Debbie Foster

Freud set out to develop a medical specialism but succeeded in producing a complex system of thought, a new way of understanding the mind, relationships, history and culture.

The soul or consciousness, in fact, is nothing but the unity of a sense of self over time, the bare fact that to perceive and then to articulate our perceptions something must connect from this very instant to another, and another after that.

There is ample scientific evidence to show us that the most fulfilling lives are the ones that maximize feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

In Socrates we witness a new way of doing philosophy that makes inquiry into the world dependent on inquiry into the self and its capacity for knowledge. But we also witness an afterbirth—anti-philosophical anger.

I thought about my old feeling of too-muchness, and what it would mean to surrender to that "softness and permeability" that Ehrenreich describes. To be permeable to the tides of story and history, to let everything that feels like too much flow freely through the mind and body. This is the way to live joyfully and defiantly, whether in politics or

The quickest way to kill many grown-ups' interest in a work of art is to label it as healthy and useful, to turn it into another productive chore. And the quickest way to kill fiction more generally is to declare that it exists to make you a better person, to train you into shape.

But even back then I sensed that Mustafa and I read differently. He entered books with pointed implements. It mattered to him whether he agreed with the author or if he believed them to be of sound character. He consulted their politics, their opinions on various topics, and experienced a passionate keenness, which showed itself in his eyes every

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, like so much of Freud's writing, transcends its apparent purpose and makes a super ordinate point about self-understanding. Small things matter. The humdrum and the mundane are as telling - perhaps even more so - as prizes, major undertakings, feats and exploits. Even something as inconsequential as dropping a

She was finding, the older she got, the more she had thoughts that were not entirely catastrophic in nature. She didn't put much stock in them, yet, but it was a pleasant change of pace. She could have so much fun, if she tried. She was going to try.