Confusion of Tongues describes the genesis of Freud's clinical anthropology. A careful reading of Freud's early texts and letters to Fliess illustrates how Freud abandons his seduction theory of the neuroses in favor of a sexual biology. The meaning and the implications of this 'biological turn' are made clear through an analysis of Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, first published in 1905. This 'biological turn' leads to three mutually dependent claims that are fundamental to Freud's project of a clinical anthropology: the primacy of (infantile) sexuality, the discontinuity between the world of the adult and the world of the child, and the continuity between 'normality' (psychic health) and pathology. In the later editions of Three Essays, Freud increasingly stresses the continuity between infantile and adult sexuality, thus undermining the radical character of his previous claims. Confusion of Tongues shows that the introduction of the Oedipus complex plays a crucial role in this evolution. The book also attempts to resolve the resulting impasse through a confrontation of Freud's work with the work of Ferenczi and Laplanche. For both Ferenczi and Laplanche, Freud's clinical anthropology gets its foundation from his theory of sexual trauma. However, van Haute and Geysken's careful reading of their texts makes clear that neither Ferenczi nor Laplanche succeed in providing a new theoretical foundation for Freud's original claim that sexuality is the weak spot in human nature that predisposes us to psychopathology. Confusion of Tongues therefore argues that the shibboleth of psychoanalysis is not so much the primacy of sexuality, but the discontinuity between the world of the adult and the world of the child. Philippe van Haute is a professor of philosophical anthropology at the University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands). He is the president of the Center for Philosophical Anthropology and Psychoanalysis (University of Nijmegen/University of Leuven) and a practicing member of the Belgian School for Psychoanalysis.

Responding to growing interest in issues of gender and power as they arise within psychoanalysis, Freud, Dora, and the Confusion of Tongues re-examines Freud’s iconic case of Dora from the perspective of Sandor Ferenczi’s investigation of the sexual manipulation of children by adults. Freud believed that his analysis of Dora demonstrated the truth of his Oedipal theory; his treatment was based on interpretations of her statements as evidence of an unresolved Oedipal conflict. In contrast, Ferenczi’s Confusion of Tongues theory focused on the actual interactions between young people and adults who made use of their social status and power to substitute sexuality for the affection children desire. Where Freud located the origin of neurosis in psychological processes interior to the analysand, Ferenczi directed attention to the real traumatic aspects of the relationships between people. By such critical investigation, this book most strikingly shows that Freud’s imposition of his interpretations on Dora, despite his sincere wish to be of help to her, represented an abusive retraumatization. Arguing that it is essential to understand linguistic and other representational systems of experience, and the interrelation between the reproduction and transformation of self, in a contemporary analysis of Dora’s case, this book will appeal to psychoanalysts, philosophers and all those interested in a new understanding of classical psychoanalysis.

This collection covers all the topics relevant for understanding the importance of Sándor Ferenczi and his influence on contemporary psychoanalysis. Pre-eminent Ferenczi scholars were solicited to contribute succint reviews of their fields of expertise. The book is divided in five sections. 'The historico-biographical' describes Ferenczi's childhood and student days, his marriage, brief analyses with Freud, his correspondences and contributions to daily press in Budapest, list of his patients' true identities, and a paper about his untimely death. 'The development of Ferenczi's ideas' reviews his ideas before his first encounter with psychoanalysis, his relationship with peers, friendship with Groddeck, emancipation from Freud, and review of the importance of his Clinical Diary. The third section reviews Ferenczi's clinical concepts and work: trauma, unwelcome child, wise baby, identification with aggressor, mutual analysis, and many others. In 'Echoes', we follow traces of Ferenczi's influence on virtually all traditions in contemporary psychoanalysis: interpersonal, independent, Kleinian, Lacanian, relational, etc.

This book examines the representation of child sexual abuse in five American novels written from 1850 to the present. The historical range of the novels shows that child sexual abuse is not a new problem, although it has been called by other names in other eras. The introduction explains what literature and literary criticism bring to persistent questions that arise when children are sexually abused. Psychoanalytic concepts developed by Freud, Ferenczi, Kohut, and Lacan inform readings of the novels. Theories of trauma, shame, psychosis, and perversion provide insights into the characters represented in the stories. Each chapter is guided by a difficult question that has arisen from real-life situations of child sexual abuse. Legal and therapeutic interventions respond with their disciplinary resources to these questions as they concern victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. Literary criticism offers another analytic framework that can significantly inform those responses.

The first edition of this classic work from 1905 shows a radically different psychoanalysis Available for the first time in English, the 1905 edition of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality presents Sigmund Freud’s thought in a form new to all but a few ardent students of his work. This is a Freud absent the Oedipal complex, which came to dominate his ideas and subsequent editions of these essays. In its stead is an autoerotic theory of sexual development, a sexuality transcending binary categorization. This is psychoanalysis freed from ideas that have often brought it into conflict with the ethical and political convictions of modern readers, practitioners, and theorists. The non-Oedipal psychoanalysis Freud outlined in 1905 possesses an emancipatory potential for the contemporary world that promises to revitalize Freudian thought. The development of self is no longer rooted in the assumption of a sexual identity; instead the imposition of sexual categories on the infant mind becomes a source of neurosis and itself a problem to overcome. The new edition of Three Essays presents us with the fascinating possibility that Freud suppressed his first and best thoughts on this topic, and that only today can they be recognized and understood at a time when societies have begun the serious work of reconceptualizing sexual identities.

The relationship between sexuality and psychoanalysis can be described in terms of an old and stormy love affair. The same can be said about the relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy. It is precisely this fascinating 'love triangle' that the present volume of essays aims to explore. A diverse group of philosophers and psychoanalysts reflected on the concept of sexuality in Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalysis. The result is a stimulating collection of essays where the role of sexuality in psychoanalysis is scrutinized from a philosophical point of view.

2020 American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis (ABAPsa) book award winner! Only by the method of free-association could Sigmund Freud have demonstrated how human consciousness is formed by the repression of thoughts and feelings that we consider dangerous. Yet today most therapists ignore this truth about our psychic life. This book offers a critique of the many brands of contemporary psychoanalysis and psychotherapy that have forgotten Freud's revolutionary discovery. Barnaby B. Barratt offers a fresh and compelling vision of the structure and function of the human psyche, building on the pioneering work of theorists such as André Green and Jean Laplanche, as well as contemporary deconstruction, feminism, and liberation philosophy. He explores how ‘drive’ or desire operates dynamically between our biological body and our mental representations of ourselves, of others, and of the world we inhabit. This dynamic vision not only demonstrates how the only authentic freedom from our internal imprisonments comes through free-associative praxis, it also shows the extent to which other models of psychoanalysis (such as ego-psychology, object-relations, self-psychology and interpersonal-relations) tend to stray disastrously from Freud's original and revolutionary insights. This is a vision that understands the central issues that imprison our psychic lives - the way in which the reflections of consciousness are based on the repression of our innermost desires, the way in which our erotic vitality is so often repudiated, and the way in which our socialization oppressively stifles our human spirit. Radical Psychoanalysis restores to the discipline of psychoanalysis the revolutionary impetus that has so often been lost. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, mental health practitioners and students and academics with an interest in the history of psychoanalysis.