The long-awaited Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (RSE) is founded on the canonical Standard Edition (SE) translation from the German by James Strachey, while adding a new layer of revisions and translations. Conceptual and lexicographic ambiguities are clarified in extensive new annotations. Drawing on established conventions and intellectual traditions, the Revised Standard Edition supplements Freuds writing with substantial editorial commentaries addressing controversial technical terms and translation issues through the lens of modern scholarship--a living text in dialogue with itself and the reader. The RSE also includes 56 essays and letters which were not included in the SE.
In the RSE text and footnotes a subtle underlining distinguishes, in an easy and accessible way, Mark Solmss revisions and additions, from the historical translation and commentaries of James Stracheys Standard Edition. Readers can examine what Strachey contributed before the revisions in tandem with Solmss updates, new translations, annotations, and commentaries, collectively bringing Freuds text and Stracheys translation into dialogue with five decades of research, including the most recent developments in the field.
Commissioned by the British Psychoanalytical Society and co-published by Rowman & Littlefield, the Revised Standard Edition brings together decades of scholarly deliberation concerning the translation of Freudian technical terms while retaining the best of Stracheys original English translation.This landmark work will captivate a wide audience, from interested lay readers to practicing clinicians to scientists and scholars in fields related to psychoanalysis.
Special Features:
- New Freud material, including 56 notes, essays, and letters that were not included in the Standard Edition. They reveal new insights into Freuds views on such topics ashomosexuality and religion
- New content underlined to identify changes to the Standard Edition, including corrections of mistakes in the original translation as well as new, clearer translations of many passages
- New annotations in the margins providing the original German technical terms
- New and updated editorial material and translation notes
- New glossary concerning the translation of all key terms
- New photographic illustrations
- New and massively expanded Freud bibliography
- Entirely revised 24th volume, a major scholarly work, including a comprehensive index for the whole set
- Cross-referencing to the earlier SE is facilitated by the addition of page numbers in square brackets in the margins
Mark Solms is a globally acclaimed psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist, known for the integration of contemporary neuroscience with psychoanalytic methods and theories, and for his discovery of the forebrain mechanisms of dreaming. He is the Director of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital, the Science Director of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Co-Chair of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society.
The British Psychoanalytical Society, founded in 1913, is a charity dedicated to enhancing lives through the provision of psychoanalytic treatment and the dissemination of psychoanalytic ideas and understanding. Past members include some of the most important figures in the history of psychoanalysis, among them Wilfred Bion, John Bowlby, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott. The Institute for Psychoanalysis (IOPA) is the outward face of the Society, providing rigorous trainings in child and adult psychoanalysis. The IOPA offers conferences and courses worldwide for mental health professionals as well as holding an extensive archive and overseeing the publication of scholarly works in the field.
“The RSE is a work of immense historical, theoretical, clinical, and cultural value to scholars, practitioners, students, and the general public. Solms has meticulously reviewed SE language for errors, set in context complex meanings of technical terms, and provided end notes that expand and update the understanding of original texts. This monumental editorial revision brilliantly illuminates the roots and meanings of Freud’s thinking.”
—HARRIET L. WOLFE, MD, CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO; PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL PSYCHOANALYTICAL ASSOCIATION
“The Herculean effort by Mark Solms to publish the Revised Standard Edition of Freud’s writings is one of the most important scholarly works in the last 30 years, and not only in the field of psychoanalysis. The new papers by Freud that Solms has added (both translated and edited by him) make it possible to understand much better than before the continuity between Freud’s work as a neuroscientist and as the discoverer of psychoanalysis. Solms’s attempt to correct (as far as possible) the mistakes and misinterpretations in Strachey’s translations, together with the flexibility provided by his new glossary of technical terms, makes the RSE the new tool for understanding Freud in the 21st century.”
—RICCARDO STEINER, PhD, DISTINGUISHED FELLOW OF THE BRITISH PSYCHOANALYTICAL SOCIETY, LONDON
“The task of a Revised Standard Edition is reanimation and creative repetition—the values that psychoanalysis itself promotes. How to stay true to Freud, to Strachey, and at the same time open our eyes to the human condition? The editorial decisions here are bold, courageous, thoughtful, and well-explained. This is remembering in the deepest sense.”
—JONATHAN LEAR, PhD, PROFESSOR, COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL THOUGHT, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
“Extending and, on many fronts, exceeding the earlier work of Freud translators (e.g., James & Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson, Joan Riviere), Freud biographers (e.g., Ernest Jones, Peter Gay) and Freud scholars (e.g., Kurt Eissler, Harold Blum, and Norman Kiell), Mark Solms has produced a revised version of Freud’s majestic Standard Edition. Besides ‘silent corrections’ of minor lexical and syntactical slip-ups, Solms’s version rectifies omissions, corrects prior misreadings, provides richer context to many of Freud’s papers, clarifies hazy collaborations, and recovers from the gluttonous dustbin of history certain significant deleted portions of Freud’s text. Solms’s proposals frequently emanate from his retrieval and review of Freud’s original, often hand-written, manuscripts in German. The effort has the stamp of meticulous scholarship and unfailing, tender devotion to truth. The work Solms offers us is a truly remarkable addition to our professional literature and is bound to become memorable!”
—SALMAN AKHTAR, MD, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY, JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE, TRAINING & SUPERVISING ANALYST, PSYCHOANALYTIC CENTER OF PHILADELPHIA
“Over the past 30 years Professor Mark Solms has undertaken the mammoth task of revising Freud’s oeuvre with impressive scholarship. This much-awaited Revised Standard Edition of Freud’s complete works will be an indispensable tool for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, neurologists, and philosophers, as well as those working in the humanities, and anyone who wishes to immerse themselves in the writings of this revolutionary thinker and founder of psychoanalysis.”
—ROSINE JOZEF PERELBERG, DISTINGUISHED FELLOW AND PAST PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH PSYCHOANALYTICAL SOCIETY
“Many years of meticulous scholarship, careful consultation with others, daunting decision-making, and passionate attention to Freud’s thought and prose have come to fruition in Mark Solms’s revision of James Strachey’s translation of the Standard Edition. The result: a fatter, fitter Freud—with expanded introductions, updated footnotes, and a bibliography four times the size of the old one—a Freud for generations to come.”
—SIRI HUSTVEDT, PhD, WEIL CORNELL MEDICAL COLLEGE
