Freud and Man's Soul

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A.A. Knopf, 1983 - Psychology - 111 pages
"The world-renowned psychoanalyst and child psychologist here gives us an unprecedented reading of Freud and an exhilarating vision of the true uses of psychoanalysis. He demonstrates that the English translations of Freud's writings only distort some of the central concepts of psychoanalysis but actually make it impossible for the reader to recognize that Freud's ultimate concern was man's soul, the basic element of our common humanity--what it is, how it manifests itself in everything we do and dream. And he shows that these translations, masking much of the essential humanism of Freud's work, have led to a tragic misunderstanding and widespread misuse of psychoanalysis, particularly in America. Reminding us that Freud analyzed his own dreams, his own slips of the tongue, and the reasons he himself made mistakes, Dr. Bettelheim makes clear that Freud created psychoanalysis not so much as a method of analyzing the behavior of other people but as a way for each of us to gain access to (and, where possible, control of) his own unconscious--a goal impeded by English translations in which Freud becomes impersonal, esoteric, abstract, 'scientific, ' translations that discourage the reader from embarking on his own voyage of self-discovery and that make it easy for him to distance himself from what Freud sought to teach about the inner life of man and of the reader himself. Startling examples are given of mistranslations. Dr. Bettelheim (who is, as Freud was, a German-speaking Viennese) reveals how in the English versions nearly all of Freud's references to the soul have been corrupted (for example, Seelentätigkeit--'activity of the soul'--is translated as 'mental activity'). He demonstrates that Freud's English translators, because of their determination to perceive psychoanalysis as a medical science, have consistently resorted to the technical Greco-Latinisms of the medical profession--with such terms as 'parapraxis, ' 'cathexis' and 'scopophilia'--in rendering German words that Freud chose specifically for their humanistic resonance, for their power to evoke in his German readers not only an intellectual but also an emotional response. And Dr. Bettelheim makes us realize how these mistranslations--perhaps most notable among them the rendering into 'English' of the homely German words ich and es with the distant Latin ego and id--have had a profound effect on both the practice and the history of psychoanalysis. This eloquent, passionately argued, deeply illuminating book is urgent reading for everyone interested in psychoanalysis and for all who seek a humanistic approach to psychology--so central to Freud and so unrecognizable in the English translations of his writings. It is certain to take its place among the classic works of Bruno Bettelheim."--Jacket.

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Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
31
Section 3
37
Copyright

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About the author (1983)

Bruno Bettelheim had remarkable success in treating deeply emotionally disturbed children. A pupil of Sigmund Freud, he was a vehement opponent of the operant conditioning methods of B. F. Skinner and other behaviorists. Austrian-born, Bettelheim came to the United States in 1939. Profoundly influenced by the year he spent in a German concentration camp during World War II, he reflects in his writings his sensitivity and knowledge of the fear and anxiety induced under such conditions. His famous Individual and Mass Behavior (1943), first published in a scientific periodical and then in pamphlet form, is a study of the human personality under the stress of totalitarian terror and concentration-camp living. Bettelheim sees a relationship between the disturbances of the concentration camp survivors and those of the autistic, or rigidly withdrawn, children whom he describes in The Empty Fortress (1967), because both have lived through extreme situations. The Children of the Dream (1969) describes with considerable enthusiasm the absence of neurosis in children brought up on kibbutzim in Israel in groups of other children and cared for by adults who are not their parents. Bettelheim believes that American ghetto children would benefit from this kind of experience in preference to the at best partial help of present programs designed to accelerate educational progress for the deprived. From 1944 to 1973, Bettelheim served as the principal of the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, a residential laboratory for the treatment of disturbed children at the University of Chicago. Up until his death in 1990, Bettelheim remained active in his scholarly pursuits, continuing to write about the nurturing of healthy children and devoting himself to improving the human condition.

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