations which everyone knows from personal experience.”
November 29, 2010
Yeah yeah yeah, Frued has been discredited by over half a century of physiological study, and his theories are filled with holes and contradictions even when taken on their own terms, but come on... this stuff is fun.
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life is an interesting, accessible book demonstrating the existence of the psyche in the most mundane of circumstances, such as when having a conversation or trying to recall a name. Each chapter deals with the different manifestations of the psyche through a collection of short case studies, and is followed by a discussion of what each instance can teach about the inner workings of the mind.
The beauty of this particular book is that it is one of the least technical of his four main works on psychoanalysis. It is not only accessibly written, but the commonness and simplicity of the case studies make for the same sort of reading one would find in a book from Oliver Sachs: intriguing little stories in which the reader cannot help but to try to figure out the puzzle on their own. It may not be the sort of rigorous study that characterizes the field today, but it's an intriguing way to think about the individual which provides plenty of insights into what we are and how we see ourselves.
And that's why people should continue to read Freud. He encourages us to engage in a form of analytical thinking which can only sharpen the intellect.
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life is an interesting, accessible book demonstrating the existence of the psyche in the most mundane of circumstances, such as when having a conversation or trying to recall a name. Each chapter deals with the different manifestations of the psyche through a collection of short case studies, and is followed by a discussion of what each instance can teach about the inner workings of the mind.
The beauty of this particular book is that it is one of the least technical of his four main works on psychoanalysis. It is not only accessibly written, but the commonness and simplicity of the case studies make for the same sort of reading one would find in a book from Oliver Sachs: intriguing little stories in which the reader cannot help but to try to figure out the puzzle on their own. It may not be the sort of rigorous study that characterizes the field today, but it's an intriguing way to think about the individual which provides plenty of insights into what we are and how we see ourselves.
And that's why people should continue to read Freud. He encourages us to engage in a form of analytical thinking which can only sharpen the intellect.
May 18, 2013
Surprisingly good.
Now that we live in a post-Fruedian universe - it is very interesting to go back and see how it all came about - this book was very readable, the stories he tells, he tells well. It's not always easy to catch everything he is getting at - but in general a very good thesis.
i don't go all the way with his ideas, and he was pedantic, a little Victorian demigod, but all the same fun to read.
Now that we live in a post-Fruedian universe - it is very interesting to go back and see how it all came about - this book was very readable, the stories he tells, he tells well. It's not always easy to catch everything he is getting at - but in general a very good thesis.
i don't go all the way with his ideas, and he was pedantic, a little Victorian demigod, but all the same fun to read.
August 28, 2022
Nemėgstu aš to Froido, perskaičiau iš pagarbos klasikui. Dažniausiai nagrinėjami suklydimai, kalbos klaidos.
September 21, 2019
Once I had corrected his mistake, I asked him to explain it, and received the usual rather surprised answers: surely everyone had a right to make a slip of the tongue now and then, it was only a coincidence, there was nothing behind it, etc. I replied that every slip of the tongue was made for some reason . . . He added that a man like me, meticulously studying every tiny detail, was positively dangerous, and then he suddenly recollected another appointment and left us.
__________
If one of my family complains of having bitten his or her tongue, pinched a finger, or so on, I am inclined to ask: ‘What did you do that for?’ Instead of offering the sympathy expected of me.
__________
Forgetting, Slips, Inadvertant Actions, Mistakes; these do not just happen by chance, Freud explains, but there are reasons (repression, anxiety, etc.) for most, if not each instance of them.
In each chapter, Freud gives numerous accounts, both first- and second-hand, of how different types of psychopathologies of everyday life can be explained by examining the subject's state of mind at the time of each incident.
See a more extensive example below:
Last summer—again while I was away on holiday—I renewed my acquaintance with a young man who had an academic education and, as I soon realised, was familiar with several of my psychological publications. I no longer remember how we broached the subject but we were talking about the social standing of the race to which we both belong, and he, being an ambitious man, was deploring the fact that his generation, as he put it, was condemned to waste away unable to develop its talents or satisfy its needs. He concluded his passionately felt remarks with that famous line of Virgil in which the unfortunate Dido urges posterity to avenge her on Aeneas: Exoriare . . . or rather that was how he meant to conclude, for he could not finish the quotation, and sought to conceal an obvious gap in his memory by rearranging the words: Exoriar(e) ex nostris ossisbus ultor! At last he said, in some annoyance:
—Please don’t smile in that ironic way as if you were relishing my difficulty—you might help me instead. There’s something the matter with the line. How does the whole thing really go?
—I’ll be happy to tell you, I replied, and quoted the line as it really runs: Exoriar(e) aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor! [May someone rise, as avenger, from my bones!]
—How stupid of me to forget a word like that. But you’re always saying that people don’t forget things for no reason at all. Can you tell me how I came to forget the impersonal pronoun aliquis?
I readily accepted the challenge, hoping for a contribution to my collection, so I said
—We can get to the root of it at once if you’ll tell me everything that occurs to you when you concentrate on the word you forgot, without any definite intention in mind but honestly and exercising no critical judgement.
—All right, I think of the ridiculous idea of dividing the word into two parts, like this: a and liquis.
—What does that suggest to you?
—I’ve no idea.
—So what else occurs to you?
—Well it goes on like this: relics—liquidation—liquidity—fluid. Does that tell you any more?
—No, not by a long way. But go on.
—Well, he continued with a sarcastic laugh, I think of Simone of Trento, whose relics I saw a couple of years ago in a church in that city. I think of the accusations of ritual sacrifice once again being levelled against the Jews these days, and I think of the work by Kleinpaul, who sees all the alleged victims as incarnations of the Saviour, new editions of him, so to speak.
—That idea isn’t entirely unconnected with the subject we were discussing before you forgot the Latin word.
—You’re right. And then I think of a piece I read recently in an Italian newspaper. I think the headline was: The Opinions of Saint Augustine on Women. What do you make of that?
—I’m still waiting to see.
—Well, now I come to something that quite certainly has no connection with our subject.
—I did ask you to abstain from any critical judgement.
—All right, I know. Well, I remember a fine-looking old gentleman whom I met on my travels last week. A real original who looks like a great bird of prey. His name is Benedikt, in case that’s of any interest.
—At least we now have a whole series of saints and church fathers:St Simon, St Augustine, St Benedikt. And I believe one of the church fathers was called Origen. What’s more, three of those names are first names, like Paul, part of the surname Kleinpaul.
