One of Freud’s central achievements was to demonstrate howunacceptable thoughts and feelings are repressed into theunconscious, from where they continue to exert a decisive influenceover our lives. This volume contains a key statement about evidencefor the unconscious, and how it works, as well as major essays onall the fundamentals of mental functioning. Freud explores how weare torn between the pleasure principle and the reality principle,how we often find ways both to express and to deny what we mostfear, and why certain men need fetishes for their sexualsatisfaction. His study of our most basic drives, and how they aretransformed, brilliantly illuminates the nature of sadism,masochism, exhibitionism and voyeurism.
