The tension between Freud's clinical discoveries about the power of human emotions and the theoretical framework in which he embedded these discoveries has been most eloquently detailed by Freud himself. His agoniz ing reappraisal. in 1926, of the libido theory of anxiety is just one example. But, as is usually the case, theoretical difficulties point to gaps in existing knowledge. At the time when Freud made his fundamental discovery that hysterical symptoms (and dreams) were understandable as reflections of for bidden ("strangulated") affect, anthropology was essentially nonexistent as a science. The cultural nature of human beings (our species' unique adaptation to life) could only be adumbrated by Freud (for example, in the myth of Totem and Taboo). As a consequence, the primacy of human attachment emotions in the acculturation process could not be postulated as a theoretical base. What Freud adopted as his base of theorizing was the most forward looking materialist concept of his time: the Darwinian concept of individual instincts as the driving force in life. Freud assumed that the vicissitudes of in stincts determine the fate of "ideas" in consciousness. Freud's theoretical base thus impelled him to speculate about the origin and fate of ideas instead of about the origin and fate of human emotional connectedness. This book is a small step along the road which should ultimately bring Freud's discoveries into a modem theoretical framework in psychology.

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Authors and Affiliations

Yale University, New Haven, USA

Helen Block Lewis

Bibliographic Information

Book Title: Freud and Modern Psychology
Book Subtitle: Volume 1: The Emotional Basis of Mental Illness
Authors: Helen Block Lewis
Series Title: Emotions, Personality, and Psychotherapy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3812-3
Publisher: Springer New York, NY
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media New York 1981
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4684-3814-7Published: 24 December 2012
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4684-3812-3Published: 29 June 2013
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 247
Topics: Law and Psychology

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

Front Matter

Back Matter

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