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E-book A Dark Trace : Sigmund Freud on the Sense of Guilt

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Penilaian

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“Psychoanalysis has never claimed to provide a complete theory of human mentality in general.”1 Freud wrote these words in 1914, shortly after his break with Jung. It is indeed true that he never concerned himself with developing an all-embracing system, but rather moved from the analysis of patients to areas of special attention: repression, dreams, the unconscious, sexuality and resistance. Sense of guilt also constituted an area of interest in his work. In his search for an explanation for and the origins of sense of guilt it appears that he did not attempt to construct a definitive theory here either. Despite returning repeatedly to this topic, Freud never wrote a systematic article about this feeling.2 When touching upon sense of guilt, which he did often, he mapped it and indicated its connections to other psychic phenomena and with culture. His point of departure was the individual, and this is striking, not so much against the background of his interests and patient analyses, but because of the dominant tendencies in psychology and philosophy, inasmuch as these dealt with theorizing about man and mind. In the nineteenth century, science (and hence psychology, inasmuch as one may call it a science) tended towards system development which explained “everything”. Psyche, 1846, by Carl Gustav Carus, Philosophie des Unbewußten [Philosophy of the Unconscious], 1869, by Eduard von Hartmann, and also Wilhelm Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie [Folk-Psychology], 1905-1920, are good examples of this. Accordingly Hartmann wrote in the introduction to his book that he saw it as his task to realize a synthesis of the great philosophical systems into a monistic unity.3This romantic tradition of great systems built around an unambiguous principle did not fail to have its effect on psychoanalysis. Jung, Adler and later Rank, too, are in essence psychoanalysts who express this tradition of system construction and monism. Freud repeatedly distanced himself from these tendencies, not only because there is always an individual case to disprove any system, but also because he believed humans are fundamentally in conflict, because every analytic insight achieved appears also to cloak something else, and because the therapist is never in a position objectively to plumb the deepest emotional depths. Nevertheless, he is in a certain way very much in the tradition of the great theorists. Whether one considers Darwin’s The Descent of Man, Frazer’s The Golden Bough or Breasted’s The Dawn of Conscience, these are all comprehensive works which resonate in Freud’s work. Put another way, although he was certainly interested in “everything”, he did not explain it all by reducing it to a single principle. It would be better to say that he placed the unique individual before a background of changing and varied cultures and religions.Freud does not describe systems but areas of attention. With the exception of The Interpretation of Dreams there is not one book which exhaustively explores a single phenomenon. This is why Freud preferred to speak about “fundaments”, “types”, “speculations”, “fantastic hypotheses” and “nuclear complexes” and used words like “fragment”, “project”, “outline”, “formulations”, “observations”, “notes” or “further remarks” in the titles of some of his works. He preferred to direct his attention to the victims (neurotics) of modern culture, to the decisive (small) events which changed history and the great men who were able to influence history.My study on sense of guilt in Freud’s work is not intended to construct or reconstruct a conclusive theory. I am concerned in the first place with describing sense of guilt as an area of attention. My thesis is that sense of guilt is not a secondary theme which appears primarily in Freud’s later work but that in fact it plays a fundamental role in his earlier psychoanalytic work.4 It is via the analysis of sense of guilt that he came to understand the importance of repressed wishes and desires. It is via the analysis of sense of guilt that he discovered the Oedipus complex and the meaning of the ambivalence of love and hate. It appears to be an affect omnipresent in the tension between passions, desires and repressed feelings on the one hand and a censuring, accusatory morality on the other. Freud was not only able to research the nature and meaning of that repression via sense of guilt, but was also able to inquire after the origin of morality in both its individual and cultural guises.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

150.195 WES a

Penerbit

Belgia : Leuven University Press., 2021

Deskripsi Fisik

333 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9789461664174

Klasifikasi

150.195

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Psychoanalysis

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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