The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud 23

by Sigmund Freud

Moses and Monotheism and Other Works (1937 - 1939)

This collection of twenty-four volumes is the first full paperback publication of the standard edition of The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud in English

Includes:

Moses and Monotheism: Three Essays (1934-38)
An Outline of Psycho-Analysis (1938)
Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937)
Constructions in Analysis (1937)
Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence (1938)
Some Elementary Lessons in Psycho-Analysis (1938)
A Comment on Anti-Semitism (1938)
Shorter Writings (1937-38)

Genres: Psychology

334 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2001

About the author

Dr. Sigismund Freud (later changed to Sigmund) was a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, who created an entirely new approach to the understanding of the human personality. He is regarded as one of the most influential—and controversial—minds of the 20th century.

In 1873, Freud began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating, he worked at the Vienna General Hospital. He collaborated with Josef Breuer in treating hysteria by the recall of painful experiences under hypnosis. In 1885, Freud went to Paris as a student of the neurologist Jean Charcot. On his return to Vienna the following year, Freud set up in private practice, specialising in nervous and brain disorders. The same year he married Martha Bernays, with whom he had six children.

Freud developed the theory that humans have an unconscious in which sexual and aggressive impulses are in perpetual conflict for supremacy with the defences against them. In 1897, he began an intensive analysis of himself. In 1900, his major work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was published in which Freud analysed dreams in terms of unconscious desires and experiences.

In 1902, Freud was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a post he held until 1938. Although the medical establishment disagreed with many of his theories, a group of pupils and followers began to gather around Freud. In 1910, the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded with Carl Jung, a close associate of Freud's, as the president. Jung later broke with Freud and developed his own theories.

After World War One, Freud spent less time in clinical observation and concentrated on the application of his theories to history, art, literature and anthropology. In 1923, he published 'The Ego and the Id', which suggested a new structural model of the mind, divided into the 'id, the 'ego' and the 'superego'.

In 1933, the Nazis publicly burnt a number of Freud's books. In 1938, shortly after the Nazis annexed Austria, Freud left Vienna for London with his wife and daughter Anna.

Freud had been diagnosed with cancer of the jaw in 1923, and underwent more than 30 operations. He died of cancer on 23 September 1939.

Reviews

[Nur · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book offers a dense but remarkably precise exploration of the unconscious and its dynamics. Freud meticulously traces how drives, repression, and affect interact within his topographical model, emphasizing the subtle interplay between unconscious impulses and conscious representation. What I found particularly compelling was the focus on the organizational logic of the unconscious; the way suppressed content is systematically “compiled” and yet remains emotionally active, manifesting through dreams, slips, and symptoms.

Reading it required careful attention and re-reading, but the payoff is a deeply nuanced understanding of the mechanisms that underlie human affect and behavior. It’s not a light read, but for anyone serious about psychoanalytic theory or the architecture of the mind, it is indispensable. Personally, it reshaped how I think about the way our emotions can operate independently of, yet intertwined with, conscious thought.

[Billie Pritchett]

Collects works from Freud's final days. Even until the end, the man was trying to innovate. Includes a bonkers monograph hypothesizing two Moseses, a new general introduction to psychoanalysis, and some illuminating papers on therapeutic practice. All his writings are an uneasy combination of audacious bravado and extreme modesty. Re the latter, for example, he writes of how even if a therapist is able to help a patient resolve one set of problems, that work is no guarantee that new life problems won't befall the patient. Therapy is no cure-all.