A Primer of Freudian Psychology

by Calvin Springer Hall

A Primer of Freudian Psychology

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Science

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

Reviews

[Parham · Rating 4 out of 5]

همانطور که از نام کتاب پیداست ، اینجا با نظریات فروید در روانکاوی و روانشناسی و کمی عصب شناسی آشنا میشویم و با آن نیمه ی دیگر فروید که
تحلیلگر فرهنگ و هنر و سایر علوم انسانی ( نظیر جامعه شناسی و ...) باشد ، سروکار نخواهیم داشت . با این حال تصور میکنم که برای اندیشمند پرکار و صاحب نظر در حیطه ی گسترده ای از علوم ، چه بسا همین رویکرد بهتر بود تا علیرغم وسعت کمتر مطالب ، خواننده با عمق بیشتری مواجه باشد .

فصل اول زندگینامه ی نسبتاً کوتاه از زیگموند فروید است که از دوران تحصیلش در رشته پزشکی و ادامه ی این رشته به عنوان شغلش - که البته چندان باب میل و دلخواه نبود - می گوید ؛ اکراهی که شاید برای مطالعاتش در روانشناسی که آنزمان وضعیت مساعدی نداشت جا باز کرد و سبب شد که این رشته ی محدود و بسط نیافته و ناشناخته ، گامهای خطیری به جلو بردارد . ((زمانی که مرد جوانی بودم نسبت به هیچ چیز جز دانش فلسفی تمایل و اشتیاق نداشتم و اینک با گذار از پزشکی به سوی روانشناسی خود را در مسیر رسیدن به این آرمان میبینم.))

فصل دوم تعاریفی مقدماتی و کمابیش ساده از سه بخش شخصیت هستند که اجزای کلِ شخصیت انسان میباشند . نهاد ، من و فرامن : نهاد را به عنوان "کودک لوس" ساختار شخصیتی حتی قلمداد کرده اند زیرا عموماً با صفاتی نظیر رویاپرداز ، بی ملاحظه ، غیر منطقی و زیاده خواه و حریص توصیف شده است . در واقع ، نهاد یک اصل برای پایبندی دارد و آن اصلِ لذت است ؛ بی آنکه ذره ای توجه به تطابق فرد با محیط بیرونی و تفکر منطقی برای هماهنگی با عینیتِ جهان داشته باشد ، کاری که من به عهده میگیرد ؛ اگر در نهاد فقط و فقط لذت باشد که حرف اول و آخر را میزند ، من میل به پیروی از واقعیت و یافتن راه حل برای برداشتن موانعِ واقعیت دارد ؛ اما "من" فقط با نهاد نیست که بایستی در کشمکش و درگیریِ پایداری باشد ، بلکه فرامن نیز بایستی به حساب آید . فرامن نماینده ی ارزش ها و آرمانهائیست که فرد از نیروهای مقتدر زندگی اش - به خصوص دوران کودکی که پدرومادر باشند - به ارث برده و در واقع ، فرامن است که حکم میکند خیر و شر ِ هر عمل چیست و به عبارتی دیگر ، فرامن است که بایدها و نبایدها را میگوید . در پایان فصل میخوانیم که فردی که سازگاریِ نسبی بیشتری بین این سه نظام برقرار کرده باشد شاید سالم تر از لحاظ روانی محسوب شود اما باز هم میخوانیم که در هر فردی یکی از این سه نظام قوی تر و ارجح است و شاید رسیدن به تعادلی مطلق بین این سه ممکن نباشد .

فصل سوم و چهارم شاید یک نوع بسط و نقبِ بیشتر از مفاهیمی باشند که در فصل دوم مطرح شدند ؛ قاعدتاً بسیار جزئیات سازوکارهای سه نظام مذکور با حوصله بیشتری پرداخته شده اند و البته با ذکر مثال هایی از زندگی روزمره ، شفافیت مطالب افزون شده است . غرایز زندگی (لیبیدو)و مرگ(مورتیدو ، البته این اسم توسط خود فروید انتخاب نشده )، انواع اضطرابها (عینی،نوروتیک و اخلاقی)، مکانیزم های دفاعیِ من (سرکوب،فرافکنی،تثبیت،واپس گرایی، واکنش وارونه ) ، استیج یا دوره های دهانی ، مقعدی و تناسلی ، عقده ی ادیپ (برخلاف باور عموم ، فروید این عقده را فقط مختصِ پسران نمیدانست و صرفاً اسم خاصی برای حالتِ مونث درنظر نداشت ، اما بدین معنی نیست که عقده ی ادیپ را مخصوص جنس مذکر میدانست ) و استواریِ شخصیت همه از عنوانها و سرفصلهایی هستند که با نثری کمابیش روان و نظم و پیوستگی در ارائه مطالب ، تشریح شده اند