—Next I think of St Januarius and the miracle of his blood—but I imagine all this is just mechanical association.
—Never mind that; St Januarius and St Augustine are both connected with the calendar. Can you remind me of the miracle of the saint’s blood?
—Oh, surely you know that! There’s a phial of the blood of St Januarius which is kept in a Neapolitan church and miraculously liquifies on a certain east-day. The people think highly of this miracle and get very upset if it is late to occur, as it once was under French occupation. At the time the commanding general—or am I wrong there? Was it Garibaldi?—well, he took the print aside and let him know, indicating the soldiers posted outside in a very meaningful manner, that he very much hoped the miracle would soon take place. And sure enough, so it did . . .
—Well go on. Why do you hesitate?
—I’ve just thought of something . . . but it’s too private to tell you . . . anyway, I can’t see any connection, so there’s no need to mention it.
—Leave me to make the connections. I can’t force you to tell me something if you’d rather not, but in that case you can’t ask me to tell you how you came to forget the word aliquis either.
—Really? You think not? Very well, I suddenly thought of a lady who might soon be giving me news that would be very unwelcome to both of us.
—You mean she’s missed her period?
—How on earth did you guess that?
—It’s not so difficult. You gave me plenty of background information. Remember the calendar saints, the liquefaction of the blood on a certain day, the agitation when it failed to occur, the overt threat to the effect that the miracle must happen, or else . . . The fact is that you reworked the miracle of St Januarius to make it an ingenious reference to the lady’s period.
—I had no idea. Do you really think I couldn’t come up with that little word aliquis just because I’m waiting anxiously for news?
—I’m sure of it. Remember the way you separated it into a-liquis, and then the associations with relics, liquidation, fluid. And need I point out how St Simon the child martyr, of whom the relics reminded you, fits into this context?
—I’d rather you didn’t;t. I hope you won’t take these ideas of mine seriously—that is, if I ever really had them. In return I’ll confess that the lady is Italian, and I went to Naples with her. But couldn’t it all be coincidence?
—I must leave you to your own judgement to decide whether you can explain away all these connections by assuming confidence. But I can tell you that any similar case, if you care to offer it for analysis, will lead you to equally remarkable “coincidences”.
Joyce and Proust were two authors who were in my mind throughout reading: the former with his one- or few-word sentences, where each word bears degrees of association to the next, replicating more concisely what Freud in many of his examples attempts to squeeze out of his patients in the form of free-association; the latter in his many oceanic tangents (of a much deeper, extensive, and more meaningful nature) into associations via memories.
Maybe our everyday psychopathologies have no explanation at all; but what if they do? What if every single instance can be explained?
__________
I will add that the lady had sufficient real reasons to wish her children dead. They gave her no joy, only sorrow, they severely limited her freedom of action, and she had given up any idea of happiness in love for their sake.
Anyone watching his fellow men eating will notice some very interesting and instructive symptomatic actions.
Girls who are proud of their beautiful hair arrange their combs and hairpins so skilfully that their hair is bound to come down in the middle of a conversation.
June 18, 2014
Since Psychology was my undergraduate major, I am no stranger to Sigmund Freud. So you could argue that I had some idea of what I would be getting into when I picked this book up.
Unfortunately, that didn't help make it any more enjoyable.
I was reminded repeatedly of a line I read in one of our Psychology text books, which pointed out while some of Freud's ideas did in fact shape the way we see therapy, a lot of his work did more to propel dissension (and hence encourage more people to join the conversation) than anything else. Much of what was written in this book - and most of it revolved around the proverbial 'Freudian slip' and its psychological origins - was beyond my ability to relate to, and I found myself disagreeing violently with the fundamental approach of the author, who sees us as repressed dark beings, whose every outward behaviour seems linked to some sinister underlying impulse in our unconscious (usually to do with violence, sex or death). I realized as I read how much more I'm inclined to endorse the views of Skinner (we are products of our environment and conditioning) and particularly Carl Rogers' humanism (at our core, if given a safe and accepting environment, every person works towards being the best version of themselves they can be), and how I disagree with Freud at a very basic philosophical level. So while I got a lot out of this book, it was in aversion to the content.
As a piece of work itself, the language is archaic and the cultural references out of date - obvious, I suppose, given that it was written in Vienna in the late 19th century. Conspiracy theories abound, and by the second or third chapter, I found myself tiring of the repeated insinuations that every slip of the tongue or loss of memory has linkages to something far more bleak that the person is repressing in their unconscious.
So while my respect for the man remains, this is not one of his better works, in my limited opinion, and is definitely avoidable.
Unfortunately, that didn't help make it any more enjoyable.
I was reminded repeatedly of a line I read in one of our Psychology text books, which pointed out while some of Freud's ideas did in fact shape the way we see therapy, a lot of his work did more to propel dissension (and hence encourage more people to join the conversation) than anything else. Much of what was written in this book - and most of it revolved around the proverbial 'Freudian slip' and its psychological origins - was beyond my ability to relate to, and I found myself disagreeing violently with the fundamental approach of the author, who sees us as repressed dark beings, whose every outward behaviour seems linked to some sinister underlying impulse in our unconscious (usually to do with violence, sex or death). I realized as I read how much more I'm inclined to endorse the views of Skinner (we are products of our environment and conditioning) and particularly Carl Rogers' humanism (at our core, if given a safe and accepting environment, every person works towards being the best version of themselves they can be), and how I disagree with Freud at a very basic philosophical level. So while I got a lot out of this book, it was in aversion to the content.
As a piece of work itself, the language is archaic and the cultural references out of date - obvious, I suppose, given that it was written in Vienna in the late 19th century. Conspiracy theories abound, and by the second or third chapter, I found myself tiring of the repeated insinuations that every slip of the tongue or loss of memory has linkages to something far more bleak that the person is repressing in their unconscious.
So while my respect for the man remains, this is not one of his better works, in my limited opinion, and is definitely avoidable.
February 9, 2016
Finished it finally. Jung's next.
I don't think I'll read Freud again. Why? Because I've had the impression that Freud's full of himself, the quantity of the examples are too damn much and the theories... I have to admit, some of them were interesting and made me think, but most of them are just annoying. The whole book is annoying and doesn't make any sense. I cannot believe most of psychology is based on this guy's thoughts.
And I have another thing I have to mention, but it's not Freud's fault. The way the Hungarian edition is built up simply made me angry. It's not consequent at all.
