On Freud's ''Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning''

Lawrence J. Brown is a graduate of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute (BPSI) in both Child and Adult psychoanalysis. He is on the faculty of BPSI as well as the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis and also a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He has been on the North American Editorial Board of the 'International Journal of Psychoanalysis' and is currently on the Editorial Board of 'Psychoanalytic Inquiry'. He was also Co-chair of the Bion in Boston 2009 international conference. Gabriela Legorreta is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Montreal Psychoanalytic Society (French section of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society). She is the Chair of the Psychoanalytic Bridges with Latin America study group, a board member of the 'Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis', and is in charge of the Spanish section of the Advisory Committee on Foreign Language Book reviews of the 'Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association'. She is also a member of the Publications Committee of the IPA.

'It is comforting to realise that a paper written more than a century ago can still elicit new thinking. That psychoanalysts can still find matter for discussion, but also, and perhaps more importantly, for elaboration from a rather short paper by Freud is testimony to the richness of the heritage left by the Viennese. In this book, one will find original clinical and theoretical reflection from a variety of standpoints, all in a dialogue or sometimes a controversy with Freud. Many of the authors have chosen to stand on the shoulders of Bion; others took a more direct route. All, I believe, point to the fact that the metapsychological conception, so well illustrated by Freud's Formulations, is irreplaceable for understanding what psychoanalysts encounter in their practice and what they can do about it. Modern formulations are at variance from those expounded by Freud in 1911, as Freud himself also was later in his life; they are also at variance with one another. All had nevertheless to come to terms, time and again, with the clear and provocative, but always seminal thinking that went into the original formulations of 1911, no less than before or after.'- Dominique Scarfone, MD, Full Professor, Universite de Montreal; Training and Supervising Analyst, Institut Psychanalytique de Montreal (Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and Institute)'In this fascinating book, Gabriela Legorreta and Lawrence J. Brown have brought ten renowned analysts from three continents and different psychoanalytic schools to a crossroad in Freud's thinking. Expanding on as well as challenging the classical separation between fantasy and reality and their related cognitive functions, these authors explore the multiple strands with which dreaming and thinking, past and present interact, and allow for the dynamic fluidity of mental processes that create and permeate psychic life. With Freud's paper as its centrepiece, this book inspires a fascinating exchange between the major developments in psychoanalysis today and takes our understanding of the human mind one step further.'- Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau, PhD, Professor for Clinical Psychology, University of Zurich, and training and supervising analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute

• Contemporary Freud , Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning (1911b) , Editor’s Note , Discussion of “Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning” , Filling in Freud and Klein’s maps of psychotic states of mind: Wilfred Bion’s reading of Freud’s “Formulations regarding two principles in mental functioning” , The world as it is vs. the world as I would like it to be: contemporary reflections on Freud’s “Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning” , Second thoughts on Freud’s “Two principles” , Dreaming the analytical session: between pleasure principle and reality principle , Where does the reality principle begin? The work of margins in Freud’s “Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning” , Freud’s “Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning”: its roots and development , Two principles and the possibility of emotional growth , Time is short , The quest for the real , Mental functioning and free thinking , Concluding thoughts