The Ego and the Id by Fred Busch

The Ego and the Id by Fred Busch

The Ego and the Id: 100 Years Later revisits Freud’s classic 1923 essay, which developed key psychoanalytic concepts and presented a radical revision of his earlier theory.

International contributors explore the themes of this remarkable work from their own perspective, with novel and surprising results. There are mysteries uncovered, questions raised about the validity of Freud’s perspective, problems in psychoanalytic technique based on those clinging to Freud’s earlier model of the curative process in psychoanalysis, cybernetics as a way of evaluating Freud’s model, and many other gems. With contributors highlighting the significance of the essay and offering critiques based upon new understanding gathered over the last century, The Ego and the Id: 100 Years Later offers a fresh, international perspective on this classic paper.

This book will be essential reading for psychoanalysts in practice and in training and of great interest to scholars of psychoanalytic studies.

"This book revisits and explores, with historical respect but also with lively intellectual freedom, a fundamental text of Freudian metapsychology, about which the editors Fred Busch and Natacha Delgado incidentally and sharply state that "most parts have remained at the center of psychoanalytic thinking for 100 years, some were modified, and some were ignored" This book highlights The Ego and The Id’s genial insights, undeniable grey areas, formidable conceptual strength and also premises present in nuce that have produced further theoretical-clinical developments in the decades since. The subject of the book is one, but the Authors' voices come to us from very different countries, cultures, and languages, demonstrating how contemporary psychoanalytic polyphony brings new light and new thoughts on this classic, in turn confirming their inspirational power." - Stefano Bolognini, M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Italian Psychoanalytic Society, IPA Past President

"In this rich new volume, an international group of psychoanalytic scholars discuss Freud’s remarkably innovative essay from 1923 with profound implications for the analytic method. In their comprehensive introduction, Fred Busch and Natacha Delgado contextualize Freud’s re-thinking of the entire metapsychological underpinnings of psychoanalysis leading to a new model of the mind. The outstanding and theoretically diverse chapters provide many bold and startling discussions, which when taken together, suggest that contemporary psychoanalysis would be inconceivable without Freud’s epochal work." - Michael J. Diamond, Ph.D, Training and Supervising Analyst, Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies; Author, Ruptures in the American Psyche: Containing Destructive Populism in Perilous Times and Masculinity and Its Discontents: The Male Psyche and the Inherent Tensions of Maturing Manhood

"The editors have gathered an impressive group of analysts from around the world to consider Freud's seminal essay, The Ego and Id, where he reconsiders his entire metapsychology. This new reading brings surprising insights, serious questioning, and admiration for what Freud accomplished. Analysts from every theoretical perspective will benefit from this fresh understanding of a classic." - Virginia Ungar, M.D., Past IPA President (2017-2021), Training and Supervising Analyst, Asociación Psicoanalítica de Buenos Aires

Fred Busch, Ph.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. He has published over eighty articles on psychoanalytic technique and has been invited to give papers and clinical workshops nationally and internationally. His last four books are Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind (2014); The Analyst’s Reveries: Explorations in Bion’s Enigmatic Concept (2019); Dear Candidate: Analysts from Around the World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession (2020) and A Fresh Look at Psychoanalytic Technique (2021). Forthcoming in 2023 is Psychoanalysis at the Crossroads: An International Perspective.

Natacha Delgado is a member of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytic Association Publications Committee. She is a clinical psychoanalyst in private practice.