I don't think I'll read Freud again. Why? Because I've had the impression that Freud's full of himself, the quantity of the examples are too damn much and the theories... I have to admit, some of them were interesting and made me think, but most of them are just annoying. The whole book is annoying and doesn't make any sense. I cannot believe most of psychology is based on this guy's thoughts.
And I have another thing I have to mention, but it's not Freud's fault. The way the Hungarian edition is built up simply made me angry. It's not consequent at all.
September 11, 2017
Interesting book with a lot of theories that make you think about little memory quirks in day to day life. I did not agree with everything, but that is also not really the point with books like that. The fact that theories are explained well is more important. Also he uses a lot of examples to explain his points, which was very functional in my opinion.
January 27, 2024
3,3
panie freud, dlaczego to wszystko jest jakoś tak chaotycznie napisane? naprawdę tak fascynujące pojęcia z dziedziny psychologii dało się ująć znacznie bardziej uporządkowanie i zasadnie
ciężko mówić tu o konstrukcji - właściwie to zbiór anegdot i historii uzasadniających sugerowane teorie
mimo to, nadal nie było to dość przekonujące? co więcej tak naprawdę spora część z teorii przedstawiana
była już przez innych psychologów? - o ile freuda można określać tym mianem
all in all bardzo ciekawe przedstawienie i struktury osobowości; id,ego, superego, ale przede wszystkim procesów nieświadomych i marzeń sennych, które zgłębiają naszą samoświadomość
,,The unconscious, at all events, knows no time limit. The most important as well as the most peculiar character of psychic fixation consists in the fact that all impressions are on the one hand retained in the same form as they were received, and also in the forms that they have assumed in their further development.”
panie freud, dlaczego to wszystko jest jakoś tak chaotycznie napisane? naprawdę tak fascynujące pojęcia z dziedziny psychologii dało się ująć znacznie bardziej uporządkowanie i zasadnie
ciężko mówić tu o konstrukcji - właściwie to zbiór anegdot i historii uzasadniających sugerowane teorie
mimo to, nadal nie było to dość przekonujące? co więcej tak naprawdę spora część z teorii przedstawiana
była już przez innych psychologów? - o ile freuda można określać tym mianem
all in all bardzo ciekawe przedstawienie i struktury osobowości; id,ego, superego, ale przede wszystkim procesów nieświadomych i marzeń sennych, które zgłębiają naszą samoświadomość
,,The unconscious, at all events, knows no time limit. The most important as well as the most peculiar character of psychic fixation consists in the fact that all impressions are on the one hand retained in the same form as they were received, and also in the forms that they have assumed in their further development.”
Read
June 3, 2023ზიგმუნდ ბრო you gotta chill
March 14, 2017
No por nada este fue mi libro-anzuelo al psicoanálisis. La mejor manera de dar cuenta del inconsciente es dejándonos ver sus triquiñuelas aparentemente inocentes, esas que surgen cuando decimos lo que (no) queríamos decir, cuando se nos olvida lo que (no) queríamos hacer, cuando dijimos el nombre equivocado, en fin...
Cada relectura de Freud abre un campo nuevo, aunque sea el campo que se aró al inicio de todo.
Cada relectura de Freud abre un campo nuevo, aunque sea el campo que se aró al inicio de todo.
September 16, 2025
Psychopathology of Everyday Life is one of Freud’s more accessible books; as it does not ponder too much on technicalities and heavy with many examples and demonstrations.
Simply put, Freud attempted to show how simple mistakes in daily life can be more than just a coincidence; they can hide underlying complexes or psychological conflicts.
People always mentioned on “Freudian slips”; how one accidentally said what they really wanted or thought. But it’s not limited to speech, it can be actions, omissions etc. The example always used is how someone who is not comfortable with another person would always forget to invite them into meetings or activities, despite how important the unlikable person.
Freud theorized that incidences such as this happened because in an act of cognition, there are uninhibited stream of consciousness which would attract associations to the subject of cognition, no matter how strong our conscious control is. For example, a lady who wants children, while reading a book about finance, would repeatedly reads “storks” instead of “stocks”. The subject “stocks” invited an association with children, as it is her underlying preoccupation.
Putting it more philosophically, Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations identified a concept called as “family resemblances”, where a specific subject is represented by multiple words. For an example, “ball” can be represented as: the NFL football or the English football. Which of the balls selected depends on the context.
An American would automatically chose the first one, and an English the second, and this is the usual. But, if the American after lived in the UK for several years and apparently acclimatizing well, yet still fixated on the NFL football- this recalcitrance points towards an unconscious refusal to budge to a new concepts. Freud would say that there must be repressed contents that causes the inertia, Jung would termed it as complexes.
The difference between the Freudian and Jungian concept is that Freud conceives the “slips” as a facade to protect the ego from painful memory. So Freud would engage the patient in a free association and attempt to show the patient the underlying pathos. Jung, on the other hand, believed that the “slips” possessed its own meaning. Instead of diverting the patient away from the association, the patient is inquired: what does the images mean?
So, we all betray ourselves in speech and action. How often these “Freudian slips” occurs in therapy. Much more than you think. The consultation room, in reality, is an externalised and condensed picture of their inner psychic reality. A narcissistic patient would accidentally called you as “adik”, and another patient would called you “abah”. It is important for us to understand what is the meaning behind their “slips”.
The problem is; Freud might think that mere confession and explanation of where the neurotic symptoms arises is sufficient. But as Jung pointed out, that explaining to the patient that they are in the swamps does not automatically help them out from it. Jung recommended on top of the two stages, to add education. It is not enough to tell the patient where their frustration comes from, but how to escape from it. And lastly is to transform the one-sidedness into a complete holistic development.
Simply put, Freud attempted to show how simple mistakes in daily life can be more than just a coincidence; they can hide underlying complexes or psychological conflicts.
People always mentioned on “Freudian slips”; how one accidentally said what they really wanted or thought. But it’s not limited to speech, it can be actions, omissions etc. The example always used is how someone who is not comfortable with another person would always forget to invite them into meetings or activities, despite how important the unlikable person.
Freud theorized that incidences such as this happened because in an act of cognition, there are uninhibited stream of consciousness which would attract associations to the subject of cognition, no matter how strong our conscious control is. For example, a lady who wants children, while reading a book about finance, would repeatedly reads “storks” instead of “stocks”. The subject “stocks” invited an association with children, as it is her underlying preoccupation.
