Denial and Weltanschauung

Abstract

The problem of a psychoanalytic Weltanschauung was faced by Freud, as is well known, in Die Zukunft einer Illusion (1927b) where, more than elsewhere, the “vision of reality” corresponds to a conception that is both positive and problematic. More controversially, in Hemmung, Symptom und Angst, Freud declared “Ich bin überhaupt nicht fur die Fabrikation von Weltanschauungen” and, in the XXXV Vorlesung (Freud, 1932), he reaffirms that the only psychoanalytic Weltanschauung is that of science. However, in all the papers cited, it is stressed that the affects on the basis of religious Weltanschauung cannot be disdainfully put aside and that their value for human life must not be underestimated.