Psychopathologie de la vie quotidienne
| Author | Sigmund Freud |
| Vote | 7/10 |
| Reviewed on | 2018-10-14 |
| Read in | French |
Freud classifies the mistakes we make when speaking, reading, writing, and argues that all of them are due to thoughts we are unconsciously trying to hide. Each chapter focuses on a different type of mistake and gives many examples that the author draws from his own and his patients’ lives, also incorporating examples provided by many of his colleagues that share his vision.
I’m not sure I buy his hypothesis. It’s surely fascinating to think that there’s no mistake that we make that doesn’t hide some secret and powerful will, but it feels a lot like when I was in high-school and tried to obsess on every act of my friends and explain it to great length. I believe that every mistake can be explained in more than one way, and choosing which one is right is pretty arbitrary. I’m always scared by the kind of science that can explain everything and is hard to refute.
An interesting read nonetheless.