Putting it more philosophically, Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations identified a concept called as “family resemblances”, where a specific subject is represented by multiple words. For an example, “ball” can be represented as: the NFL football or the English football. Which of the balls selected depends on the context.
An American would automatically chose the first one, and an English the second, and this is the usual. But, if the American after lived in the UK for several years and apparently acclimatizing well, yet still fixated on the NFL football- this recalcitrance points towards an unconscious refusal to budge to a new concepts. Freud would say that there must be repressed contents that causes the inertia, Jung would termed it as complexes.
The difference between the Freudian and Jungian concept is that Freud conceives the “slips” as a facade to protect the ego from painful memory. So Freud would engage the patient in a free association and attempt to show the patient the underlying pathos. Jung, on the other hand, believed that the “slips” possessed its own meaning. Instead of diverting the patient away from the association, the patient is inquired: what does the images mean?
So, we all betray ourselves in speech and action. How often these “Freudian slips” occurs in therapy. Much more than you think. The consultation room, in reality, is an externalised and condensed picture of their inner psychic reality. A narcissistic patient would accidentally called you as “adik”, and another patient would called you “abah”. It is important for us to understand what is the meaning behind their “slips”.
The problem is; Freud might think that mere confession and explanation of where the neurotic symptoms arises is sufficient. But as Jung pointed out, that explaining to the patient that they are in the swamps does not automatically help them out from it. Jung recommended on top of the two stages, to add education. It is not enough to tell the patient where their frustration comes from, but how to escape from it. And lastly is to transform the one-sidedness into a complete holistic development.
read-fragments
August 17, 2024dnf @ 23%
June 26, 2025
احب جداً فكر فرويد و التحليل النفسي ..
نعم تم تعديل الكثير من افكاره في الدراسات اللاحقة لكني حريصة على الاطلاع على كل ما انتجت عقليته الفذّة ، سأقرأ له المزيد حتماً..
نعم تم تعديل الكثير من افكاره في الدراسات اللاحقة لكني حريصة على الاطلاع على كل ما انتجت عقليته الفذّة ، سأقرأ له المزيد حتماً..
January 7, 2019
Reason for reading:
I desired to learn about why we are forgetful.
Result:
Freud proposed that we forget due to negative subconscious associations or because the word is not beneficial to our sexual reproduction.
This is all fine; however, his evidence for this not exhaustive and far-fetched. He draws only from personal conversations he has with people in passing and the associations he finds seem artificial.
This is a fairly negative review as I did not feel I got what I wanted out of the book, but if you’re looking for an introduction to how Freud ran experiments and thoughts about his work in psychopathology this could be a good book to read.
I desired to learn about why we are forgetful.
Result:
Freud proposed that we forget due to negative subconscious associations or because the word is not beneficial to our sexual reproduction.
This is all fine; however, his evidence for this not exhaustive and far-fetched. He draws only from personal conversations he has with people in passing and the associations he finds seem artificial.
This is a fairly negative review as I did not feel I got what I wanted out of the book, but if you’re looking for an introduction to how Freud ran experiments and thoughts about his work in psychopathology this could be a good book to read.
May 10, 2020
It took me six years to finish this book.
May 2, 2023
There is very little theory and analysis in this work; it mostly consists in anecdotes of situations that are supposedly instances of the various symptoms of neurosis or repression which Freud names. I acknowledge that it is impressive to see a thinker this obsessed with and meticulous about the progression of his theorizing, however; Freud documented so many examples he saw in life, and in order to do so, he must've immediately perceived these situations in terms of the ideas/theory he was developing. But reading this work, as a whole, is a waste of time, unless you're keen for learning of tiny random encounters one could've had in early 20th century Vienna (which would be an odd interest, since the brevity and numerousness of these examples prevents any one from having depth in either literary quality or in potential to show much about a certain culture/era.) If one wants to learn about psychoanalytic theory, it'd be better to look at other work (the only other thing by Freud I've read so far is the Ego and the Id, which is relatively more theory focused; and there are good secondary resources out there, e.g., Jonathan Lear and Sebastian Gardner).
The most interesting chapters are 1 "Forgetting Proper Names" and 5 "Slips of the Tongue." I'll summarize some thoughts about these here. In chapter 1, Freud shows that sometimes if you want to forget something, you end up forgetting other things related to it. In his example, Freud was in a carriage with a gentleman with whom Freud deemed that heavy conversational topics, like death and sex, would be inappropriate. So he repressed these topics. But this led to his inability to remember the name of a certain painter. It turns out that that painter's name sounded similar to a certain town's name, which in turn sounded similar to a word in a certain standard expression about sex. It was both hilarious and fascinating to see Freud explain exactly each association between each item, in a certain causal/psychological chain that led to the suppression of death/sex to have the effect of preventing him from remembering this painter's name. Freud even provides a diagram with arrows pointed between various items along this chain.
It does not take much thought to see that this is extremely "just-so story"-like. The powers of introspection are limited, and there could be many different explanations one could give for why Freud forgot the name of this painter. Another strand of criticism interests me more. Freud assumes, for the vast majority of examples found across this book, that the kind of association that is forged between mental items - which allows for suppression of one item to lead to the suppression of others thus associated with it - is essentially phonetic in nature. Certain words sound like each other, phonetically, which causes their association. It is bizarre to me that Freud, someone so thoughtful and intelligent, could think that phonetic associations could play such a major role in mental associations of this functional status.
It seems more natural to think that associations due to time, place, context, or topic (and particularly, a narrative or emotional theme evoked) would define this sort of association (e.g., I associate a friend with a certain time in college because I was closest with her during that time). Hume and the empiricist tradition in his wake focus on these sorts of associations (although less on emotional theme as connecting items, and more immediately on causal relations, of which emotional theme could be construed as a variety though). So what are Freud's reasons to assume that phonetic associations are primary? Again, this books has very little theory, and so Freud does not raise the fact that he is assuming this, let alone provide argument for this claim, in this work at least. I wonder if he does in other works.
It seems like the only domain where associations are often purely phonetic is in 'slips of the tongue.' But in these cases, just because two words sound similar to one another does not mean that we mentally confuse the two, or import features of one to the other. For example, raisin and reason sound similar, and if drunk and sleepy I could say "the critique of pure raisins" - but here I really only intend to say "reason" and in no part of my mind do I think that raisins are similar to reason with respect to any of the distinguishing features of reason. So where phonetic associations reign, it seems that motive/intention behind a slip is absent. This goes against Freud's main schtick: motive/intention drives cases of forgetting and repression, which leads to the forgetting of various mental items that are associated to the original object that one wants to repress via phonetic similarities in the terms used to refer to these objects.
