por Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a praxis formulated for the treatment of psychopathological disorders, based on the dialogue between the patient and the therapist.
His work was prolific and left a mark on the culture and history of humanity. Several terms conceptualized by him (such as the unconscious) have become part of knowledge and culture. popular.
In 1930 he received the Goethe literary prize for his creative activity and style. He helped break down social taboos and promote the scientific study of human mental functioning.
We present a list of sigmund freud books most important, that you need to know to know a little more about psychoanalysis and the theories that this scientist developed.
Sigmund Freud’s most important books
1. The defense neuropsychoses (1894)
It is one of Freud’s first texts, where he outlines ideas that he would later develop throughout his career.
In this book he introduces the concept of split consciousnesswhere he starts from the fact that consciousness is inaccessible to the «I» (which is not the I that he would develop later).
2. The interpretation of dreams (1900)
Undoubtedly, one of his most important works and perhaps the best known. In this work, Freud publishes important theoretical advances, detailing in depth his developments on the unconscious in regard to dreams.
He details, through the Scheme of the Comb, that the mental apparatus works in a similar way to a photographic camera. On one side is the perceptual pole, which registers external or internal stimuli.
In relation to the analysis of dreams, Freud works on the interpretation of dreams. story of the dream, since he is not interested in how well the patient remembers the dream, but rather in the story he puts together in the therapy session about it.
3. Psychopathology of everyday life (1901)
It is a work in which Freud describes easy-to-understand themes and terms, related to everyday situations such as errors or common botch acts.
These situations do not occur by chance, but because of the unconscious or preconscious. Although you do not want to do certain actions, the individual performs them, an example of this is naming someone you do not want to name.
4. Three essays on sexual theory (1905)
Another key text in the work of Freud in particular and psychoanalytic theory in general, here a new approach to sexuality is made, making a separation between it and the genitality.
The first is a broad concept, which includes the subject’s ways of relating and feeling, while the second is exclusively related to their genitals, intercourse and onanism. Genitality is part of sexuality.
Here Freud develops the concept of the drive as a concept frontierbecause it relates the psychic to the biological, affirming that the drive is the psychic response to a biological stimulus internal from which the subject cannot escape.
It also makes important developments in relation to infantile sexuality. He affirms that infantile sexuality has two phases: the first at an early age and marked mainly by eroticism and instinctual pleasure.
The The second phase occurs with the entry into puberty and the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics. Between both phases there is a latency period.
5. totem and taboo (1913)
A work more anthropological than psychological in nature, in this book Freud draws on anthropological studies of indigenous Australian peoples, observing that both primitive societies and neurotic patients have similar psychological development.
Thus, he establishes a parallelism between the totemism of primitive societies, which prohibits its members from having sexual relations with people of the same totem, and taboos, which prohibit incestuous relations.
Freud affirms the existence of a primal repression made to a “primordial father”. The myth of the murder of this father accounts for the rise of law and culture among his children. Freud affirms that the act of murdering and devouring it founds culture in a loss (the father’s).
6. Introduction of narcissism (1914)
This text arises in part as an amendment to his theory of drives, previously harshly criticized by his former disciple Carl Jung. Here Freud introduces the narcissism in his sexual theory as a structural part of the subject, which is formed before the subject can libidinally invest objects.
The sexual energy is first placed in the Self during sexual development, so the Self becomes libidinized. This libidinization is a complement to the egoism of the self-preservation drives, since, thanks to the libido, the subject has desire to keep your self.
7. Pulsions and drives of drive (1915)
In this book, Freud develops the concept of the drive in detail. Here he changes the stimulus-response model of the Comb Scheme, stating that drive (ie drive) stimuli operate with constant force and cannot be avoided or attacked.
8. The repression (1915) and 9. the unconscious (1915)
These two works are so closely related that it is very difficult to talk about one without mentioning the other.
Freud details the nature of the unconscious, giving it three definitions: one descriptive (everything that is not conscious), dynamic (the repressed contents) and systemic (the functioning of the unconscious as a structure of the psychic apparatus).
10. The I and the It (1923)
In this text, Freud asserts that the individual is first of all an Id, that is to say, that he is not aware of himself and acts according to the Pleasure Principle, seeking his instinctual satisfaction through objects.
The id is totally unconscious, but a part of it is altered due to its relationship with the external world, becoming the ego, which is partially conscious.
eleven. The Future of an Illusion (1927)
In this text, Freud treats the relationship between culture and religion as a central theme. He describes the beginnings, evolution, psychoanalysis and the future of religion within societies.
Concluding as a personal criticism, Freud considered that religion was only a scheme of false beliefs. He describes that the acceptance of religion means giving up the natural drive satisfaction of the human being.
12. The malaise of culture (1930)
This is an essay that, along with Psychology of the masses and analysis of the self, They make up his best-known and most relevant works within the study of social psychoanalysis of the 20th century.
The main theme of the text is the divergence that exists between natural human drives and the restrictions imposed by society and culture, that is, while culture creates more stable social units, it restricts the sexual and aggressive drives of the individual, creating a feeling of guilt
13- Moses and the monotheistic religion (1939)
It is the last work published by Freud in life, it brings together three essays, which describe the origins of the belief in one God.
In addition, he expresses his opinions about the origins, destiny and the relationship of the Jews with Moses.
For the father of psychoanalysis, the Jewish people murder Moses and collectively repress this fact from their minds, after a while the repressed memory appears and with it the Jewish people and their religion are born.
References
Freud, S. (1976). Defense neuropsychoses, Amorrortu Editores (AE), volume III.
Freud, S. (1976). The interpretation of dreams, IV, idem.
Freud, S. (1976). Three essays on sexual theory, VII, idem.
Freud, S. (1976). Totem and taboo, XIII, idem.