Time in Psychoanalysis: Some Contradictory Aspects - Softcover

Green, Andre

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853435503 ISBN 13: 9781853435508

Publisher: Free Assn Books, 2002

Synopsis

Time is a traditional theme in philosophy and a fundamental theme in psychoanalysis. The wealth of studies devoted to the former contrasts strikingly with their scarcity in the latter. Over more than 40 years, Freud elaborated different hypotheses on the conception of time in psychoanalysis. His speculations contained numerous different aspects: a developmental point of view (the libido theory) involving fixations and regressions, the process of "retroaction", dreams as a form of indirect recollection, the timelessness of the unconscious, the function played by primal phantasies in categorizing experience and, finally, repetition compulsion. His investigations ultimately led him to the concept of historical truth which, unfortunately, has since been neglected. Taken together, these hypotheses form a complex theory of temporality, a genuine diachronic heterogeneity, justifying its description as "fragmented time". In this book, the author sets out to restore the full richness of a theory which contemporary psychoanalysis has progressively tended to simplify with the aim of taming it and returning to a linear, homogenous conception of time.

About this title

About the Author

Andre Green is a Training Analyst and a former President of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, an Honorary Member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a Patron of the Squiggle Foundation. He is also a Director of the Paris Psychoanalytic Institute and an author of various books in the psychoanalytic field including "The Work of the Negative, The Chains of Eros" and "Time in Psychoanalysis."

Edition details

• Publisher: Free Assn Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1853435503
• ISBN 13: 9781853435508
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200