God... I wanted to uh... "better myself" last year, so one day went into Fopp and just bought lots and lots of cheap books that I thought would help me, I dunno... "grow as a person" or some shit like that. I bought some classics that I'd never read before, and I bought an Introduction to Islam book. I also bought some of those "Penguin Great Ideas" books:

On the Pleasure of Hating - William Hazlitt
Civilization and its Discontents - Sigmund Freud

And what I can understand of Freud is interesting, I suppose, but I can't get my head around most of it. Should I be reading a beginners guide first, or an earlier work? Maybe that is his earliest work, I don't know... All I know is, I want to learn, but I'm finding either his writing difficult, or the subject itself, and it's making me feel like a big ol' window licker.

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LOL @ window licker!

No, he's a tough read and not for the faint of heart. While he opened many doors in the field of psychology and really REALLY thought outside "the box" (giggle), much of his theories have been determined to be false. He lacked scientific data in most studies.

Try Carl Jung. He's a bit more interesting and a better read. They were also friends for a time, but got competitive at one point and their friendship suffered. But he takes much of Freud's ideas and expands on them in a more meaningful way.

Ooh, thanks for the advice, there. I had meant to read some Jung after this, but my lack of progress was really making me reconsider.

I got to some part where he mentioned breast-feeding, briefly, and I thought "Woohoo - I'm getting somewhere!" but sadly, I was eluded...

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Fopp has the best books

that freud book was in my library so I took it out to look at it. I didn't understand a word. (well, I understood every word, just not the way they had been organised)

I think it's both the writing and the detail of the he goes into. I mean, it was written for psychiatric doctors at the turn of the last centuary. I'm over 100 years and a degree from even being close to it's intended audience.

I think if you want to get into interesting subjects your better reading books on them, probably introduction works because otherwise it's going to be assuming you know a lot of stuff you don't.

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Would you like a cigarette? They're quite exellent.

I'm glad - I thought that maybe it was to do with me not having any academic knowledge of psychology, but then I started to wonder if I was just stupid and it was a perfectly reasonable introduction to his theories. But no. I think I'll try some Jung, and if I don't get it, then I'll get a Freudian Psychology For Dummies book.

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In Psychology Freud has the coolest, albeit unrealistic theories

dude this happens to me all the time.
i've finally caved and started doing things like listening to the book on tape of the communist manifesto because even though i understood it, i found the prose style absolutely awful and it didn't matter as much if someone read it to me.
i figure, it doesn't make me stupid. just lazy and uneducated. and i can live with that.

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Window licker! That's brilliant.
Don't feel like that about it though. Freud is hard to get. I mean, I only had to learn a little about his theories in relation to Salvador Dali's art and even then it was confusing. It helped me to understand his art more but learning about Freud as a separate entity is a whole different kettle of fish. Just that little taste made me nervous about reading his books. I would like to though.

the only interesting bits of freud are the case studies..

anna o, little hans, ratman, dora

freud was misogynist and a cokehead, don't bother

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you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

lol, totaly agree. That man hadnt a clue, avoid and read "only if you must."
What if I made up a theory that everyman had vagina envy and claimed it fact? A laughing stock I may become, surely these days? Really, there are better people you could be reading....Erik Erickson would be one Id recomend.

Yeah, but apart from that he was pretty wack.

Knee-jerk Freud haters are the most painfully mediocre students at any given college.

you don't have to agree with freud, but face it - the guy was pretty amazing. ever accused someone of being in denial, or talked about their defense mechanisms? ever referred to someones ego? do you believe in a 'talking cure' - that discussing an emotional problem can help you work through it? freud gave us a lot.

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freud's theory of dreams is the only thing i go by and i'm stickin to it. other interpretations are shite.

Freud is useless. He is to psychology what L Ron Hubbard is to religion. Granted, he was highly influential, but in a lot of negative ways -- his totally useless, unfounded ideas far outweigh the things that actually proved to be true and insightful (like coping mechanisms). The guy was a cocaine addict whose obsession was becoming famous somehow -- chances are even he didn't believe most of what he wrote. The concept of a subconscious and being motivated by things we're not consciously aware of is his great contribution, it seems like an accepted idea right now but wasn't thought of at the time. He just overanalyzed that and gave it weird explanations, and then made up a bunch of bullshit (when a woman is mean to a man she is verbally castrating him because she, physically, wants to have a penis? or maybe men are just assholes sometimes? I would say it's more likely for emotional motives to play a part in physical castrations than the other way around). Maybe try reading a book about freudian psychology if you want to understand what it was about, rather than reading freud's writing?

i feel ya.

any and all attempts to 'better myself' have always resulted in crippling discouragement from my experience. should i describe my odyssey of trying and failing to get through 'a breif history of time'? no, i'll spare you...


see, what you have to do is twist it around. learn to love that 'oh lord i'm a retard' feeling. call it humility, whatever you want. see, the stupider i feel the more i know i am actually exercising my brain and MAYBE just maybe one day itll get me somewhere, even if its advanced a tiny bit. maybe im actually breaking out of teh stupidity that society makes it so easy for most people to take shelter in, yet i'm not involving myself in any kind of blowhard academic elitism, regurgitating the thoughts of overpaid clowns at antiquated institutions that dont actually do anything. its by my own hand.

if you never feel stupid then you're probably just watchin tv, having tard wars at myspace and hanging out with people who cant name the last book theyve read cover to cover.

so what i'm trying to say, is A for effort! and that DOES count for almost more than anything in this world.

frued may have been a douche, but at least you'll be able to say so for a good reason, instead of repeating what someone else said.

Oh, you mean like the chick in your avatar?

Well, hope does spring eternal.

I have trouble reading Freud, I'd recommend some of his shorter essays as a start. His essay on the Uncanny is available online and is relatively easy to read. My friend had to do a whole semester studying him and it sent her crazy, she started reading into everything everyone said as being Freudian.