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    Reviews Books 398: Heredity

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    Carlos Silva
    This document summarizes a book by Sigmund Freud titled "Beyond the Pleasure Principle". It discusses some key points from Freud's work, including that he reexamines psychic phenomena that cannot be explained by the pleasure principle, and proposes a concept of a repetition compulsion to help explain phenomena like trauma dreams. The summary also notes that Freud concludes instincts are essentially aimed at conservative repetition of previous states, and that resistances to this from reality are what drive progress and experimentation.

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    Reviews Books 398: Heredity

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    This document summarizes a book by Sigmund Freud titled "Beyond the Pleasure Principle". It discusses some key points from Freud's work, including that he reexamines psychic phenomena that cannot be explained by the pleasure principle, and proposes a concept of a repetition compulsion to help explain phenomena like trauma dreams. The summary also notes that Freud concludes instincts are essentially aimed at conservative repetition of previous states, and that resistances to this from reality are what drive progress and experimentation.

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    This document summarizes a book by Sigmund Freud titled "Beyond the Pleasure Principle". It discusses some key points from Freud's work, including that he reexamines psychic phenomena that cannot be explained by the pleasure principle, and proposes a concept of a repetition compulsion to help explain phenomena like trauma dreams. The summary also notes that Freud concludes instincts are essentially aimed at conservative repetition of previous states, and that resistances to this from reality are what drive progress and experimentation.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    24 views2 pages

    Reviews Books 398: Heredity

    Uploaded by

    Carlos Silva
    This document summarizes a book by Sigmund Freud titled "Beyond the Pleasure Principle". It discusses some key points from Freud's work, including that he reexamines psychic phenomena that cannot be explained by the pleasure principle, and proposes a concept of a repetition compulsion to help explain phenomena like trauma dreams. The summary also notes that Freud concludes instincts are essentially aimed at conservative repetition of previous states, and that resistances to this from reality are what drive progress and experimentation.

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    398 REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS

    particular theory. Morton Prince's 'co-consciousness' he considers to be


    simply a dissociated state of personal consciousness. Freud's 'fore-
    conscious' he identifies with the 'ultra-marginal' level of the mind (that
    is to say, conscious states which are not only outside the field of attention,
    but even beyond the margin of personal consciousness). Freud's 'uncon-
    scious' he regards as a dissociated portion of the samiie ultra-marginal level.
    Thus, for Professor Moore, the 'fore-conscious' and the 'unconscious'
    together make up what he terms the 'subconscious'.
    CYRIL BURT.
    Beyond the Pleasure Principle. (The International Psvcho-analytical
    Library, No. 4.) By SIGMUND FREUD, M.D., L.L.D. Translated from
    the 2nd Gernman edition by C. J. M. HUBBACK. Medium 8vo. Pp. 90.
    1922. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. 6s. net.
    IN this work Freud re-examines certain psychic phenomena, both normal
    and pathological, which cannot be explained by the pleasure-pain prinlciple.
    He follows Fechner's definition of pleasure and pain as being conditions of
    stability and instability respectively. He recognizes the warring of all the
    particular instincts in their search for stabilitv in a comprehensive ego,
    and points omit, as he has often done before, that many neurotic and other
    manifestations may be explained as the effort of these impulses, especially
    sex, to achieve pleasure in face of the reality principle. lBevond this, how-
    ever, he finds himself forced to recognize a repetition compulsion which
    does not and cannot achieve pleasure, to explain certain phelnomena such
    as the dreams of the 'shock neuroses ', amongst which he inieludes most
    of the war cases.
    He recognizes the selective and time-space reference functions of the
    higher (cortical) levels of mind which raise a barrier in respect to stimuli
    from without, but poinits out that there is no such barrier against over-
    stimulationi frorm within. These stimuli are chiefly concerned with the
    feeling of pleasure and pain, and it is an effort to establish barriers against
    these which determines projection. The traumatic neuroses are considered
    as being due to the breaking down of the barrier against external stimuli.
    The final armament of this barrier is apprehension, which charges the de-
    fences against assault, and the dreams of these traunmatic cases are not
    wish fulfilments but efforts to re-establish this apprehenrsion, and with it the
    barrier against stimuli without -which the pleasure principle cannot act.
    These dreamIs then, together with those of the psychic traumata of child-
    hood, are dependent on the repetition compulsion. This repetition com-
    pulsioni is regarded as an exam-.ple of a deep-seated organic 'law ' which
    is illustrated by heredity, the migration of birds, etc., and which many
    of the inistincts subserve. Freud concludes that the tendencyr of instincts
    is essentially towards conservative repetition of previous states: the sexual
    life instincts towards conitinual recurrence of the starting-point of develop-
    ment, an(l the rest towards death, though the path to death is continuallv
    modified and elaborated by the reactions of the environment. The apparent
    impulse to progress in certain human beings he attributes to the constant
    demand for satisfaction in the shape of return to primitive states and the
    REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS 399