Perhaps sometimes there are many phonetically similar words, and we end up mistakenly saying one over the others because it is thematically linked to what we're really feeling inside. But Freud does not analyze what such 'thematic links' would amount to. I wish he could make explicit what sort of associations between A, B, C, etc. he thinks suffice for the repression of A to lead to that of B, C, etc.
There's one type of situation I thought about, while reading about slips and forgetting, which I think shows that phonetics alone can have much power over the mind. Sometimes when we meet a new person who shares their name with that of a past lover, or someone with whom we've had strong emotions, we can't help but feel in some special way towards this new person, solely because of their name. I do not think for the vast majority of cases where we accidentally say one thing rather than another, this has any relevance to this phenomenon by which certain properties of an individual with a certain name come to be imported to another individual who has a name that sounds similar. When I say "the critique of pure raisins" I do not even consciously think of raisins; I'm only thinking of reason. So there's no second object in my conscious awareness, in the first place, onto which I may import properties of a first object.
But the fact that this type of situation exists interests me. (Freud doesn't raise this type, which also confuses me; it seems relevant to the topics he raises in this book. Maybe it's because he's rather focused on cases where we forget or repress something, whereas in this type of situation, there are two individuals that are consciously available, and nothing is repressed.) It shows that sometimes, phonetic features alone of the exact word we use to refer to an individual can have the power of making our minds import properties from one individual to another, in our experience or memory of them. This at least shows that language use runs very deep in the mind; our automatic/unconscious thought may be sensitive to, if not is shaped itself, by language use. What else does this show? This is something that might be fun to think more about.
The most interesting chapters are 1 "Forgetting Proper Names" and 5 "Slips of the Tongue." I'll summarize some thoughts about these here. In chapter 1, Freud shows that sometimes if you want to forget something, you end up forgetting other things related to it. In his example, Freud was in a carriage with a gentleman with whom Freud deemed that heavy conversational topics, like death and sex, would be inappropriate. So he repressed these topics. But this led to his inability to remember the name of a certain painter. It turns out that that painter's name sounded similar to a certain town's name, which in turn sounded similar to a word in a certain standard expression about sex. It was both hilarious and fascinating to see Freud explain exactly each association between each item, in a certain causal/psychological chain that led to the suppression of death/sex to have the effect of preventing him from remembering this painter's name. Freud even provides a diagram with arrows pointed between various items along this chain.
It does not take much thought to see that this is extremely "just-so story"-like. The powers of introspection are limited, and there could be many different explanations one could give for why Freud forgot the name of this painter. Another strand of criticism interests me more. Freud assumes, for the vast majority of examples found across this book, that the kind of association that is forged between mental items - which allows for suppression of one item to lead to the suppression of others thus associated with it - is essentially phonetic in nature. Certain words sound like each other, phonetically, which causes their association. It is bizarre to me that Freud, someone so thoughtful and intelligent, could think that phonetic associations could play such a major role in mental associations of this functional status.
It seems more natural to think that associations due to time, place, context, or topic (and particularly, a narrative or emotional theme evoked) would define this sort of association (e.g., I associate a friend with a certain time in college because I was closest with her during that time). Hume and the empiricist tradition in his wake focus on these sorts of associations (although less on emotional theme as connecting items, and more immediately on causal relations, of which emotional theme could be construed as a variety though). So what are Freud's reasons to assume that phonetic associations are primary? Again, this books has very little theory, and so Freud does not raise the fact that he is assuming this, let alone provide argument for this claim, in this work at least. I wonder if he does in other works.
It seems like the only domain where associations are often purely phonetic is in 'slips of the tongue.' But in these cases, just because two words sound similar to one another does not mean that we mentally confuse the two, or import features of one to the other. For example, raisin and reason sound similar, and if drunk and sleepy I could say "the critique of pure raisins" - but here I really only intend to say "reason" and in no part of my mind do I think that raisins are similar to reason with respect to any of the distinguishing features of reason. So where phonetic associations reign, it seems that motive/intention behind a slip is absent. This goes against Freud's main schtick: motive/intention drives cases of forgetting and repression, which leads to the forgetting of various mental items that are associated to the original object that one wants to repress via phonetic similarities in the terms used to refer to these objects.
Perhaps sometimes there are many phonetically similar words, and we end up mistakenly saying one over the others because it is thematically linked to what we're really feeling inside. But Freud does not analyze what such 'thematic links' would amount to. I wish he could make explicit what sort of associations between A, B, C, etc. he thinks suffice for the repression of A to lead to that of B, C, etc.
There's one type of situation I thought about, while reading about slips and forgetting, which I think shows that phonetics alone can have much power over the mind. Sometimes when we meet a new person who shares their name with that of a past lover, or someone with whom we've had strong emotions, we can't help but feel in some special way towards this new person, solely because of their name. I do not think for the vast majority of cases where we accidentally say one thing rather than another, this has any relevance to this phenomenon by which certain properties of an individual with a certain name come to be imported to another individual who has a name that sounds similar. When I say "the critique of pure raisins" I do not even consciously think of raisins; I'm only thinking of reason. So there's no second object in my conscious awareness, in the first place, onto which I may import properties of a first object.
But the fact that this type of situation exists interests me. (Freud doesn't raise this type, which also confuses me; it seems relevant to the topics he raises in this book. Maybe it's because he's rather focused on cases where we forget or repress something, whereas in this type of situation, there are two individuals that are consciously available, and nothing is repressed.) It shows that sometimes, phonetic features alone of the exact word we use to refer to an individual can have the power of making our minds import properties from one individual to another, in our experience or memory of them. This at least shows that language use runs very deep in the mind; our automatic/unconscious thought may be sensitive to, if not is shaped itself, by language use. What else does this show? This is something that might be fun to think more about.
November 24, 2021
Що таке "обмовка за Фрейдом?" Це саме та книга, у якій Фрейд розмірковує про механізм забування імен, іноземних слів, словосполучень, подій, намірів та вражень, а також про обмовки та помилки при письмі та читанні. Звісно, він розглядає все це виключно з точки зору "психології", тож так чи інакше доходить у висновку до "незручної правди".
