Totem and Taboo

By Sigmund Freud

Book Overview

Sigmund Freud's "Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics" delves into the fascinating parallels between primitive cultures and the origins of neurosis. A cornerstone of psychoanalysis and cultural anthropology, this work explores the concepts of totemism and taboo, examining their influence on social structures and individual psychology.

Freud investigates the psychological underpinnings of ancient customs, seeking to understand the shared unconscious processes that shape both "savage" societies and the neurotic mind. Through the lens of psychoanalytic theory, he examines the primal roots of morality, religion, and social order.

A significant contribution to our understanding of the human condition, "Totem and Taboo" remains a compelling exploration of the enduring power of primal instincts and their impact on cultural development. This meticulously prepared print edition offers readers the opportunity to engage with Freud's groundbreaking ideas on the intersection of psychology and society.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1023212242
• ISBN13: 9781023212243
• Release Date: March 2025
• Publisher: Anson Street Press
• Length: 126 Pages
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Freud at his most concise and coherent.

Psychoanalytic literature can be confounding to clinicians and lay people alike. Good ol' Uncle Sigmund was the exemplar of this tendency towards obtusely wording everything. However, Totem and Taboo eschews this for a (somewhat) easier read, communicating the ideas behind the make up and origins of Neurosis. Freud's work continues to be applicable today as a framework for understanding a wide variety of issues such as anxiety, depression and other related psychiatric problems.

Australian Aborigines and Freud's "Neurotic" Patients

This is the first Freud book I have ever read. I am not a trained psychiatrist, or sociologist, or ethnologist, so I am going to review the book from a layman's standpoint. In this work, Freud draws heavily on observations and theories of ethnology, emphasizing on studies of Australian aborigines and Frazer's work. He draws a parellel with his personal observations from treatment of "neurotic" patients and claims to have found common patterns in these two classes of subjects, which tend to explain certain social and psychological phenomena, as well as the "birth" of religion.He focuses on the concepts of "Totem" and "Taboo". While familiar with taboo (although our understanding of the term is narrower than Freud's), totem is remote to us. Certain aboriginal peoples were grouped in social groupings, centered on the cult of and belief of descent from a certain animal. So, you are the "Kangaroo tribe", we are the "Ostrich tribe" etc. The topic most interesting Freud, to which he devotes the first essay in the book, is "exogamy", i.e. marriage outside one's group. This practice of exogamy seems to be in contradiction to what is pursued by some ethnic groups in America (Jews and Greeks come to mind) i.e. "endogamy" - a push to have children marry within their parents' ethnic group. This practice of exogamy in Australian aborigines is attributed by Freud to fear of incest, with quite convincing arguments. What is challening is to concoct a theory that suggests totemism and exogamy are not orthogonal social institutions that just happenned to coexist, but intricately bound together. Freud accomplishes that through intricate reasoning that draws heavily on religion (in his 4th essay). His argumentation may seem far-fetched to many, but is plausible, although it is hard to get convinced that it is the single, or most probable, theory explaining the issue.Freud makes the analogy that what primitive people are to ethnography, "neurotics" are to psychoanalysis and tries to map patterns from one domain to the other. Another goal is to establish the theory of totemism as the primordial religion from which all known religions and beliefs have spawned over time. The fact that Hinduists rever and never kill cows, seems to me (my example, not Freud's) to support this theory; Hinduists could be considered an outgrowth of a "Cow totem". Also, in modern Judeochristian societies, the totem, for intermarriage avoidance, has been replaced by the blood relatives group. Greek civil law for instance, forbids marrying blood relatives to the 4th degree and relatives through marriage to the 3th degree (i.e. after marriage your also become a member of your spouse's "totem" - for life).His 2nd essay discusses the concept of taboo. He defines it as "a set of limitations that primitive people apply to themselves". He contends that people who do "taboo things" become taboo themselves (certainly prostitutes would fit that profile). In our modern society, one's car is taboo, such

Sorry Daddy, I have to cut you off

Parricide, guilt, cannibalism--what's not to love?

A perfect exemplar of Freud's central arguments

Totem and Taboo, along with _The Future of an Illusion_, should be necessary reading for any serious student of social science. Of course, there are massive holes in Freud's arguments (such as his tendancy to make sweeping generalizations about other cultures from his armchair in Europe), but people who disagree with him for moral and ethical reasons tend to amplify those holes and simply ridicule Freud the man instead of intelligently approaching his arguments.The fact is, his suppositions about parental relations (as they relate to "totem" cultures), about religion, and about sexuality are extremely relevant and have proven, over the years, to possess an extraordinary predictive power. Even if one disagrees with this literature, one should read it and know exactly what they disagree with.

Draws the age of antiquity up to the present.

Draws the age of antiquity up to the present in a way that demonstrates how far away we really are not from the savages. It helps to shed the light on some of the really neurotic impulses we still exhibit today!! we're fast approaching Y2K but we are as primitive in many regards when compared to our ancestors.