Word: freude
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...torturous business, this effort to "discover the mind," as the prolific Princeton philosopher-photographer-literateur Walter Kaufmann makes clear in this second volume (on Nietzshe, Heidegger and Buber) of his trilogy on the roots of contemporary social philosophy (the first dealt with Goethe, Kant and Hegel). Nietzsche, Goethe, Freud, respectively philosopher, poet and psychiatrist, have contributed, each in his own fashion, to our understanding of ourselves...
...Nietzsche really belongs with Freud," Kaufmann insists, "because he offered far more than the scattered insights that we find in Shakespeare or even Dostoevsky, and he was a psychologist in a sense in which even Goethe could not be called one ... Except for Freud, professional psychologists have contributed far less than have Goethe, Hegel and Nietzsche [to the discovery of the mind...
Heady stuff this, argued intelligently, understandably, with only a bit of scholarly overquotation to slow down the brisk pace. Freud himself said Nietzsche, much maligned for his supposed "Nazi" affinities, "had a more penetrating knowledge of himself than any other man who ever lived or was ever likely to live." Surely Freud's concept of the superego was inspired by Nietzsche's ubermensch or superman. Further, argues Kaufmann the petty iconoclast, Nietzsche's will to power provoked Freud to posit the "death instinct" as a second principle motivating human behavior...
...first half of this century, Dr. Sigmund Freud's doctrine--which stressed dreams as mental catharsis and wish-fulfillment, with heavy emphasis on sexuality--was accepted almost verbatim by many psychiatrists. A Freudian analyst might say a man who had the above dream sub-consciously is worrying about his masculinity, resenting his father and coveting his mother. Although few psychiatrists today are Freudian purists, the concept that dreams represent fulfillment and mental catharsis remains a cornerstone of dream interpretation...
...Allan Hobson, professor of Psychiatry at the Medical School, says the psychological importance of dreaming has been overplayed. Hobson, who directs the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston, says dreaming is more physiological than psychological. He refutes much of Freud's reasoning: "Freud says if you didn't have emotional conflicts you wouldn't dream--this is ridiculous. I would be much less likely to regard dreams as psychological. Freud would describe a man who couldn't remember his dreams as repressing hidden guilt feelings. I would say that he simply couldn't remember...