کمی سختگیر باشیم ، کتاب نیازمند یک ویراست مجدد نیز هست چرا که گاهاً - شاید چهار پنج بار در کل - نقطه های سر خط اشتباهاً گذاشته شده و گاهی به کلی فراموش شده اند . یکی دو مورد هم پاورقی دیدم که به جای اینکه در پایین صفحه قرار داشته باشد ، پاراگرافی از صفحه ی بعد شده بود! از جمله ، پاورقی مربوط به شخصیتِ تاریخی ((دون ژوان)) . اما نمیتوانم ایراد خاصی از ترجمه بگیرم ، چرا که ابهام زیادی در جملات ندیدم . در آخر ، انتخاب خوبی برای شروع ِ فروید خواندن است ، چرا که صرفاً به تشریح و بازگویی موضوعات فروید پرداخته و به نقد و پرسشگری ای که چندان برای یک کتاب مقدماتی پسندیده نیست (شخصاً ) ، اهمیتی نداده است . توصیه میکنم

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh Sigmund Fraud – sorry Freudian slip. Okay, enough of the crappy jokes.

First off, in my opinion Freud receives a lot of unfair criticism in general. Many people don’t understand/ properly take into account the historical context in which his theories were formed, mainly a repressive Victorian society. At the time, he found an acceptable way to facilitate appropriate – if inaccurate – discussion about taboo subjects, namely sex. Furthermore, many people today take for granted the vast amount of information we have accumulated – everything from the brain to genes to the interaction between genes and environment – since Freud’s time, courtesy of neuroscience, better technology etc. Freud didn’t have any of that and we have the privilege of hindsight. Also, he didn’t ignore biology; in fact quite the contrary - of course the human genome project hadn’t been implemented yet. Based on this, I won’t fault him too heavily (as many scientists do). I believe his emphasis on nurture, as opposed to nature, was a very important notion at the time – though that notion was blown so far out of proportion it’s disgusting.

It was interesting to read of Freud’s medical and scientific background. He really attempted to make psychology into a legitimate science – certainly an important aim and no small peanuts. However, I do believe William James ultimately did far more to set the scientific reductionism of experimental psychology on its proper track.


Bottom line: In my opinion, Freud did a few very important things for psychology: He reminded us that we humans have a dark side, he shed some light on how parents can potentially hinder their child’s development (though he did go overboard here, overemphasizing nurture over nature), and perhaps most importantly, he discovered the unconscious or was at least the first to conceptualize it -- I’ve always loved his iceberg analogy of the unconscious, the premise of which is still very appropriate: much of what goes on in our brains does so outside of conscious awareness, or below the surface as it were.

But honestly, Freud… does everything really have a malicious ulterior motive? Do all dreams represent repressed sexual drives, and penis envy – really??? And of course, the other problem with Freud’s theories is that they aren’t really falsifiable, which in science is kind of not... okay.

*Note: my rating reflects Freud’s ideas, not the author’s writing. I think the author did a fine job creating a synopsis of Freud’s ideas.

[Volkan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent short overview of Freud’s extensive body of work. Especially his idea of the structure of the psyche is useful.

[Nafis]

2.5 / 5

[Ali Taheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

هال این کتاب رو کاملا به زبان ساده نوشته تا برای عموم قابل فهم باشه و خواسته طول کتاب جنبه روایی داشته باشه و نه جنبه نقد، که دلیلش رو هم در مقدمه به آن اشاره کرده و با اینکه یک رفتارگراست کاملا به هدف خود رسیده.
بخش اول کتاب به طور خلاصه به مسیر زندگانی فروید و در بخش های بعدی به نظریات او پرداخته شده.

خواندن این کتاب برای آشنایی اولیه با نظریات فروید پیشنهاد میشه.

[Shruthi · Rating 3 out of 5]

You Can Not Want To Be Raped.
Also homophobia.

Freud is the "father" of psychology. But he was also, at times, an idiot.

