Immaterial Facts: Freud's Discovery of Psychic Reality and Klein's Development of His Work

By Robert Caper

Book Overview

Shows how Melanie Klien's studies of sexuality aggression, unconscious phantasy and identification in children extended and corrected Freud's theories of the development of the superego and early stages of the Oedipus complex.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0876689918
• ISBN13: 9780876689912
• Release Date: July 1977
• Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc.
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 1.1" x 1.1"

Customer Reviews

Beautifully written BASIC intro to Freud and Klein

Caper's book is a short, easy to understand and delightfully written introduction to Freud and Klein. If you know a lot of psychodynamic theory, it will probably be too basic for you. Caper starts with the "story" of Freud's attempts to find a scientific theory for psychic phenomena. In chronological order, you are introduced to Freud's basic ideas (such as libido, the psychosexual stages, the ego, id, and superego...)Caper follows Freud's development of ideas, showing his struggle to make sense, the caveats of his theories that led him to find new solutions, etc. This makes the read fascinating (it almost feels like you are reading a detective story) and helps you understand the concepts better, since you can see "where" they came from.After that, Caper introduces the work of Melanie Klein, seeing how it complements and expands Freud's work. It studies her approach to the psychology of children and play therapy. For those who do not know Klein, this may be a good introduction, though I would rather recommend a book on her selected papers.I enjoyed reading this book but I would probably not have spent the money if I had not had it for a class. If you are a psych student, there may be better books to spend your money on. If you are not a psych student and just want a fun intro to psychodynamic theory, this is as fun as it gets. If you are a psych student and have money to spare, hey, why not? Caper knows how to write, which is refreshing in a field in which most books have such a dry style that the most fascinating concepts fail to interest you.