C. Wright Mills, Freud, and the Psychosocial Imagination

Abstract

This essay has explored myriad reasons for Mills' symbolic interactionist rather than Freudian orientation: to wit, the sociological and political conservatism he believed to inhere in many of Freud's ideas; Mills' own socialization within sociology to value visible empirical evidence and away from more internally oriented (or autho-ethnographic) approaches; and the unanalyzed effects of Mills' own gendered predispositions and attitudes. But why does this matter when Mills obviously bequeathed sociology powerful and insightful works from White Collar andThe Power Elite through The Sociological Imagination? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)