Як це виглядає насправді? Фрейд "підганяє" пояснення під будь який випадок, який описує. Особливо це помітно на його математичних махінаціях із "випадковим числом".
Стосовно забування якихось речей - як щодо такої причини, як перенасичення інформації? Або травми мозку? Або ще мільйон НЕ психологічних причин.
І про жіноче питання. Я розумію, що "істерія" свого часу була досить модною "хворобою", але Фрейд особливо любить діагностувати істерію у жінок. Наприклад, він описує своє НЕЗАДОВОЛЕННЯ через помилку у діагнозі 14-річної дівчинки, якій поставив діагноз "істерія", а та візьми і помри від саркоми через 2 місяці. Упс! (Це, до речі, далеко не єдиний випадок неправильного діагнозу у цій книжці). Вже не кажучи про його теорію, що жінка, яку зґвалтували, таємно ХОТІЛА бути зґвалтованою, бо інакше у ґвалтівника б нічого не вийшло. Щось про те, що "гаманець з грошима жінки захищають краще ніж власну честь". WTF?
Фрейд розповідає цікаві випадки із свої практики (які в наш час називають "курйозами") і підводить під них "психологічне обґрунтування". Не те щоб це було не цікаво читати, але сьогодні психологія крокує далеко вперед. Наприклад, не лікує "хворобу онанізму" у підлітка. Дякувати!
Як це виглядає насправді? Фрейд "підганяє" пояснення під будь який випадок, який описує. Особливо це помітно на його математичних махінаціях із "випадковим числом".
Стосовно забування якихось речей - як щодо такої причини, як перенасичення інформації? Або травми мозку? Або ще мільйон НЕ психологічних причин.
І про жіноче питання. Я розумію, що "істерія" свого часу була досить модною "хворобою", але Фрейд особливо любить діагностувати істерію у жінок. Наприклад, він описує своє НЕЗАДОВОЛЕННЯ через помилку у діагнозі 14-річної дівчинки, якій поставив діагноз "істерія", а та візьми і помри від саркоми через 2 місяці. Упс! (Це, до речі, далеко не єдиний випадок неправильного діагнозу у цій книжці). Вже не кажучи про його теорію, що жінка, яку зґвалтували, таємно ХОТІЛА бути зґвалтованою, бо інакше у ґвалтівника б нічого не вийшло. Щось про те, що "гаманець з грошима жінки захищають краще ніж власну честь". WTF?
Фрейд розповідає цікаві випадки із свої практики (які в наш час називають "курйозами") і підводить під них "психологічне обґрунтування". Не те щоб це було не цікаво читати, але сьогодні психологія крокує далеко вперед. Наприклад, не лікує "хворобу онанізму" у підлітка. Дякувати!
September 16, 2018
After showing how cases of hysteria (1895, with Joseph Breuer) and dreams (1899) are results of the interplay between the unconsciousness - which houses all our true wishes and urges - and the consciousness - which manifests only the morally accepted wishes and urges -, Sigmund Freud faced the difficult task to make his new revolutionary psychological science acceptable to both academic and popular circles. The problem? He used (1) non-representative data (mentally sick people; dreams) and (2) he based his theories on circumstantial evidence (clinical examples, classic poems, personal anecdotes).
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904) is Freud's attempt to set the record straight. This time, he tries to strengthen his theories of the unconsciousness by making use of everyday examples of healthy, normal people. With this book, Freud tackles the first problem (he finally gives representative evidence), but he still fails to take the second hurdle: the book is 260 pages of anecdotal evidence, personal stories, second hand stories as told by relatives, etc.
The content of The Psychopathology of Everyday Life becomes clear in the first few pages, and the rest of the book - excluding the last two pages - is just one 'simple' repetition of example after example; stratified in arbitrarily chosen categories of 'psychopathology' (i.e. everything that goes 'wrong' in normal, everyday life).
So what is Freud's message? We (1) forget names; (2) forget foreign words; (3) forget secuences of words; (4) we make slips of the tongue; (5) we make slips of the pen; (6) we make slips in reading; (7) we forget impressions; (8) we forget intentions; (9) we commit inadvertent actions; (10) fortuitous actions happen to us; (11) we make mistakes in acting; (12) we forget and screen memories; and (13) we slip up in any combination of the earlier mentioned ways. This all happens to us, normal and healthy people, everyday in in any situation.
Superficially, we tend to take these slips and mistakes for what they seem to be: just that, slips and mistakes. Not Freud. Freud claims that, just like dreams show themselves to us through their manifest content, which is essentially a sympbolic representation of the true, underlying wishes, all these mistakes and slips have meanings as well. And the psychoanalytic method is the key to unlocking the true meaning of all our everyday mistakes and slips.
According to Freud:
"[...] certain inadequacies in our psychic performance [...] and certain actions performed apparently unintentionally prove, when methods of psychoanalytical investigation are applied to them, to be well motivated and determined by factors of which the conscious mind is unaware." p. 229
When an action (a) lies within the range normality (i.e. the action must not be obviously abnormal); (b) is brief and temporary, and we accept the correction (by others) of our slip; and (c) when we notice our slip at all, we fail to recognize any motivation behind it; if and only if all three preconditions are fulfilled, the act is to be counted as a 'Freudian slip'.
Especially the last precondition (c) is important. Freud's theory namely claims that our unconsciousness houses wishes and urges - especially to do with sexual lust - which our consciousness will not express bodily. These wishes and urges are repressed so to speak. But repression isn't deletion, so they will linger on, looking for ways to manifest themselves when our consciousness isn't looking. This means that all manifestations of these true wishes are intentional - our unconsciousness wants it. This then leads to the conclusion that all slips and mistakes are manifestations of these unconscious (and repressed) intentions.
There is one interesting consequence of the above theories, which Freud briefly touches on in the last chapter:
If all our mistakes and slips - even the ones which 'feel' fortuitous - are truly intentional (i.e. unconscious intentions), then this leaves no room for chance. Freud is a consequentalist in this, and he (rightly) claims his position leads to hard determinism: everything we do, say or think is determined by either our consciousness or by our unconsciousness.
