Basic Freud

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.

Michael Kahn, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a clinical psychologist in private practice. He is also director of a counseling center 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.