Basic Freud - Hardcover

Kahn, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465037151 ISBN 13: 9780465037155

Publisher: Basic Books, 2001

Synopsis

In Basic Freud, noted psychologist Michael Kahn shows that, even in the age of psychopharmaceuticals and cognitive therapy, Freud's insights into the unconscious remain unsurpassed tools for understanding our behaviors, motivations, and emotions. In a style accessible to any lay reader or beginning student in psychology, Kahn presents key ideas such as the Oedipus complex, the repetition compulsion, guilt, anxiety, and defense mechanisms, along with recent research that has supported or expanded Freud's findings. He also presents case studies from his own work as a psychotherapist to show how Freudian thought has been instrumental in helping patients discover who they are and escape from destructive patterns. Readers aware of Freud's ideas and those discovering them for the first time will benefit from Kahn's fresh, informed, and unpretentious approach.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Kahn is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a clinical psychologist in private practice. He is also a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he trains psychotherapists. He is the author of The Tao of Conversation and Between Therapist and Client. He lives in Mill Valley, California.

From Library Journal:

Clinical psychologist Kahn (emeritus, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) believes that psychoanalytic theory is sound despite some flaws. Here he aims to introduce Freud to college-level students, therapists-to-be, and general readers, using a conversational style and brief case examples from his practice. Kahn covers all the usual suspects: the unconscious, psychosexual development, the Oedipus complex, the repetition compulsion, anxiety, defense mechanisms, guilt, dreams, grief, and transference. He also introduces the post-Freudian Heinz Kohut and, in doing so, shows himself to be an empathic, humane therapist. Some of the cases seem too pat, and Kahn's defense of the Oedipus complex includes the dubious Freudian claim that those who don't agree with it are too threatened to admit the truth. Still, this is a good book for academic and public libraries that complements Pamela Thurschwell's Sigmund Freud (LJ 11/15/00), which is for literary or general audiences, and Elio Frattaroli's trailblazing Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain (LJ 8/01). E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0465037151
• ISBN 13: 9780465037155
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240