Democracy From The Grass Roots: A Guide to Creative Political Action

Book by Abrahams, M. D. Joseph I.

Joseph Abrahams is a psychoanalyst, just ninety, who has been a follower of Freud's way in the study of the human soul since early adolescence. Freud's plumbing the human condition through painstaking work with troubled humans made sense to him. Analyzing their dreams to get to their core motivations made even more sense. But even earlier Abrahams found himself doing poetry, and interested in ballet and opera. Those interests went underground, in favor of science. Medicine was a compromise. Then, like Freud, he found psychiatry, and the realization that such study would have to begin with himself. Also like Freud he pursued his studies wherever they led. This volume is a preliminary report of the passionate search, based on his dreams and poems. A more formal exposition will come as An Extended Practice of Psychoanalysis. He is also hatching an opera on Virginia Woolf's extraordinary life. He currently lives in San Luis Obispo, California with his wife, Elisabeth, a collaborator in his writing of books that stem from his career as a psychoanalyst: Turning Lives Around: Wartime Treatment of Military Prisoners, Politics from the Grassroots: A Guide to Creative Politics: The Messianic Imperative: Scourge or Savior?.