A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis: Volume 6 (Wiseblood Classics of Philosophy) - Softcover

In his essay “Freudianism and Psychoanalysis,” philosopher Jacques Maritain writes that “Freudian metaphysics contain in their very depths what Max Scheler calls resentment: the resentment of a soul wounded and humiliated from childhood, and which, as it seems, strikes at human nature itself; and especially resentment against all rational, moral, religious regulations, which pretend to conquer the world of instinct, and which in reality augment, in Freud's opinion, man's misfortune and lead to psychic disorders.” Although Maritain finds Freudian metaphysics deeply problematic, he carefully separates out Freudian psychoanalysis which, he contends, establishes Freud as a genius of discovery and investigation. Crucial to the psychoanalytic genius, he writes, is the theory that “a psychic state is determined not only by the foreground—that is, by the object which presents itself to the psychic energy; but it is also determined by the background—that is, by other, earlier states or psychic dispositions of the subject itself. The psychic foreground is both the effect and the sign of these unconscious states and dispositions. It is their 'psychic expression.' This is especially true in the case of psychic products which are not centered in reality: dreams, hallucinations, neurotic symptoms.” In A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOANALYSIS, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) sets forth his major theories on dream signification, censorship, and interpretation, the psychology of errors, fear and anxiety, transference, neuroses, and more.