Totem and Taboo (Pocket Classic)

Author: (Austrian) Freud, translated by Zhao Liwei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: This book consists of four essays by Freud on totems and taboos. Its distinctive feature lies in applying the perspectives and findings of psychoanalysis to resolve unresolved issues in social psychology. In discussing totems and taboos, Freud compares them with children and neurotics, thereby, as Freud himself said, bridging the gap between the social anthropology and folklore of this issue and psychoanalysis. The book attempts to derive the original meaning of totem worship by examining the remnants preserved in childhood, namely the subtle signs exhibited by children during their growth process. The close association between totems and taboos further propels us toward the hypothesis proposed in this book. If the final argument makes this hypothesis seem difficult to believe, there is no need to criticize its degree of approximation to reality, after all, reconstructing such a reality is so challenging.