Freud, Psychoanalysis and Symbolism

Freud, Psychoanalysis and Symbolism offers an innovative general theory of symbolism, derived from Freud's psychoanalytic theory and relocated within mainstream scientific psychology. This is a systematic investigation of the development of Freud's treatment of symbolism throughout his published works, and it discovers in those writings a broad theory that is far superior to the narrow but widely accepted "official" view. Agnes Petocz argues that the treatment of symbolism must begin with the identification and clarification of a set of logical constraints and psychological requirements that any general theory of symbolism must respect, and that these requirements have been neglected. Her newly proposed "Freudian broad" theory of symbolism, by contrast, does meet these requirements.