    resistances offered by reality. These resistances force the individual


    continuallv to try new paths, and thus impel him to change and experiment.
    The tendency of life processes is to lead to a stability, a relaxation of tension
    to pleasure, and so to death; but the process of conjugation introduces a
    new stimulus mass, and so leads to increase of tension, i.e., to life.
    Admittedly in this study he leaves many loose ends to be followed in
    the fuiture; but it is a remarkable development from the narrow and cramped
    standpoint of the past. Psvcho-analytic investigation, if followed out on
    these lines, which permit of a much more biological interpretation than
    has ever before been possible to the strict Freudian, is likely to lead to
    much more general acceptance and a wider range of utility. The author
    is inclined to over-emphasize his apology for a change of view; but most
    will agree that this is a sign of grace rather thani a reason for censure.
    R. G. GORDON.
    Suggestion and Common Sense. By R. ALLAN BENNETT, M.D. (Lond.),
    M.R.C.P. Pp. 105. 1922. Bristol: John Wright & Sons Ltd.
    6s. net.
    A CYNICAL remark made by the late Dr. Mercier twenty years ago has
    affected the author to such a degree that he regards psychology as a
    'strange doctrine' and has shunned it ever since. This is perhaps not the
    ideal attitude in which to approach the subject of suggestion, and within
    these pages there is little which is worthy of perusal. In the first chapter,
    on "Psychology and Organic Life", a broad and rational viewpoint is taken
    on the conception of mind. The organism is viewed as an integrated mass
    of differentiated cells in which special groups have their own psychological
    possibilities. When, however, suggestion (all suggestion being regarded
    as self-suggestion) is dealt with, the lines of Baudouin are more or less
    strictly followed, and we cannot see that 'common sense' dissociated from
    well-established modern scientific knowledge will aid any psychotherapeutic
    advance. Psycho-analysis for Dr' Bennett is anathema, so that he thinks
    that patients requiring such a form of treatment were 'better dead' ! The
    trend of the book is somewhat retrogressive, and it can hardly be considered
    useful either from the theoretical or practical standpoint.
    C. S. R.
    Psycho-analysis and the Drama (Nervous and Mental Disease Mono-
    graph Series, No. 34). By SMITH ELY JELLIFFE, M.D., and LOUISE
    BRINK, A.B. Royal 8vo. Pp. v + 162. Paper covers. 1922. New
    York: Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co. $8.00.
    HFREIN nine dramatic plays which have been presented upon the stage
    in recent years are analytically examined. Such a study vividlv illus-
    trates the various unconscious conflicts and solutions to such conflicts
    which the drama portrays, and renders such human problems clearer. The
    drama is looked upon as a useful and ready outlet for too severely restrained
    emotions, and also as allowing a constructive representation of these.
    Theatre attendance therefore acts as a relief to mental repression, and helps
    in the recognition of vital factors within. The authors regard stage art

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