Psychoanalysis in the Light of Anthroposophy
By Rudolf Steiner
Published by Anthroposophic Press, Inc., New York, and Rudolf Steiner Publications, Co., London in 1946. Translated by May Laird-Brown. Click to Buy this Book!
In these five lectures on psychoanalysis, Rudolf Steiner lays the foundations for a truly spiritual and holistic psychology.
The first two lectures, given at Dornach, Switzerland in November, 1912, are entitled Anthroposophy and Psychoanalysis, I & II. Here, Steiner gives a critical examination of the principles of Freud and Jung from the point of view of anthroposophy or spiritual science. Also mentioned are Breuer, Charcot, Nothnagel, Nietzsche, and Adler. Steiner argues that the phenomena animating psychoanalysis are real, but that because Freud did not recognize the spirit, human soul experience was cut off from the larger whole and reduced to mere subjective, personal history.
The last three lectures, given at Munich and Dornach in February, 1912 and July 1921, present an alternative program. Beginning (in Lecture III) with a phenomenological description of the threefold structure of human consciousness — reflective or mirror consciousness; supra-consciousness; and subconsciousness — Steiner goes on to outline a psychology that takes into account both the soul’s hidden powers (this is Lecture IV), and the complex connections between psychological and organic, bodily processes (in Lecture V). The third lecture in this series, Reflections in the Mirror of Consciousness, Superconsciousness and Subconsciousness, is available as another translation at the Rudolf Steiner Archive, Reflections of Consciousness, Super-consciousness and Sub-consciousness, published in 1935. Comparing the two translations can be rewarding! More »
