Synopses & Reviews
This book explores how the colonialist and racist discourse of late-nineteenth-century anthropology found its way into the work of Sigmund Freud, influencing the model of racial difference implicit in his notions of subjectivity. Freud once famously asserted that "the content of the unconscious may be compared with an aboriginal population in the mind." By rendering his revolutionary idea of a hierarchy of consciousness in the psyche analogous to a developmental hierarchy of human civilization in this way, Celia Brickman argues, Freud betrayed an internalization of racial ideas that have covertly shaped psychology and psychoanalysis since. She concludes that, in its very origins, the body of work that forms the foundation of Freudian psychology -not only Freud's speculative cultural texts, but his metapsychological texts and his clinical approach as well -was inhabited by the taint of colonial and imperialist racial preoccupations.
Synopsis
This book explores how the colonialist and racist discourse of late-nineteenth-century anthropology found its way into the work of Sigmund Freud, influencing the model of racial difference implicit in his notions of subjectivity. Celia Brickman argues that Freud betrayed an internalization of racial ideas that have covertly shaped psychology and psychoanalysis since. She concludes that, in its very origins, the body of work that forms the foundation of Freudian psychology -not only Freud's speculative cultural texts, but his metapsychological texts and his clinical approach as well -was inhabited by the taint of colonial and imperialist racial preoccupations.
Synopsis
What part does racial difference play in psychoanalysis? What can be learned when considering this question from a postcolonial perspective? In this subtle and commanding analysis, Celia Brickman explores how the colonialist racial discourse of late-nineteenth-century anthropology found its way into Freuds work, where it came to play a covert but crucial role in his notions of subjectivity. Brickman argues that the common psychoanalytic concept of primitivity as an early stage of psychological development unavoidably carries with it implications of an anthropologically understood primitivity, which was conceived by Freud -and perhaps still is today -in colonialist and racial terms. She relates the racial subtext embedded in Freuds thought to his representations of gender and religion and shows how this subtext forms part of the larger historicizing trend of the psychoanalytic project. Finally, she shows how colonialist traces have made their way into the blueprint for the clinical psychoanalytic relationship and points to contemporary trends in psychoanalysis that may make possible a disengagement from this legacy.