Overall this book was an okay guide to Freud. Fairly basic stuff and I learnt nothing new.

[Amin · Rating 4 out of 5]

برای شروع روانشناسی فروید، کتابی است فوق العاده. درک تعبیر خواب فروید بدون خواندن این کتاب بسیار سخت خواهد بود

[Javad Siavashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the book and the author: Great book. Recommended to anyone who wants a well-written, well-gathered systematic explanation of Freud's model of personality and its dynamics.

On Freud's ideas and model: It's like religion; lots of truth in it, but you can't help but see lots of bullshit and inadequacies in it at the same time. It cannot explain a lot of the VERY IMPORTANT parts of personality. First, I'll mention some of the important problems, and then I'll talk about my opinion on the interesting and good parts.

---
Problems that I saw:

where is free will?

is the foundation of ethics only justifications and rationalizations to hold it in your pants and not punch people in the face when you feel the desire to?

self-transcendental and spiritual experiences reported over and over throughout history?

apparently the feeling of emptiness is a souvenir from when you were a child going to the potty and the poop left an empty feeling inside you. Root of existential emptiness and meaninglessness found! Let's not talk about the feeling of isolation and/or any existential philosophical issues.

And perhaps most importantly, its lack of epistemological ground (especially around the stages of sexual development and Oedipus complex stuff). Now I have learned that Karl Popper has criticized Freud's ideas as 'pseudo-science', as they lack epistemological ground which would count the theories as scientific. Most of his ideas are not scientifically testable and measurable. They're also not falsifiable. They could be right. They could be wrong. But I'll go further than saying 'pseudo-science'. I think of science as empirical means of getting to truth. If Freud had any other justifiable means of getting to the truths that he did, I would have been somewhat convinced. But it's very vague and unclear. HOW he got to the conclusions is not really clear. It's a result of his observations and thinking and rethinking and testing and so on, but the process is not really trackable or explainable to me. But well... I only read this book and watched online videos about him. So maybe in reality he did explain the epistemological ground. If so, It'd be interesting to know what it is.

---
Now the good stuff.

PSYCHODYNAMICS: thinking of the inner world as a dynamic place in which forces operate, and like physics, there's a flow of energy and it is spent on different things. The energy of your mind (psychic energy) is LIMITED, so how you spend it really counts. If you spend a lot of your mental energy on the weeds of life, you'll end up with nothing. You'll get drained. You'll be a 'walking dead' kind of person; rigid, empty of life, robotic. On the other hand, if you cultivate your energy well, your personality will have a harmonic flow of energy, causing a productive, creative life, full of 'LIFE'.

What drains our energy? In short, our 'hang ups' or wrong ways of dealing with life that keep our minds busy with things that could be dealt with in more efficient and realistic ways. Be it repressing parts of ourselves, acting in opposition of what we really are to hide the reality we are anxious of (i.e. you are insecure, but you act confident to hide the insecurity. Or you hate someone, but you fear being found out so you act lovingly toward them in a forced way), or projecting your inner world unto the outer world and people to reduce anxiety, or other means.

Freud believed that our love and hate for things like art, religion, culture, growth at work or family or others interests adults pursue is just a transformed version of our childhood interests and fears; that we take the interest from what we can't get as kids (mother's sexual love, shitting your pants whenever you want, eating as much as you want, or any other means of relieving pain and gaining bodily pleasure immediately) and sacrifice some amount of the tension relief these things give us, and put the interest unto some other thing that resembles the first thing. So you can't get your hands on your mom's breasts? You suck your thumb. You can't do that anymore? You drink from a bottle. You smoke. In this way, that first tension relieving activity transforms itself into smth that relieves the tension less, but is acceptable by the norm. So, sacrifice full satisfaction, but be in peace with the world and don't create more pain from the pleasure (don't suck your thumb as an adult and then feel embarrassed, which gives more tension than sucking thumb relieves it). Adults normally do complex things that satisfy many of their basic needs at once, but non of them gets fully satisfied. In this way, they deal with the overwhelm of anxiety and tension. Partial satisfaction that doesn't have (relatively more) bad consequences in return.

I don't agree with this whole deal that all our drives come from instincts and wanting to satisfy them, and then later additional drives come to control these instinctual drives from hurting us in the face of the consequences of our instinctually driven actions. Freud's model says all human personality is is a fight between satisfying needs and not fucking up in the process. That's life. That's human nature for you. Of course I disagree. There's much more to humanity and life than just instincts.

