Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Book lives upto it's notariaty August 10, 2007
Renee' Wilson (Rocky Mount, NC)
This book was a hard read BUT it was written by one of the best there is. It is packed with all the information one will need for research on Freud and his beliefs. It is an excellent book to have, especially if you are a psychology major.
 A Good Introduction and Reference March 7, 2006
Nikolas Adamsson (Stockton, CA USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
The Brill translation of the basic early writings of Sigmund Freud, although arguably not the most accurate translation, provides a good introduction to Freud's early work. We can read the critics and followers, yet sometimes we just have to go back to Freud's actual work. I keep my copy handy for reference and review.
Sigmund and soul. A myth to dream by.... March 16, 2005
2-B determined (Atlanta - USA)
3 out of 18 found this review helpful
While reviewers Ms."Oph" and her "behavorist friend" spar in the ring of modern man's thought, let's take a break while the round card girl walks the ring counter-clockwise for all to see, admire, and lust after. I say at this stage of the contest Ms. Oph is clearly the better of the two; except for her spelling. Blinkers must certainly mean blinders; yes? At least she has the thread in hand; while our behavorist friend is still holding firm to his boyish literalisms and denied (I suspect) search for a god; or an anti-god if needs be.
Bah; humbug. Freud was a novelist, a writer, a teller of tales. A mythologist, he admits it; sought after it. Dismiss those who helped form western man's thought? Forget it. Despite his human follies, which were certainly no greater or worse than yours or mine, the old man was brillant, as were his peers and adversaries. Each has something to offer if we listen.
Basic Writings of Freud by Brill May 27, 2004
Joseph S. Maresca (Bronxville, New York USA)
26 out of 27 found this review helpful
This is an excellent work for Freud enthusiasts. The work discusses the theoretical underpinnings for behavioral characteristics popularized by Freud. For instance, the proclivity to forget is related to a personal motivation to
suppress unpleasant memories. Dreams tend to depict unfulfilled wishes. Pain and disgust are more frequent aspects of dreams than pure pleasure. The author explains how childhood experiences both good and bad may resurface in our dreams. Our memory can be challenged to recall things long dormant. Night hallucinations can be due to perceived rejected sexual impulses.
Freud explains how seemingly contradictory thoughts can coexist side by side. The concept of psychological tension may be related to a displeasure or aversion. Freud discussed sexuality.
For instance, he noted that bisexual tendencies could be interpreted within the context of a female brain in a male body.
The book brings out many aspects of human behavior that we rarely dwell on consciously. It is perfect for a class project in
science, psychology or medicine. Freud's theories tend to be very
complex. This work reduces some of the deepest complexities to
simple English.Finally, the book helps us to understand the dynamics of why we behave as we do. This book explains important strategies to the classic flight/fight phenomena and accomodative
strategies aimed at reducing behavioral tensions/conflicts.
Review of Freud by an electrical engineer January 25, 2004
jacqueline oph (Cambridge, MA USA)
4 out of 16 found this review helpful
As so many scientifically minded people our behaviourist friend below is quick to condemn literature one could view as decidedly outside the realm science after submitting it to a scientific reading. The great questions of sanity and the pathological must be considered to fall largely outside the domain of science. How one answers these questions have important ethical implications which are often obscured by the blinkers of science. You wish to treat mental illness? I will ask you, then, to what end? And let me suggest that if you attempt to answer that question with an appeal to science you do nothing but shirk from the ethical dimension of the question. Dismissing the question by declaring the answer self evident and therefore not in need of elaboration amounts to the same.Serious, extensive, criticism can be levied at the scientific treatment of mental illness. For considerations of brevity I raise only the most obvious one: To draw scientific conclusions one needs measurable quantities, and their determination must be anything but scientific since it unfailingly requires a choice, which I maintain, is an ethical one. Cracks can be seen to emerge, if not in the edifice of science itself, atleast then at the junction of science and our human experience, where the question of mental health must unquestionable be located. The answers one gets, and thus the conclusions one draws, depend on the questions asked, and the manner of asking. One is always in the business of putting words to science, engaging thus, as one must, the dimension of the symbolic, which defines us as humans, beings of language. There is value in reading non-scientific literature, not measured with the yardstick of science, but properly misunderstood on its own terms. After Freud, read some Lacan, see the graphs and schemas, and note specifically the conclusion that psychoanalysis is not a science.
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