psychology
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Kohut and the Perils of Killing Sacred Cows
Heinz Kohut believed that psychoanalysis should adopt new theories in the light of new evidence. His work with borderline and narcissistic patients led him to question the prevailing Freudian orthodoxy, and, in 1977, he published The Restoration of the Self, in which he put forward a theoretical framework based on a psychology of the self… Continue reading
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Wittgenstein and Freud: Overrated or Undervalued?
Ludwig Wittgenstein and Sigmund Freud have a lot in common. Both were Viennese gurus, who inspired groups of disciples to preach their world-changing revelations to a sceptical world. Both were forthright in putting forward their views, but believed they were offering therapy for which the recipient would ultimately be grateful. Both reached the high point… Continue reading
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Putting Love at the Heart of Psychoanalysis: Suttie’s Critique of Freud
Ian Dishart Suttie was a Scottish psychoanalyst who died in 1935, shortly after completing a powerful critique of Freud, entitled The Origins of Love and Hate. Whereas Freud presents the individual as caught between a hostile external world and a maelstrom of internal excitations, Suttie claims that we are born with a need for love… Continue reading
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Is Science Providing Evidence for Freud’s Concept of the Unconscious?
In the face of attacks on the validity of psychoanalysis, it is tempting to argue that science and especially neurology is providing empirical evidence that Freud was right. Scientific evidence for unconscious processes includes research demonstrating that individuals process information, make decisions, and change their behaviour based on stimuli that are below conscious awareness. For… Continue reading
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The Mad World of Melanie Klein (Part 2)
Klein started with the traditional idea of Subject meets Object, but she developed this idea very differently from philosophers, ending up making many strange, mad-sounding claims. Post-Kleinians used the flexibility of her framework to develop all sorts of new ideas, some of which seem at least as mad, if not madder. One of Klein’s early… Continue reading
Wittgenstein and Freud 