Peter Homans offers a new understanding of the origins of psychoanalysis and relates the psychoanalytic project as a whole to the sweep of Western culture, past and present. He argues that Freud's fundamental goal was the interpretation of culture and that, therefore, psychoanalysis is fundamentally a humanistic social science. To establish this claim, Homans looks back at Freud's self-analysis in light of the crucial years from 1906 to 1914 when the psychoanalytic movement was formed and shows how these experiences culminated (...) in Freud's cultural texts. By exploring the "culture of psychoanalysis," Homans seeks a better understanding of what a "psychoanalysis of culture" might be. Psychoanalysis, Homans shows, originated as a creative response to the withering away of traditional communities and their symbols in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. The loss of these attachments played a crucial role in the lives of the founders of psychoanalysis, especially Sigmund Freud but also Karl Abraham, Carl Jung, Otto Rank, and Ernest Jones. The personal, political, and religious losses that these figures experienced, the introspection that followed, and the psychological discovery that resulted are what Homans calls "the ability to mourn." Homans expands this historical analysis to construct a general model of psychological discovery: the loss of shared ideals and symbols can produce a deeper sense of self (psychological structure-building, or individuation) and can then lead to the creation of new forms of meaning and self-understanding. He shows how Freud, Jung, and other psychoanalysts began to extend their introspection outward, reinterpreting the meanings of Western art, history, and religion. In conclusion, Homans evaluates Freud's theory of culture and discusses the role that psychoanalysis might play in social and cultural criticism. Throughout the book, Homans makes use of the many histories, biographies, and psychobiographies that have been written about the origins of psychoanalysis, drawing them into a comprehensive sociocultural model. Rich in insights and highly original in approach, this work will interest psychoanalysts and students of Freud, sociologists concerned with modernity and psychoanalysis, and cultural critics in the fields of religion, anthropology, political science, and social history. (shrink)

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodology. In examining the different experiences of truth, he aims to "present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its fullest extent.

Buddhism enthusiasts that the tathAgatagarbha sources were themselves aware of the criticism that they simply taught an Atman in the same way that non- Buddhists did, and they rejected this accusation and defended themselves against the ...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and define self psychology and its concepts so that they can be applied toward a new understanding of the human-nonhuman animal bond. The paper utilizes selected literature from both self psychology and the human-animal bond fields. The paper contains four primary conclusions: 1. Self psychology provides a unique model for understanding the depth and meaning of human-animal relationships; 2. Companion animals and humans can be equally important in their selfobject roles; 3. Self (...) psychology can offer a model for understanding individual differences in attachment to companion animals; and 4. A future direction includes finding ways to assess self psychology constructs in order to measure the depth and function of the selfobject relationship. (shrink)

'In this book, Alan Roland has presented the challenge of Asian cultures to psychoanalytic theory and practice more forcefully than ever before. The book is full of new ideas and fascinating anecdotes and case material from Roland's clinical work and that of others. His proposals to revise psychoanalysis for the treatment of Indian and Japanese patients should initiate a debate of fundamental significance.' - Robert A. LeVine, Harvard University.

Self psychology provides a theoretical framework for understanding the psychology of the animal hoarder. The following ideas from self psychology can be applied to animal hoarders and their animals to gain insight into the nature of the bond between them: 1) animals can serve a crucial selfobject function, such as cohesion, for hoarders, regardless of the actual, objective reality of the state of the animals; 2) the concept of archaic vs. mature selfobject functioning elucidates how hoarders are stuck in self-centered, (...) archaic forms of relating with little empathic capacity; 3) the merger selfobject relationship allows hoarders to see animals as being one with them; and 4) disavowal and the vertical split explain how hoarders can live with animal suffering and be apparently oblivious to it. Similarities between self psychology and attachment theory are discussed. (shrink)