The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud

This book reveals yet again how important Freud still is to a continued need for self-interrogation, alongside a humility and sensitivity to others in light of the fact that, when you hold open the possibility of an unconscious at work, we are all opaque to ourselves. Solidly narrated with a sensitivity that emphasises Freud’s insatiably inquisitive mind, not to mention his inventiveness and his unflinchingly penetrative gaze, even when turned on himself.

As radical and unpalatable as it was in 1901. In distinct contrast to this, Freud never ceases to remind us that what we take for our rational, thinking and speaking selves, is at best a mediator, or a censor, at worst a delusional attempt at self-mastery. Lightyears ahead of modern psychology, which has done away with the notion of an unconscious continually at work, setting us right back to the misguided faith in rationally at the base of the enlightenment. One of Freud’s classic and most accessible texts, in which he reveals the extent to which we are not in control of our thoughts and speech, even in everyday life, and which makes clear, perhaps more than anywhere, how Lacan arrives at his famous formulation of the unconscious as language.

It is presented in a clear and direct manner by Derek Le Page.Īs fresh and radical as it was when first published 120 years ago The Psychopathology of Everyday Life is a key work in psychology and psychoanalysis, yet very accessible. He analyses the subject through 12 chapters, including Forgetting of Proper Names, Foreign Words, Childhood and Concealing Memories, Mistakes in Speech, Reading and Writing, Erroneously Carried-out Actions, and Determinism, Chance and Superstitious Beliefs. He observed its frequent and varied appearance as an important tool in his psychoanalytic work. I have there undertaken a psychologic analysis of a common case of temporary forgetfulness of proper names, and from a pregnant example of my own observation I have reached the conclusion that this frequent and practically unimportant occurrence of a failure of a psychic function - of memory - admits an explanation which goes beyond the customary utilization of this phenomenon.' This 'phenomenon' was a personal matter for Freud himself.

I shall now repeat its contents and take it as a starting-point for further discussion. Freud opens the work with the following statement: 'During the year 1898 I published a short essay on the Psychic Mechanism of Forgetfulness. It was here that he proposed that many slips and errors of memory common to the average man in everyday life actually signals unconscious issues that beset the individual, and, if examined, can be extremely revealing. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, which appeared first in 1901 and was then expanded in a series of subsequent editions, has proved to be one of Freud's most popular works, and one of his most influential during his lifetime.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud