FREUD, JUNG & ADLER

I have added two names, JUNG & ADLER,two of Freud's notable 'disciples' who went their own way after associating with him for years and whose 'theories' and activities took them in differing directions, as most know....Jung is more popular in the contemporary minds than either FREUD, the "founder of PSYCHOLANALYSIS,or Adler....and also there are others who influenced FREUD that need to be noted as well as others who studied and learned the methods and theories,etc. from Freud that the public is hardly aware of these days.....I hope to add some of these and discuss the ideas of all that I can in this blog....no easy task.....

FREUDIAN FROLICS

My first introduction with Freud and his actual writings began when I was in STEVENS Junior High School around grades 7 or eight, when I came across the book, INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS with the picture of Sigmund Freud on the cover with a cigar in his hand(REMEMBER, as he once said,"Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar!) while browsing in the no-longer existent,Caroline Stoughton BookStore on Pleasant St. The book and its cover, a Modern Library Edition(many of the books were of that printing/publisher) intrigued me, fascinated me and I was eager to buy it and had to ask permission from my grandmother to buy it. I was able to do so,since I was interested in psychology among other things, and read it from cover to cover and was sort of 'initiated' into the world of psychoanalysis and soon began thinking along those lines. My best friend, Bob, whom I will mention in other blogs, no doubt, and I used to frequent these bookstores on our lunch time and we both had a keen interest in reading, that for both of us, lasted during our lives(he has passed away some years back). It was he who became interested in Colin Wilson's famous,THE OUTSIDER, which I refused to read while in college despite my friend's enthusiastic endorsement and concern over the book, but did many, many years later, but actually read a few of Wilson's other stuff before his initial offering. Since my true Uncle, my mother's brother(she also had some half-brothers but no sisters) had been in and out of state hospitals and VA's for alcoholism from the war and other experiences in that conflict(WWII) he and I would discuss Freud and this book and he agreed that I should pursue psychology if and when I got into college after high school. This book and its terminology and cases interested me for many, many years until I actually began a study of psychology in college and other aspects of things and came across many criticisms of not only Freud and his doctrines but of this particular book that I so admired at that time. I shall not go into all the schools of thought on this or the various 'disciples' of Freud,etc. at this time. But I still consider FREUD one of the greatest thinkers of the early 20th Century and despite the many criticisms of his later works, still read some of them which I am presently doing a bit of now. Since I have mentioned Colin Wilson and Freud in this topic, I shall also add that I plan to compare where possible Freud and Gurdjieff in this section as well.