BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online

    Introduction

    Hunter, Michael (1999) Introduction. [Editorial/Introduction]

    Full text not available from this repository.

    Abstract

    One of the challenges for historical biographers is to decide how far it is appropriate or legitimate to try to psychoanalyse their subject. On the face of it, such analysis might seem an obvious part of the biographical enterprise in a twentieth-century context. We are all heirs to the revolution in thought brought about by Freud's discovery of the unconscious in the nineteenth century, since when it has become commonplace that beneath people's conscious thoughts and statements lie deeper, more fundamental drives and motives, of which they are not aware and which are not under their conscious control. Indeed, speculation about such subconscious desires and impulses is normal in day-to-day conversation: this reflects and is reflected by the fact that words that originated as technical, psychoanalytical terms have become part of the general language, such as ‘neurotic’, ‘paranoid’, or even ‘death wish’ and ‘Oedipus complex’.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Editorial/Introduction
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
    Depositing User: Sarah Hall
    Date Deposited: 22 May 2017 10:01
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:33
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/18756

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    0Downloads
    6 month trend
    104Hits

    Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

    Archive Staff Only (login required)

    Edit/View Item Edit/View Item