There is nothing inhuman, evil, or irrational which does not give some comfort, provided it is shared by a group.

One criticism of Freud still sometimes heard on the political Left is that his thinking is individualist — that he substitutes ‘private’ psychological causes and explanations for social and historical ones. This accusation reflects a...

Now, what if Others were encapsulated in Things, in a way that Being towards Things were not ontologically severable, in Heidegger’s terms, from Being towards Others? What if the mode of Dasein of Others were...

As soon as they leave, Leon says to me: “I disagree, sir. There are people who aren’t insane, and I’m one of them. People who generalize are mentally ill.

Fui acusado de ser um utópico, de querer eliminar o desprazer do mundo e defender apenas o prazer. Contudo, tenho declarado claramente que a educação tradicional torna as pessoas incapazes para o prazer encouraçando-as contra...

Freud kdysi řekl, že lidstvo zažilo tři velké urážky: nejdříve uslyšelo, že země není středem vesmíru, pak se dovědělo, že člověk pochází z opice, a nakonec mu psychoanalytici řekli, že člověk není pánem ve vlastním...

Aided and abetted by corrupt analysts, patients who have nothing better to do with their lives often use the psychoanalytic situation to transform insignificant childhood hurts into private shrines at which they worship unceasingly the...

…in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power-almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve...

My mother, my psychiatrist and an assortment of sedatives eventually convinced me I was delusional.

The capacity to form attachments on equal terms is considered evidence of emotional maturity. It is the absence of this capacity which is pathological. Whether there may be other criteria of emotional maturity, like the...

We have already seen that when positive authority suggests a change in behavior, the recipient will accept it provided he is capable of doing so and provided it does not require drastic modification of belief...

A vida brota a partir de milhares de fontes vibrantes, entrega-se à todos que a agarram, recusa-se a ser expressa em frases tediosas, aceita apenas ações transparentes, palavras verdadeiras e o prazer do amor

Il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel.

Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which psychoanalysis is powerless to bestow.

The psychoanalytic liberation of memory explodes the rationality of the repressed individual. As cognition gives way to re-cognition, the forbidden images and impulses of childhood begin to tell the truth that reason denies.

My love is something valuable to me which I ought not to throw away without reflection.

Psychoanalytic insight, Miller seems to suggest, is itself a pathological symptom.

On Christmas. “Santa Claus represents God on assistance,” said Clyde.”Santa Claus is a negative-idealed god, the pagan god of material worship,” Leon stated. “Christmas means the rebirth, regeneration. Some people have Christmas every day. The...

In other words, the man who is born into existence deals first with language; this is a given. He is even caught in it before his birth.

Pyschoanalysts are fond of pointing out that the past is alive in the present. But the future is alive in the present too. The future is not some place we’re going to, but an idea...

young children, who for whatever reason are deprived of the continuous care and attention of a mother or a substitute-mother, are not only temporarily disturbed by such deprivation, but may in some cases suffer long-term...

When a love-relationship is at its height there is no room left for any interest in the environment; a pair of lovers are sufficient to themselves

The purported insight achieved by the patient is not the product of a process of veridical self-discovery, but rather reflects the patient’s conversion to the therapist’s interpretation.

I believe the secret of the success of psychoanalysis resides in people’s vanity.

I identify myself in language, but only by losing myself in it like an object. What is realised in my history is not the past definite of what was, since it is no more, or...

When you want to know how things really work, study them when they’re coming apart.

notwithstanding how good a seed my be, it’s proper germination,growth and fruit bearing may be mutilated if not planted in a good soil

This time once again it has been my chief aim to make no sacrifice to an appearance of being simple, complete or rounded off, not to disguise problems and not to deny the existence of...

Lacan wrote about two levels of speaking, one in which we know what we are saying (even when struggling with something difficult or contradictory) and another in which we have no idea of what we...

The notion of dream interpretation far antedates the birth of psychoanalysis, and probably served an important function in most, if not all, historical societies. In having lost this function, modern man has also lost the...

Talking about one’s feelings defeats the purpose of having those feelings. Once you try to put the human experience into words, it becomes little more than a spectator sport. Everything must have a cause, and...

But one must remember that they were all men with systems. Freud, monumentally hipped on sex (for which he personally had little use) and almost ignorant of Nature: Adler, reducing almost everything to the will...

Charaktere sind vielleicht schon bezeichnet und beschrieben worden, seit es Lebewesen gibt, die sprechen können. Dichter haben das sehr differenziert getan; man denke an Proust, Tolstoi oder Dostojewski. Diese Autoren haben die innere Dynamik eines...

The woman who refuses to see her sexual organs as mere wood chips, designed to make the man’s life more comfortable, is in danger of becoming a lesbian–an active, phallic woman, an intellectual virago with...

Psychoanalysis cannot be considered a method of education if by education we mean the topiary art of clipping a tree into a beautiful artificial shape. But those who have a higher conception of education will...

To find a mountain path all by oneself gives a greater feeling of strength than to take a path that is shown.

Freud expressed the opinion—not quite in earnest, though, it seemed to me—that philosophy was the most decent form of sublimation of repressed sexuality, nothing more. In response I put the question, ‘What then is science,...

A fantasy is a journey. It is a journey into the subconscious mind, just as psychoanalysis is. Like psychoanalysis, it can be dangerous; and it will change you.

The difficulties connected with my criterion of demarcation (D) are important, but must not be exaggerated. It is vague, since it is a methodological rule, and since the demarcation between science and nonscience is vague....

Here libido and ego-interest share the same fate and have once more become indistinguishable from each other. The familiar egoism of the sick person covers them both. We find it so natural because we are...

As adults, we hvae many inhibitions against crying. We feel it is an expression of weakness, or femininity or of childishness. The person who is afraid to cry is afraid of pleasure. This is because...

You tell them one real thing and then the doctor thinks he knows you. He starts getting arrogant and overfamiliar, making insulting suggestions left and right. You have to protest constantly just to set the...

what is new in his theories is not true, and what is true in his theories is not new.

As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind – to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of nature in its narrow...

How much more generous it would be if, instead of writing parables about childhood wounds, psychologists were to accept that some differences between the sexes just are, that they are in the nature of the...

One thus gets an impression that civilization is something which was imposed on a resisting majority by a minority which understood how to obtain possession of the means to power and coercion. It is, of...

Why we ask questions: Questions are the basis of human freedom. Our mind, as a part of our self experience, is curious and always challenging that part of us that can think about the essence...

How do you analyze that part of the dream, Anna?”…”I guess I’m nervous about my birthday.

Wir alle machen unsere ersten Erfahrungen am anderen Geschlecht an unseren Eltern und Geschwistern. Die Beziehung der Eltern zueinander, die an ihnen erlebte Ehe oder sonstige Gemeinschaft, die Erfahrungen mit unseren Geschwistern formen unsere Erwartungen...

If this constant sliding and hiding of meaning were true of conscious life, then we would of course never be able to speak coherently at all. If the whole of language were present to me...