THE ESSAYS treated here appeared under the subtitle" of this book in the first numbers of the periodical Imago edited by me. They represent my first efforts to apply view-points and results of psychoanalysis to unex plained problems of racial psychology. In method this book contrasts with that of W. Wundt and the work of the Zurich Psychoanalyfice School. The former tries to accomplish the same object through assumptions and procedures from non-analytic psychology, while the latter follow the opposite course and strive to settle problems of individual psychology by referring to material of racial psychology.' I am pleased to say that the first stimulus for my own works came from these two sources. "
……
In this ground-breaking collection of insightful essays, published asTotem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savagesand Neurotics"in 1918, the "father of psychoanalysis" explores theconflict between primitive feelings and the demands of civilization,i.e. the struggle to reconcile unconscious desires with sociallyacceptable behavior.
Totemism, a concept found in societies around the world, involvesthe belief in a sacred relationship between an object (totem) and ahuman kinship group. Men and women bearing the same totem areprohibited from marrying each other, this being a form of incesttaboo. Freud identifies a strong unconscious inclination as the basisof taboo, and he attempts to define its source by tracing the earliestappearance in childhood development of totemism. After an exami-nation of the incest taboo in primitive societies around the world,Freud discusses taboo and the ambivalence of emotions; animism,magic, and the omnipotence of thought; and the infantile recurrenceof totemism.
An important work by one of the 20th century"s most influentialthinkers, Totem and Taboo is essential reading for teachers and stu-dents of psychology as well as those with an interest in ethnology andfolklore. This new, inexpensive edition offers all readers access toone of Freud"s most penetrating attempts to decipher the mysteriesof human behavior.
I The Savage"s Dread of Incest
II Taboo and the Ambivalence of
Emotions
III Animism, Magic and the
Omnipotence of Thought
IV The Infantile Recurrence of
Totemism
