Freud, Schopenhauer and the discovery of ''repression''

Journal/Book: Psyche Z Psychoanal Anwend. 1998; 52: Rotebuhlstrasse 77, D-7004 9 Stuttgart 1, Germany. Klett-Cotta Verlag. 143-175.

Abstract: Freud, Schopenhauer and the Discovery of ''Repression''. - Freud and Schopenhauer are generally regarded as ''kindred spirits'', with Schopenhauer frequently being apostrophized as an ''intellectual forerunner'' of Freud's, occasionally in polemics directed at the founding father of psychoanalysis. In Schopenhauer's works there are indeed numerous indications (traceable to clinical experience) that what Freud was later to call ''repression'' is already adumbrated there. For Schopenhauer, madness is a ''disorder of the memory'' and sanity the capacity for ''total recall''. But close as the links may be between Schopenhauer and Freud in connection with the repression concept (as Godde shows, this applies particularly to Schopenhauer's metaphysics and Freud's metapsychology), there can be no doubt that, in terms of theoretical conceptualization and clinical use of the repression concept, Freud goes far beyond Schopenhauer.

Note: Article Godde G, Kuno Fischer Str 20, D-14057 Berlin, GERMANY

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