How to read Freud

Description

In this engaging introduction, Josh Cohen argues that Freud shows above all that any thought, word or action, however apparently trivial, can invite close reading. Indeed, it may be just this insight that provokes so much opposition to psychoanalysis. By reading short extracts from across Freud's work, addressing the neuroses, the unconscious, words, death and (of course) sex, How to Read Freud brings out the paradoxical core of psychoanalytic thinking: that our innermost truths only ever manifest themselves as distortions. Read attentively, our dreams, errors, jokes and symptoms - in short, our everyday lives - reveal us as masters of disguise, as unrecognizable to ourselves as to others. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Introduction 1. HYSTERICAL BEGINNINGS 2. THE UNCONSCIOUS 3. UNCONSCIOUS WIT — DREAMS 4. THE COMICAL UNCONSCIOUS 5. NO 6. DOUBLY UNCANNY 7. THE OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE 8. THE OBSCURER OBJECT OF DESIRE 9. THE OBSCUREST OBJECT OF DESIRE 10. MASOCHISTIC ENDING NOTES CHRONOLOGY SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING INDEX