Freudian Psychoanalysis

Shore’s own judgments and connections

What matters in the mind happens below awareness: Freud holds that "mental processes are essentially unconscious," with conscious ones only scattered fragments of the whole.

Freud's self is a structure whose parts only make sense together: two vertical layers, unconscious beneath conscious, cut across by three horizontal parts, id, ego and superego.

Put simply Freud pictures the self as parts that only make sense together: an unconscious layer beneath a conscious one, crossed by three parts, the "id" (desire), the "ego" (the I) and the "superego" (conscience).

The id is desire itself, unconscious, divided into two hardwired drives Freud posits like geometric axioms rather than proves: Eros, toward love and pleasure; Thanatos, toward aggression and death.

Put simply Freud: the "id" is desire itself, and unconscious. It has two inborn drives that he assumes rather than proves: Eros, toward love and pleasure, and Thanatos, toward aggression and death.

In the text In The Ego and the Id (1923; Riviere translation), ch. IV, Freud writes of "two classes of instincts, one of which, Eros or the sexual instincts," and calls the other the death instinct.

Psychic energy behaves like matter: it can be shifted or sublimated but never discarded, so repressed desires return in another guise and blocked aggression turns on the self.

Put simply Freud: mental energy behaves like matter. It can be moved or redirected but never thrown away, so pushed-down desires come back in another form, and blocked aggression turns against oneself.

Civilization is bought with repression of both drives: to live together people must curb sex and aggression alike, which is why society and individual fulfillment pull against each other.

Put simply Freud: civilization is paid for by holding back both our basic drives. To live together, people must curb sex and aggression alike, which is why society and personal fulfillment pull against each other.

Revolutionaries build the new order with "hands still withered by the cross of despotism": formed by the old regime, its makers can never be pure.

Put simply Robespierre: revolutionaries build the new order with "hands still withered by the cross of despotism". Shaped by the old regime, the people building the new one can never be pure.

Shore reads the Bolshevik project as Enlightenment perfectibility taken literally: engineer new human beings whose consciousness merges so completely with History that no separate subjectivity remains.

Put simply Shore: the Bolsheviks took literally the Enlightenment belief that people can be perfected. They tried to engineer new humans whose minds merged so fully with History's march that no separate self remained.

What stays metaphysical in Hegel, the "I that is a We," the Soviets tried to realize as literally as they could: any subjectivity diverging from the collective must be purged.

Put simply Shore: Hegel's "I that is a We," the self merged with the community, stays abstract in his philosophy. The Soviets tried to make it literally real: any inner life differing from the collective had to be purged.

A line in Zamyatin's dystopia We runs "We comes from God, I comes from the devil": the I is to be overcome and swallowed by the collective.

Where the Soviet take on Hegel's I and we privileges the we, Freud flips the order: he begins with the single I, split into conscious and unconscious, reaching society afterward.

Put simply Shore's contrast: the Soviet reading of Hegel puts the group ("we") before the individual ("I"). Freud reverses this. He starts from the single self, split into conscious and unconscious, and reaches society afterward.

Freud is in many ways Marx's opposite pole yet asks a very similar question: both are theorists of modernity, trying to explain why modern life leaves people so miserable.

Put simply Shore: Freud is in many ways Marx's opposite, yet he asks much the same question. Both try to explain why modern life leaves people so miserable.

Mental life is treated more as a thing in itself: once an imagined event can make someone ill, the psyche is no mere by-product of biology or chemistry.

Put simply Freud: if something merely imagined can make a person ill, the mind must be treated more as real in its own right, not as a mere by-product of biology or chemistry.

In his first theory of hysteria, the illness traces back to repressed trauma from childhood, usually sexual; the buried memory resurfaces disguised as a neurotic symptom.

Put simply Freud's first theory of "hysteria": the illness comes from a childhood trauma, usually sexual, pushed out of awareness. The buried memory comes back in disguise, as a nervous symptom.

