You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This is a discussion of an important book by Monique Schneider, Freud and Pleasure, that appeared in France in 1980. In the book Schneider had argued for the importance of Freud's mother and of his nurse in his composite view of women. Schneider followed these themes through Freud's self-analysis and into his metapyschology as well, arguing that certain theoretical positions reflect contradictory positions taken in the attempt to master the scenes and emtions of childhood. Essentially she argued that the metapsychology is a defensive operation, and that its author was a childlike puppet before the forces involved in these conflictual childhood experiences. Brun gives an excellent restatement and amplification of this thesis, raising criticism where appropriate, and linking the themes to her own work with terminally ill children and their families.
The next six papers are from a colloquium of Hellenists and psychoanalysts on Greek myths and their use by psychoanalysts. Hellenic studies are currently exciting intense interest in France. (For a survey of some writings in this area and of the new anthropological approach to the classical world, see Bernard Knox's "Greece à la Française" in The York Review of Books, Vol. 30, No. 3, March 3, 1983, pp. 26-30.)