Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners

by Sigmund Freud, M.D. Eder

Overview

According to Wikipedia: "Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology.[1] Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud is also renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life, as well as his therapeutic techniques, including the use of free association, his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires. He was also an early neurological researcher into cerebral palsy. While many of Freud's ideas have fallen out of favor or have been modified by Neo-Freudians, and modern advances in the field of psychology have shown flaws in many of his theories, Freud's work remains important in the history of clinical psychodynamic approaches. In academia, his ideas continue to influence the humanities and some social sciences."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781775411550
Publisher:	The Floating Press
Publication date:	01/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	214 KB

About the Author

Sigmund Freud ( born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 - 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.[4]
Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austrian Empire. He qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna.[5][6] Upon completing his habilitation in 1885, he was appointed a docent in neuropathology and became an affiliated professor in 1902.[7] Freud lived and worked in Vienna, having set up his clinical practice there in 1886. In 1938, Freud left Austria to escape the Nazis. He died in exile in the United Kingdom in 1939.
In founding psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory.[8] His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the underlying mechanisms of repression. On this basis Freud elaborated his theory of the unconscious and went on to develop a model of psychic structure comprising id, ego and super-ego.[9] Freud postulated the existence of libido, a sexualised energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt.[10] In his later works, Freud developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture.
Though in overall decline as a diagnostic and clinical practice, psychoanalysis remains influential within psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, and across the humanities. It thus continues to generate extensive and highly contested debate with regard to its therapeutic efficacy, its scientific status, and whether it advances or is detrimental to the feminist cause.[11] Nonetheless, Freud's work has suffused contemporary Western thought and popular culture. W. H. Auden's 1940 poetic tribute to Freud describes him as having created "a whole climate of opinion / under whom we conduct our different lives."

Table of Contents

Preface     vi
Introduction     xi
Dreams Have a Meaning     17
The Dream Mechanism     28
Why the Dream Disguises the Desires     43
Dream Analysis     53
Sex in Dreams     65
The Wish in Dreams     79
The Function of the Dream     92
The Primary and Secondary Process-Regression     102
The Unconscious and Consciousness-Reality     117
Index     125