Rereading Freud
Psychoanalysis through Philosophy
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Continental philosophers examine Freud’s metapsychology.
Description
Rereading Freud assembles eminent philosophical scholars and clinical practitioners from continental, pragmatic, feminist, and psychoanalytic paradigms to examine Freud's metapsychology. Fundamentally distorted and misinterpreted by generations of English speaking commentators, Freud's theories are frequently misunderstood within psychoanalysis today. This book celebrates and philosophically critiques Freud's most important contribution to understanding humanity: that psychic reality is governed by the unconscious mind. The contributors focus on several of Freud's most influential theories, including the nature and structure of dreams; infantile sexuality; drive and defense; ego development; symptom formation; feminine psychology; the therapeutic process; death; and the question of race. In so doing, they shed light on the ontological commitments Freud introduces in his metapsychology and the implications generated for engaging theoretical, clinical, and applied modes of philosophical inquiry.
Jon Mills is a psychologist, philosopher, and psychoanalyst in private practice; President of the Section on Psychoanalysis, Canadian Psychological Association; and Senior Faculty at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Toronto. He is the author of The Unconscious Abyss: Hegel's Anticipation of Psychoanalysis and the editor of Psychoanalysis at the Limit: Epistemology, Mind, and the Question of Science, both published by SUNY Press.
Reviews
"Mills is very much alive in contemporary psychoanalysis … his rereading of Freud and concern regarding false dichotomies and Freud's location in contemporary practice deserves to be taken seriously by any practitioner attracted to Freud's project and the contemporary scene. " — Psychologist-Psychoanalyst
"This timely book makes a profoundly significant contribution to research concerning the philosophical implications of Freud's thought. The rich array of perspectives by leading scholars will reinvigorate intellectual discourse in Freud studies for years to come. This is an extraordinary undertaking that is long overdue. " — David Pettigrew, cotranslator of The Book of Love and Pain: Thinking at the Limit with Freud and Lacan