So far, nothing new (this philosophical debate about free will goes back to Ancient Greece). But Freud adds an interesting, and valuable, distinction. According to him, we have to distinguish between our own mental life, which is (ultimately) fully determined by our unconsciousness, and everything outside our mental life. In Freud's view, there is room for chance: everything happening outside us has nothing to do with our internal determinism. People who think the event of a cab driver dropping you off at the wrong adress has a hidden meaning are superstitious. The mistake only makes sense in light of the mental life and personal history of the cab driver - this has nothing to do with you. At the same time, people who think their mistakes are just that, are mistaken as well: your own mistakes are intentional manifestions of your unconscious wishes.
This can be phrased in a different (and more funny) way. The Roman who blew of his planned actions because he saw some birds fly in the sky is superstitious; the Roman who stumbled and fell while leaving his house to carry out his planned actions, and consequently goes back in and blows of his plans, is wise. The birds, intepreted as an omen, are chance events; the fall is intentional - his unconsciousness tells him not to go. This, in three sentences is Freud's book.
The above summary is basically Freud's book, short of the hundreds of personal anecdotes and second-hand experiences (as told by others!). So I cannot really recommend reading The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.
Freud's theories are interesting in their own way, and his ideas point to important aspects of our mental life, but the more I read of Freud, the more impressed do I become that so many people - academic and layman alike - have fallen for the 'scientificity' of Freud's theories. Only looking at the data he supplies in order to back up his theories reveals huge cracks in the system: anecdotal evidence, second-hand personal stories, the analysis of myths and historical events, examples from the clinic (and even these are highly coloured by Freud's own interpretations) - all of this is absolutely un-scientific and even highly doubtful.
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904) is Freud's attempt to set the record straight. This time, he tries to strengthen his theories of the unconsciousness by making use of everyday examples of healthy, normal people. With this book, Freud tackles the first problem (he finally gives representative evidence), but he still fails to take the second hurdle: the book is 260 pages of anecdotal evidence, personal stories, second hand stories as told by relatives, etc.
The content of The Psychopathology of Everyday Life becomes clear in the first few pages, and the rest of the book - excluding the last two pages - is just one 'simple' repetition of example after example; stratified in arbitrarily chosen categories of 'psychopathology' (i.e. everything that goes 'wrong' in normal, everyday life).
So what is Freud's message? We (1) forget names; (2) forget foreign words; (3) forget secuences of words; (4) we make slips of the tongue; (5) we make slips of the pen; (6) we make slips in reading; (7) we forget impressions; (8) we forget intentions; (9) we commit inadvertent actions; (10) fortuitous actions happen to us; (11) we make mistakes in acting; (12) we forget and screen memories; and (13) we slip up in any combination of the earlier mentioned ways. This all happens to us, normal and healthy people, everyday in in any situation.
Superficially, we tend to take these slips and mistakes for what they seem to be: just that, slips and mistakes. Not Freud. Freud claims that, just like dreams show themselves to us through their manifest content, which is essentially a sympbolic representation of the true, underlying wishes, all these mistakes and slips have meanings as well. And the psychoanalytic method is the key to unlocking the true meaning of all our everyday mistakes and slips.
According to Freud:
"[...] certain inadequacies in our psychic performance [...] and certain actions performed apparently unintentionally prove, when methods of psychoanalytical investigation are applied to them, to be well motivated and determined by factors of which the conscious mind is unaware." p. 229
When an action (a) lies within the range normality (i.e. the action must not be obviously abnormal); (b) is brief and temporary, and we accept the correction (by others) of our slip; and (c) when we notice our slip at all, we fail to recognize any motivation behind it; if and only if all three preconditions are fulfilled, the act is to be counted as a 'Freudian slip'.
Especially the last precondition (c) is important. Freud's theory namely claims that our unconsciousness houses wishes and urges - especially to do with sexual lust - which our consciousness will not express bodily. These wishes and urges are repressed so to speak. But repression isn't deletion, so they will linger on, looking for ways to manifest themselves when our consciousness isn't looking. This means that all manifestations of these true wishes are intentional - our unconsciousness wants it. This then leads to the conclusion that all slips and mistakes are manifestations of these unconscious (and repressed) intentions.
There is one interesting consequence of the above theories, which Freud briefly touches on in the last chapter:
If all our mistakes and slips - even the ones which 'feel' fortuitous - are truly intentional (i.e. unconscious intentions), then this leaves no room for chance. Freud is a consequentalist in this, and he (rightly) claims his position leads to hard determinism: everything we do, say or think is determined by either our consciousness or by our unconsciousness.
So far, nothing new (this philosophical debate about free will goes back to Ancient Greece). But Freud adds an interesting, and valuable, distinction. According to him, we have to distinguish between our own mental life, which is (ultimately) fully determined by our unconsciousness, and everything outside our mental life. In Freud's view, there is room for chance: everything happening outside us has nothing to do with our internal determinism. People who think the event of a cab driver dropping you off at the wrong adress has a hidden meaning are superstitious. The mistake only makes sense in light of the mental life and personal history of the cab driver - this has nothing to do with you. At the same time, people who think their mistakes are just that, are mistaken as well: your own mistakes are intentional manifestions of your unconscious wishes.
This can be phrased in a different (and more funny) way. The Roman who blew of his planned actions because he saw some birds fly in the sky is superstitious; the Roman who stumbled and fell while leaving his house to carry out his planned actions, and consequently goes back in and blows of his plans, is wise. The birds, intepreted as an omen, are chance events; the fall is intentional - his unconsciousness tells him not to go. This, in three sentences is Freud's book.
The above summary is basically Freud's book, short of the hundreds of personal anecdotes and second-hand experiences (as told by others!). So I cannot really recommend reading The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.
Freud's theories are interesting in their own way, and his ideas point to important aspects of our mental life, but the more I read of Freud, the more impressed do I become that so many people - academic and layman alike - have fallen for the 'scientificity' of Freud's theories. Only looking at the data he supplies in order to back up his theories reveals huge cracks in the system: anecdotal evidence, second-hand personal stories, the analysis of myths and historical events, examples from the clinic (and even these are highly coloured by Freud's own interpretations) - all of this is absolutely un-scientific and even highly doubtful.
May 8, 2022
Leggere Freud è sempre una piacevole esperienza anche per i non addetti ai lavori, per merito della sua grande abilità espositiva e della sua arguta ironia. Non leggevo i suoi scritti da tempo e Psicopatologia della vita quotidiana è stato per me un nuovo incontro con un vecchio amico.
