On Freud's ''Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning''

Lawrence J. Brown, Gabriela Legorreta, Lawrence J. Brown

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781782203025
  9780367103484
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429916922
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book is a collection of papers by leading contemporary psychoanalysts who comment on the continuing important relevance of Freud's (1911) paper, Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning. The contributors gathered here represent current European, Latin American, and North American perspectives that elaborate the continuing value of Two Principles for present-day psychoanalytic thinking. Each author examines Freud's paper through a personal lens that is coloured by the psychoanalytic culture from which he or she comes. In each instance, the writers' chapters demonstrate the heuristic value of Two Principles for twenty-first century psychoanalytic theory and technique. A common thread that runs through all the chapters is the view that this brief paper by Freud, which he humbly introduced by stating, "The deficiencies of this short paper, which is preparatory rather than expository ...", is a masterpiece that contains within it the seeds of much of his later writing. The distinction he draws between the pleasure principle and the reality principle are profound and raise questions that still preoccupy analysis today.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contemporary Freud
• Acknowledgements
• Editors and Contributors
• Part I "Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning" (1911b)
• Part II Discussion of “Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning”
• Editors’ introduction to Chapter One
• 1 Filling in Freud and Klein’s maps of psychotic states of mind: Wilfred Bion’s reading of Freud’s “Formulations regarding two principles in mental functioning”
• Editor’s introduction to Chapter Two
• 2 The world as it is vs. the world as I would like it to be: contemporary reflections on Freud’s “Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning”
• Editors’ introduction to Chapter Three
• 3 Second thoughts on Freud’s “Two principles”
• Editors' introduction to Chapter Four
• 4 Dreaming the analytical session: between pleasure principle and reality principle
• Editors’ introduction to Chapter Five
• 5 Where does the reality principle begin? The work of margins in Freud’s “Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning”
• Editors’ introduction to Chapter Six
• 6 Freud’s “Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning”: its roots and development
• Editors’ introduction to Chapter Seven
• 7 Two principles and the possibility of emotional growth
• Editors’ introduction to Chapter Eight
• 8 Time is short
• Editors’ introduction to Chapter Nine
• 9 The quest for the real
• Editors’ introduction to Chapter Ten
• 10 Mental functioning and free thinking
• 11 Concluding thoughts
• References
• Index