Having said that, instincts, their role in our lives and in development of our personality is undeniable. So in the end, I think learning about Freud's ideas helps us understand the instinctual games that are going on inside of us, and so learn to control and change them for the better, or at least be more self-aware in the matter.

---
This one ended up being a long review. Dunno if anyone will read it, since it's been a while since the book was written, but to anyone who spent the time to read this, thanks :) But also my words are just opinions at this point. I don't have any deep education in Freud, and so much of what I said could be incorrect or incomplete.

[Noah Tiegs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly… this book is really well done! Which was a pleasant surprise. I didn’t think it would be bad, I guess I just thought like, it would be boring. And it wasn’t! For a couple reasons I think: one is that Freud is just… so interesting. And two, like, it’s really well-written! The concepts are explained in language that is soooo understandable, which like, thank god.

I also think if this were a book from Freud I would critique differently because some of these ideas… are just absolutely coconuts. So I’d probably take it down a notch. But that’s not what I’m reading - I’m reading an explanation of Freud’s ideas, which was very well done!

Also, like, can I just say… I really enjoy Freud. I know, I know, he was a bit of a crackpot coke fiend who had some sexist beliefs and theories. But also, I mean, let’s be honest: there are some truly great insights from Freud! And he did a lot of this stuff, just by kinda thinking about it - no scientific study. And that’s fine! There should be credence given to that too because it often feels SO correct, and often is!

anyway good quick read byeeeee

[Nate Samuels · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written summary of Freud (though had to say as intro to it), short and sweet, good explanatory examples. On Freud himself, I thought he had some astute observations that I agreed with, and other out there theories which I disagreed with. Overall I think its an important read and contributes to a more complete understanding of the human psyche.

Rating: 3/5 (Nonfiction)

[Soumya Sreehari · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read about Freud's work. In that context, I found the book informative. True to the title it is a primer, gives a concise overview of the bulk of Freud's work.

[Saleh · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتابی خواندنی و پله اولی میتواند باشد برای کسانی که میخواهند به طور اصولی روانشانی را مطالعه کنند.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was sixteen, I lucked into a course called Psychology, Myth, and Literature for which this particular primer was required reading. We read it, I believe, in conjunction with Shaffer's Equus, and I promise that whatever effect you're picturing that combination having on a group of teenagers, it is not nearly as colorful as the reality. Feel free to experiment on your own kids for fun.

Upon re-reading, I find my reactions to this not much different from when I first used it as excellent joke-fodder twenty years ago. Hall's writing is lucid, if slightly on the adulatory side, and his brief analysis of Freud's life and scientific influences is extremely helpful, particularly the focus on Freud's absorption of contemporary discoveries in physics regarding the conservation of energy. However, lucid synopsis is not enough to save the batshit theories Freud promulgated, and the last third of the book (which covers the dreaded oral/anal/genital zones) is likely to leave you rolling your eyes and reconsidering the rationality of the preceding hundred pages.

Hall's Primer does its work well, giving a glimpse of the genius of Freud, the context in which that genius developed, and the serious hangups (not that the author seems to grasp this) which prevented many of his theories from managing to survive outside his middle-class Victorian milieu. And if it's far more entertaining when taken in conjunction with a heavy dose of horse symbolism...well, that's hardly Hall's fault, is it?

[J. Ewbank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even easier to read than Freud's work is this work by Hall in explaining Freud. For those who are unfamiliar with the writings of Freud or of pscyhology in general, this could be an interesting introduction to Freud.

It is a good read and well designed.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'M

[Mahdi Najafpour · Rating 2 out of 5]

لحن **کالوین‌اس.هال** روان و روایی‌ست
فارغ از هرگونه سوگیری
کتاب حاضر اثرِ خوب و مناسبی در جهت آشنایی و کمی یادگیری اندیشه فروید و روانکاوی می‌باشد.
به کسانی که میل به آشنایی با فروید دارند پیشنهاد می‌کنم.
....
ضمنن ترجمه با کیفیت و خواندنی انجام شده بود.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

haven't seen too many primers that suck.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that I understand Id, Ego, and Superego enough to tell high school students the basics and apply it in a critical analysis of Batman. Sweet.

[Adrain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding review of Freud's work. This brought additional information to light for me.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the beginning of my project to dive into the history of psychoanalysis, starting with the big man himself.