Il libro si propone di analizzare gli errori e le dimenticanze che tutti noi commettiamo nel corso di una giornata: atti mancati, lapsus linguae, lapsus calami (o lapsus digiti, in questo secolo). Sigmund Freud cerca di rintracciare in essi, e anche negli errori apparentemente più insignificanti, motivazioni psichiche: una parte dei nostri processi psichici inconsci emerge da queste piccole sbadataggini, spesso andando a rivelare le nostre reali e inconfessabili intenzioni (un esempio, molto semplice, su tutti: dimenticare ripetutamente di compiere un'azione può indicare la nostra assenza di volontà di compierla).
La trattazione di Freud è resa efficace dalla prevalenza degli esempi pratici, con il racconto di aneddoti personali o di pazienti e colleghi, rispetto alle spiegazioni teoriche. In più di un esempio vi capiterà di rintracciare un episodio successo anche a voi, ne sono certo.
Lettura consigliata perché apre un nuovo punto di vista sulle piccolezze che costellano la vita quotidiana.
Il libro si propone di analizzare gli errori e le dimenticanze che tutti noi commettiamo nel corso di una giornata: atti mancati, lapsus linguae, lapsus calami (o lapsus digiti, in questo secolo). Sigmund Freud cerca di rintracciare in essi, e anche negli errori apparentemente più insignificanti, motivazioni psichiche: una parte dei nostri processi psichici inconsci emerge da queste piccole sbadataggini, spesso andando a rivelare le nostre reali e inconfessabili intenzioni (un esempio, molto semplice, su tutti: dimenticare ripetutamente di compiere un'azione può indicare la nostra assenza di volontà di compierla).
La trattazione di Freud è resa efficace dalla prevalenza degli esempi pratici, con il racconto di aneddoti personali o di pazienti e colleghi, rispetto alle spiegazioni teoriche. In più di un esempio vi capiterà di rintracciare un episodio successo anche a voi, ne sono certo.
Lettura consigliata perché apre un nuovo punto di vista sulle piccolezze che costellano la vita quotidiana.
May 28, 2018
I have a confused perception of Freud, something this book exacerbated rather than demystified. I'm not a psychologist, but I am someone that's been alive, interested and at least semi-observant of human behaviour for over twenty years. To that end, I feel as though I should be able to come to some conclusions about what people are like, their individuality, what drives them, innermost emotions etc. One has to, to a degree, understand people just to get on with living.
That 'degree' is what's so puzzling. If psychology is (if only partially) understood to be a science, then psychologists must have some authoritative knowledge of human behaviours. One has to trust in authorities in some sense, if not to wallow in absurdity. Gravity has an effect on me even if I don't believe in it. I understand that electricity is involved in powering my laptop, even if I don't know how any of it works.
My perception of scientific knowledge is incongruent with my perceptions of psychology. I understand that capital P Psychologists today hold Freud to little regard, that many of his theories are debunked. If I read a book like this, and find it compelling and decent at offering explanations for minor mishaps and oddities of everyday life, am I convincing myself of a falsehood? Yet significant ideas from Freud are tossed about and influence various aspects of pop culture, aren't they? To say nothing of the more explicit Freudian inspiration found in modernist literature while he was alive.
It feels wrong to be mistrustful of perceived authorities deriding Freud, but for the moment, I'm reading Freud and not his detractors, so I can only understand his works as being interesting and potentially helpful in interpreting aspects of my consciousness and that of others.
This book (to finally mention it specifically) focuses on psychological minutia - the Freudian slip, forgetting names, etc. so I didn't find it the most helpful authoritative guide to What Freudianism Is so I can follow that up with What Freudianism Isn't, but it does seem to say many things that I feel are taken for granted by me or by others I meet. He uses lots of examples from his own experience and that of others - probably more than is necessary to explain his ideas; I certainly skimmed through a few. It's quite an accessible book, if a little clumsy in translation, it being a book about mistaken words - one would not need to look at so many footnotes in German.
It isn't accessible in the sense that one, like me, sceptical about Freudian theory yet sceptical also about that inherent, learned scepticism, will come to any ready conclusions. The more I try to articulate my apprehensions of guiding narratives of human behaviour, sanity and madness the more immediately I feel I must conclude by saying 'I believe in nothing, I know nothing, it's all relative,' but I don't believe that at all. Who would? If I can't come to any decent conclusion myself, my inclination is to say 'maybe it is impossible to make conclusions', but that thought is both lazy and discouraging. I have a lot more reading and thinking to do.
That 'degree' is what's so puzzling. If psychology is (if only partially) understood to be a science, then psychologists must have some authoritative knowledge of human behaviours. One has to trust in authorities in some sense, if not to wallow in absurdity. Gravity has an effect on me even if I don't believe in it. I understand that electricity is involved in powering my laptop, even if I don't know how any of it works.
My perception of scientific knowledge is incongruent with my perceptions of psychology. I understand that capital P Psychologists today hold Freud to little regard, that many of his theories are debunked. If I read a book like this, and find it compelling and decent at offering explanations for minor mishaps and oddities of everyday life, am I convincing myself of a falsehood? Yet significant ideas from Freud are tossed about and influence various aspects of pop culture, aren't they? To say nothing of the more explicit Freudian inspiration found in modernist literature while he was alive.
It feels wrong to be mistrustful of perceived authorities deriding Freud, but for the moment, I'm reading Freud and not his detractors, so I can only understand his works as being interesting and potentially helpful in interpreting aspects of my consciousness and that of others.
This book (to finally mention it specifically) focuses on psychological minutia - the Freudian slip, forgetting names, etc. so I didn't find it the most helpful authoritative guide to What Freudianism Is so I can follow that up with What Freudianism Isn't, but it does seem to say many things that I feel are taken for granted by me or by others I meet. He uses lots of examples from his own experience and that of others - probably more than is necessary to explain his ideas; I certainly skimmed through a few. It's quite an accessible book, if a little clumsy in translation, it being a book about mistaken words - one would not need to look at so many footnotes in German.
It isn't accessible in the sense that one, like me, sceptical about Freudian theory yet sceptical also about that inherent, learned scepticism, will come to any ready conclusions. The more I try to articulate my apprehensions of guiding narratives of human behaviour, sanity and madness the more immediately I feel I must conclude by saying 'I believe in nothing, I know nothing, it's all relative,' but I don't believe that at all. Who would? If I can't come to any decent conclusion myself, my inclination is to say 'maybe it is impossible to make conclusions', but that thought is both lazy and discouraging. I have a lot more reading and thinking to do.
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