Psychoanalysis: Freud's Cognitive Psychology

Abstract

(from the cover) "Psychoanalysis: Freud's Cognitive Psychology" is a fascinating analysis of Freud's ideas and their bearing on contemporary psychology and psychiatry. /// Matthew Erdelyi shows psychoanalysis to be quintessentially cognitive psychology--one fully concerned with the problems of consciousness, structure, representation, meaning, storage and retrieval, transformation, and bias in thinking. Yet, paradoxically, many of its precepts have long been misunderstood because of a literalization of Freud's metaphors and are only now being rediscovered and assimilated into mainstream scientific psychology. /// Integrating a multitude of case histories, laboratory studies, visual art, poetry, and jokes, as well as Freud's own writings, Erdelyi juxtaposes psychoanalytic concepts against today's theories and data. What emerges is a Freud who is both modern and, indeed, visionary in his ideas. We see this especially in psychoanalysis's psychodynamic perspective on cognitive processes, which stresses the inseparability of passion and intellect, and in its unifying treatment of complex creative products of the mind, such as dreams, jokes, art, and religion. /// "Psychoanalysis: Freud's Cognitive Psychology" is an engaging exploration of one man's profound contribution to twentieth century scientific thought. Yet, the ultimate thrust of the book is not historical; rather, in transposing Freud's conceptual system into a modern cognitive framework, it moves us that much closer to the long-sought integration of psychoanalysis and modern experimental psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved).