Freud on the Psychology of Ordinary Mental Life

Freud, although best known for his elucidation of the unusual in human mental life, also attempted to illuminate ordinary human experience, such as peopleOs appreciation of humor, their capacity to become engrossed in fiction, and their disposition to a variety of emotional experiences, including the uncanny, the stirrings prompted by beauty, and their disposition to mourn. His insights into the everyday and his sense of where within it the productive questions lie reveal an incisiveness that defies both earlier and subsequent thought on his topics. This book works to expose that vision and to demonstrate its fertility for further inquiry. It reconstructs several of FreudOs works on ordinary mental life, tracking his method of inquiry, in particular his search for the child within the adult, and culminating in a deployment of his tools independently of his analyses. It shows how to read Freud for his insight and generativity and how to push beyond the confines of his analyses in pursuit of new lines of exploration.

This book works to expose that vision and to demonstrate its fertility for further inquiry. It reconstructs several of Freud's works on ordinary mental life, tracking his method of inquiry, in particular his search for the child within the adult, and culminating in a deployment of his tools independently of his analyses. It shows how to read Freud for his insight and generativity and how to push beyond the confines of his analyses in pursuit of new lines of exploration. In this endeavor, in turn, it at once echoes and encourages the spirit of play with ideas so characteristic of, and so engaging in, Freud.

1 Chapter 1. Introduction to the Inquiry
2 Chapter 2. The Pleasure Principle
3 Chapter 3. Meaning and Determinism and the Search for Anomalies
4 Chapter 4. Conscious and Unconscious, Repression, and Development
5 Chapter 5. Developmental Analysis as Investigatory Tool
6 Chapter 6. Getting Lost in Someone Else's Story, "Creative writers and daydreaming" (1908)
7 Chapter 7. Why We Laugh at Something Funny, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)
8 Chapter 8. The Experience of the "Uncanny", "The 'uncanny'" (1919)
9 Chapter 9. The Paradox of Surprise in the Face of Certainty, "A disturbance of memory on the Acropolis" (1936)
10 Chapter 10. What Makes Choice Difficult When It Is: A Freud-Inspired Excursion
11 Chapter 11. Mourning and Mental Health, "On transience" (1916),"Mourning and melancholia" (1917)