From August 29 to September 21, 1909, Sigmund Freud visited the United States, where he gave five lectures at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. This volume brings together a stunning gallery of leading historians of psychoanalysis and of American culture to consider the broad history of psychoanalysis in America and to reflect on what has happened to Freud’s legacy in the United States in the century since his visit. There has been a flood of recent scholarship on Freud’s life and on the European and world history of psychoanalysis, but historians have produced relatively little on the proliferation of psychoanalytic thinking in the United States, where Freud’s work had monumental intellectual and social impact. The essays in After Freud Left provide readers with insights and perspectives to help them understand the uniqueness of Americans’ psychoanalytic thinking, as well as the forms in which the legacy of Freud remains active in the United States in the twenty-first century. After Freud Left will be essential reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century American history, general intellectual and cultural history, and psychology and psychiatry.

This book draws on a number of Freud's lesser-known works to explore psychoanalytic perspectives on memory, mourning and repetition. It is remarkable that Freud in his speculations on the human psyche often took his point of departure in an insignificant detail. It might be a lapse of memory or a detail in a piece of art. From here he uncovered the many layers of the psyche, its complex structure and the processing of meaning right to the limit of understanding. At this point Freud ́s exploration encountered the unknown, an internal outland as difficult to acknowledge as the external reality. Freud did not invent the unconscious but he demonstrated how it works. The unconscious according to Freud does not exist, but insists on making itself visible. The eleven essays in this book draw a picture of the critical humanistic thinking so characteristic of Freud. His concepts and suppositions were the result of many years’ speculations, based on observation, experience and ideas, and although they are marked by the time and culture from which they emerged, they demonstrate a revolutionary knowledge of the psyche transcending the knowledge of his time. In her reading of the chosen texts the author has chosen the position of a contemporary interpretation. Examining how psychoanalytic work on the topics of memory, mourning and repetition has changed since Freud and how these themes remain of crucial importance in contemporary psychoanalytic theory, this book intersperses theory with clinical practice. It will be of great interest to training and practicing psychoanalysts, as well as scholars of art, literature and sociology.

Psychoanalysis has transformed our culture. We constantly use and refer to ideas from psychoanalysis, often unconsciously. Psychology, philosophy, politics, sociology, women's studies, anthropology, literary studies, cultural studies, and other disciplines have been permeated by the competing schools of psychoanalysis. But what of psychoanalysis itself? Where is it going one hundred years after Freud's own speculations took shape? Does it still have a role to play in cultural debate, or should it perhaps be abandoned? Speculations After Freud confronts the dilemmas of contemporary psychoanalysis by bringing together some of the most influential and best known writers on psychoanalysis, philosophy and culture. The advocates and critics of psychoanalysis, both institutional and theoretical, critically appraise the powerful role psychoanalytic speculation plays in all areas of culture.

2020 American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis (ABAPsa) book award winner! In a radically powerful interpretation of the human condition, this book redefines the discipline of psychoanalysis by examining its fundamental assumptions about the unconscious mind, the nature of personal history, our sexualities, and the significance of the "Oedipus Complex". With striking originality, Barratt explains the psychoanalytic way of exploring our inner realities, and criticizes many of the schools of "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" that emerged and prospered during the 20th century. In 1912, Sigmund Freud formed a "Secret Committee", charged with the task of protecting and advancing his discoveries. In this book, Barratt argues both that this was a major mistake, making the discipline more like a religious organization than a science, and that this continues to infuse psychoanalytic institutes today. What is Psychoanalysis? takes each of the four "fundamental concepts" that Freud himself said were the cornerstones of his science of healing, and offers a fresh and detailed re-examination of their contemporary importance. Barratt's analysis demonstrates how the profound work, as well as the playfulness, of psychoanalysis, provides us with a critique of the ideologies that support oppression and exploitation on the social level. It will be of interest to advanced students of clinical psychology or philosophy, as well as psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.

'While Freud opened the door on the formative and motivating power of sexuality, contemporary psychoanalysts, with some notable exceptions, have consigned sexuality to the psychoanalytic closet. This book not only re-opens the door on the broad subject of psychosexuality, but also provides fresh insights into heterosexuality, bisexuality, homosexuality, gender identity disorder, transvestism and transsexualism. This publication brings together some of the leading psychoanalytic authorities from around the globe to consider in depth the complex interweaving of identity, gender and sexuality from theoretical, clinical, historical and research perspectives. The author strongly recommends "Identity, Gender and Sexuality" to those looking for a book that does not pull punches. The reader will find a debate about the relative merits of clinical, empirical, and conceptual research, critical assessments of interdisciplinary findings from infant and child development research, embodied cognitive science, academic psychology, neurobiology, genetics, ethology, and other fields of inquiry, and honest and illuminating psychoanalytic case studies. - Donald Campbell

Pocket Essentials is a dynamic series of books that are concise, lively, and easy to read. Packed with facts as well as expert opinions, each book has all the key information you need to know about such popular topics as film, television, cult fiction, history, and more. Freud was one of the giants of 20th century thought. His ideas have been hugely influential not only in psychology but in all the social sciences and the arts. This looks at Freud's life from his birth in 1856 to his death in Hampstead in 1939. Each of Freud's major works is summarized, his central ideas are explored, and controversies over his methods and practices are examined. Did he, as some recent critics have alleged, turn his back on evidence of genuine child abuse in 1890s Vienna and prefer instead to ascribe it to fantasy and wish fulfilment? What were the reasons behind his terrible quarrel with Carl Gustav Jung? Does his "talking cure" of psychoanalysis actually work?

A convincing critique of the neglect of death in psychoanalytic theory, arguing that death has been a repressed subject in psychoanalysis.