For Freud, neurosis and psychosis lie on one continuum of repression, differing in degree; Shore draws the consequence that everyone is mentally ill, since nobody lacks repressed trauma.

Put simply Freud: milder disorders ("neurosis") and severe ones ("psychosis") differ only in degree, both coming from repression. Shore draws the conclusion that everyone is mentally ill, since nobody lacks repressed trauma.

In the text In "Neurosis and Psychosis" (1924; Riviere translation), Freud writes that "Neurosis is the result of a conflict between the ego and its id", and psychosis of a like disturbance between the ego and the outer world.

The cure is nothing but talk: the analysand speaks uncensored, the analyst coaxes fragments of the unconscious out through the cracks, and symptoms become manageable rather than magically fixed.

Put simply Freud's cure is only talk: the patient speaks freely, without self-censoring, and the analyst draws bits of the unconscious out through the cracks. Symptoms become manageable, not magically cured.

What matters in the mind happens below awareness: Freud holds that "mental processes are essentially unconscious," with conscious ones only scattered fragments of the whole.

For Freud, sexual life begins in infancy, though sexual here means far more than genital intercourse: desire in an expansive sense.

For Freud we are formed very young: childhood, reaching back to birth itself, is the formative time, and it is necessarily traumatic.

Nearly every child goes through an Oedipal phase: love shifts from breast to mother, the father becomes a rival, and a flickering wish for his death is quickly buried.

Put simply Freud: nearly every child goes through an "Oedipal" phase. The child's love moves from the breast to the mother, the father becomes a rival, and a fleeting wish for his death is quickly pushed out of mind.

Picture the unconscious as a dark psychic closet: whatever the conscious mind cannot bear gets shoved in, the pile grows for a lifetime, and nothing is ever thrown out.

Put simply Paul Robinson pictures Freud's unconscious as a dark closet: whatever the conscious mind cannot bear gets shoved in, the pile grows for a lifetime, and nothing is ever thrown out.

Freud's self is a structure whose parts only make sense together: two vertical layers, unconscious beneath conscious, cut across by three horizontal parts, id, ego and superego.

Put simply Freud pictures the self as parts that only make sense together: an unconscious layer beneath a conscious one, crossed by three parts, the "id" (desire), the "ego" (the I) and the "superego" (conscience).

The id is desire itself, unconscious, divided into two hardwired drives Freud posits like geometric axioms rather than proves: Eros, toward love and pleasure; Thanatos, toward aggression and death.

Put simply Freud: the "id" is desire itself, and unconscious. It has two inborn drives that he assumes rather than proves: Eros, toward love and pleasure, and Thanatos, toward aggression and death.

In the text In The Ego and the Id (1923; Riviere translation), ch. IV, Freud writes of "two classes of instincts, one of which, Eros or the sexual instincts," and calls the other the death instinct.

The superego is conscience rather than consciousness: an inner voice that constantly tells you you are bad, a source of guilt and also society internalized.

Put simply Freud: the "superego" is conscience, not awareness. It is the inner voice always telling you that you are bad, a source of guilt, and society's rules taken inside you.

The ego's job is to negotiate, every moment, between an id that wants and a superego that forbids; since they barely admit compromise, misery is built into the self.

Put simply Freud: the "ego" must negotiate every moment between the id, which wants, and the superego, which forbids. Since the two barely allow compromise, misery is built into the self.

Shore recalls Arendt remarking that had Freud not spent his days among German-speaking Habsburg Jews in Vienna reading Goethe and Shakespeare, the Oedipus complex might never have reached the rest of us.

Psychic energy behaves like matter: it can be shifted or sublimated but never discarded, so repressed desires return in another guise and blocked aggression turns on the self.

Put simply Freud: mental energy behaves like matter. It can be moved or redirected but never thrown away, so pushed-down desires come back in another form, and blocked aggression turns against oneself.

For Freud, belief in God is infantile: once the growing child sees his father is neither immortal nor all-powerful, he transfers his longing for an omnipotent protector onto a deity.

Civilization is bought with repression of both drives: to live together people must curb sex and aggression alike, which is why society and individual fulfillment pull against each other.

Put simply Freud: civilization is paid for by holding back both our basic drives. To live together, people must curb sex and aggression alike, which is why society and personal fulfillment pull against each other.

Joining the Enlightenment debate, Freud grants that the state of nature is genuinely free and liberating, but that freedom comes with a great deal of violence and aggression.

Put simply Freud: life before organized society (the "state of nature") really is free and liberating, but that freedom comes with a great deal of violence and aggression.

Human aggression is a standing threat to any society, so living together means constantly suppressing it; the hostility we cannot aim at others gets turned back on ourselves.

Put simply Freud: human aggression is a constant threat to any society, so living together means always holding it down. The hostility we cannot aim at others gets turned back on ourselves.

Society trades happiness, not just Hobbes's liberty, for security: the pleasure principle, what the id craves, cannot be squared with the reality principle people need in order to coexist.

Put simply Freud: Hobbes said society trades freedom for security; Freud says it trades happiness. What our desires crave (the "pleasure principle") cannot be squared with what living together requires (the "reality principle").

Civilization, Freud writes, is largely "constantly created anew": every individual entering society must in turn give up instinctual satisfaction for the community's sake.

Put simply Freud: civilization is rebuilt in every generation, because each new person joining society must give up some satisfaction of their drives for the good of the community.

On Shore's analogy, sexuality does for Freud what property does for Marx, and guilt does what power will do for Foucault: pervasive, dispersed, latent in every relationship.

Put simply Shore's comparison: sexuality is to Freud what property is to Marx. And guilt is to Freud what power will be to Foucault: present everywhere, spread out, hidden in every relationship.

Against the Marxists, who expect aggressive instincts to fade once conditions change, Freud insists aggression is hardwired and older than private property, so no social rearrangement removes it.

Where to read it Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, ch. V.

We can never fully know ourselves: what is most basic in us sits in the unconscious, so the self stays opaque to itself and permanently at odds with itself.

Put simply Freud: we can never fully know ourselves. What is most basic in us lies in the unconscious, so the self stays hidden from itself and always at odds with itself.

Psychoanalysis theorizes life once God is dead: having thrown him out, we hunt for windows to climb back in, torn between craving authority and wanting to undermine it.

Put simply Yurko Prokhasko, a psychoanalyst and friend of Shore's: psychoanalysis is a theory of life after we reject God. Having thrown him out, we look for windows to crawl back in, torn between craving authority and wanting to undermine it.

Shore's closing contrast: unlike Marxism, psychoanalysis offers no exit; it may ease some symptoms, but no reordering of society can promise a happy ending.

Freud born in a small Moravian town in the Habsburg Empire.

Freud's family moves to Vienna when he is almost four, as restrictions on Jews are lifted.

Freud marries Martha, aged 30 (six children, including Anna).

Freud first uses the term "psychoanalysis".

The Interpretation of Dreams Die Traumdeutung

What Is to Be Done? Что делать?

Freud appointed associate professor at the University of Vienna.

Organizational Questions of Russian Social Democracy

Vienna Psychoanalytic Society convened.

Freud's University of Vienna lectures, published 1917 as Introductory Lectures, popularize psychoanalysis during World War I.

Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse

We Мы

Lenin dies of a stroke, leading to the Trotsky-Stalin power struggle.

Zamyatin's dystopian novel We (basis for Orwell's 1984).

Civilization and Its Discontents Das Unbehagen in der Kultur

Anschluss in March 1938; Freud leaves Vienna for Paris, then London.

Freud dies weeks after the outbreak of World War II, after asking his physician for morphine.

An Outline of Psycho-Analysis Abriss der Psychoanalyse

Trotsky killed with an ice axe in Mexico by one of Stalin's agents.