I was always unsure what to think of Freud, because my undergrad psychology classes didn’t extensively cover him, and most people tend to dismiss him for vague reasons (which seem to me to be more a symptom of his historical and scientific context than him being a poor thinker). Reading this has impressed me with how well much of his theories hold up. Of course, there was some bad.

The organization between id, ego, and superego made sense considering the extensive influence that both instinct and morals have upon our psyche, and how they can conflict. The dynamic “energies” of the psyche is brilliant. I’m especially impressed by the defense mechanisms, which I think will always be relevant to psychology thanks to Freud.

I enjoyed the psychosomatic theory, but some applications were questionable, particularly related to development (the thing about poop??) A lot of the developmental stuff is where I started to see why people criticize Freud so much. Why so much focus on Mom and Dad?

Anyways, good primer. Looking forward to reading Freud’s primary works and seeing how other thinkers build upon his theories.

[Rodrigo Díaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro sintetiza la psicología freudiana de una manera amena y con ejemplos claros. Sirve si se quiere evitar poner en orden uno mismo los matices, las transformaciones y cambios de parecer que tuvo Freud en su pensamiento a lo largo de décadas. El pensamiento freudiano mutó con el tiempo y me parece valioso tener una síntesis a la mano. Puedo reconocer que el autor tuvo que trabajar mucho para sintetizar las ideas más vertebradoras de un pensamiento fluctuante que se movió más de una vez.
Como todos los libros de este tipo, saca lágrimas, enojos y más de una vez me he reconocido rechinando los dientes o dándome cuenta de tensiones musculares mientras leía temas difíciles con los que me identificaba, o con los que deseaba inútilmente no identificarme.
Por lo corto y claro que es, lo considero imperdible.

[Marco Sán Sán]

Maravilloso mapa para adentrase en los territorios Freudianos. Los primeros 4 capítulos bien podrían ser una magnifica introducción a Freud por la coherencia, introyección y claridad en la que se expresa el sistema, aunque los siguientes capítulos se pierde un poco la sistematización por la exigencia sintética que expone el autor, un mejor desarrollo habrían dado la mejor introducción a todo el sistema Freudiano, aun así el libro no pierde rigor, solo que lo involuntariamente abstruso del tema exige una mayor minuciosidad en esas cotas de complejidad para que sean claras.

Leo en su bibliografía que tiene un libro de 800 páginas donde desarrolla la sistematización de la personalidad, veo que 60 no eran suficientes.

[t.s. esque · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good refresher on Freudian theories. Obviously the historical/ scientific study of human psychology does not start or stop here, but the explanation of the conceptual id/ego/super-ego as well as the subjects of object-cathexis/anti-cathexis, fixation, projection, repression, reaction formation, defense mechanisms, anxiety, & regression are all discussed practically here.

[Dominique · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was well written and discusses: the id, ego, super-ego, cathexis and anti-cathexes, defense mechanisms among other topics and integrates the information into a brief chapter about becoming a more complete person as one gets older.

I did not agree with all that is discussed in the book and some of the information is a little dated which is expected as it has a copyright of 1954.

I would not be surprised if A Primer of Freudian Psychology and A Primer of Jungian Psychology were both used in introductory level psychology courses.

--------------------------------------------
Dictionary/Reference Review: 29
Grammatical Error Count: 1

[Jose Nunez · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5. This is a concise book from the most relevant theories of Sigmund Freud. I am sure he left some others out, but if you want to get a digestible book about the origins of psychoanalysis, this is the one.

[Sterling Chargois · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, I don’t think a review of this book should really be based on Freud’s views since this isn’t a book by Freud. It’s an introduction to his work. And for the context of this book and when it was written, it did an excellent job of doing what its title says. Easy, short introductory book.

[Mariana Elizondo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente libro (lo leí después del proyecto) para todos aquellos principiantes en la metapsicología freudiana. Me hubiera ahorrado varias sesiones de supervisión.

[Anaid Talia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ayuda a comprender los conceptos básicos con claridad

[Anatasya Rafelinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good. This book make u understand why you behave that way
(i'm too lazy to write long review bcs i did write my longest review and idk, it's gone, so yeah)

[seth · Rating 5 out of 5]

always good to refresh especially in honor of freud’s birthday.

[Tony Lee Ross Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An accessible primer and introduction to Freud's thought.