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AUGUST STRINDBERG[1]
A PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY WITH SPECIAL
REFERENCE TO THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX
PREFACE[2]
This dissertation represents an effort on the part of the writer to approach Strindberg's exceedingly complex personality from a psychoanalytic point of view.
It claims, of course, none of that excellence, originality and completeness characteristic of the works of Freud (22), Abraham (2), Hitschmann (32), Jones (35), Pfister (44), Sadger (51), Sperber (54), Zoepf (79) and others. Compared with them it is a mere statement of a few but fundamentally important facts, upon the basis of which a complete analysis may be achieved.
While the writer is in no sense so entirely committed to any one of the psychoanalytic theories as to be blind to the merits of the others, even a casual perusal of this analysis will show that it has been worked out mainly along Freudian lines. This does not necessarily mean, however, that the writer accepts the most radical Freudian teachings with reference to sex, such as this, for instance, that
Whoever would be really free and, therefore, happy in his love-life, must needs give up respect for women and adapt himself to the idea of incest with mother and sister.[3]
On the contrary, the writer has in the course of his study of the New Psychology become more and more convinced of the truth expressed by Jung and repeatedly emphasized by President Hall in his inspiring lectures on Psychoanalysis, The Psychology
- ↑ A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the of Doctor of Philosophy, and accepted on the recommendation of G. Stanley Hall.
- ↑ Refer to bibliography at end of article for numerical and page references.
- ↑ *Beitrge zur Prychologie des Liebesleben. Jahrb. f. psychoanalytische und psychopathologiche Forschungen. Bd. IV. Heft I, p. 46.
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