Time in Psychoanalysis: Some Contradictory Aspects

by Andre Green

Andrew Weller (Translator)

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Time is a traditional theme in philosophy and a fundamental theme in psychoanalysis. The wealth of studies devoted to the former contrasts strikingly with their scarcity in the latter. Over more than 40 years, Freud elaborated different hypotheses on the conception of time in psychoanalysis. His speculations contained numerous different aspects: a developmental point of view (the libido theory) involving fixations and regressions, the process of "retroaction", dreams as a form of indirect recollection, the timelessness of the unconscious, the function played by primal phantasies in categorizing experience and, finally, repetition compulsion. His investigations ultimately led him to the concept of historical truth which, unfortunately, has since been neglected. Taken together, these hypotheses form a complex theory of temporality, a genuine diachronic heterogeneity, justifying its description as "fragmented time". In this book, the author sets out to restore the full richness of a theory which contemporary psychoanalysis has progressively tended to simplify with the aim of taming it and returning to a linear, homogenous conception of time.
  • ISBN10 1853435503
  • ISBN13 9781853435508
  • Publish Date 1 February 2002
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 4 November 2013
  • Publish Country GB
  • Imprint Free Association Books
  • Format Paperback
  • Pages 200
  • Language English