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From Freud To Kafka: The Paradoxical Foundation of the Life-and-Death Instinct

Author(s) : Philippe Refabert

Reviews and Endorsements

‘What a pleasure to be guided through the chaos of our daily meanderings by the firm footsteps of Philippe Réfabert, whose clinical experience throws its fascinating light on Kafka’s short stories. The tools he places at our disposal go beyond those granted to us by Freud, while reaffirming the latter’s conviction that there is more psychoanalysis in works of literature than in theoretical treatises.’
—Françoise Davoine, psychoanalyst; professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris; and co-author of History Beyond Trauma

‘I find this book fascinating. Its serious questioning of Freud introduces an innovative perspective on an essential matter and provides a perspective both convincing and brilliant on Kafka and the origin of literature. Kafka crossing the Freudian line of closure is an immensely fertile idea.’
— Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, philosopher, literary critic, and translator

‘This book is a rare event: truly good news for budding psychoanalysts and for many other people. I am thinking particularly of all those kept alive, but captive, by “catastrophic healing”. The author dares to say out loud about homosexuality what our culture strives to prevent from being even faintly glimpsed. He has the courage to propose a radically new perspective: he dares to say that there is no third sex, but only people who have been evicted from their “bodies”.’
— Marie Balmary, psychoanalyst and author

‘Philippe Réfabert confronts Freudian theory with his trauma-related clinical experience. He observes that, at times, trauma is the result of the insidious “soul murder” committed by the parental couple with respect to the child. Réfabert reminds us that in the sphere of pain, the psychoanalyst’s work is akin to the poet’s constant receptivity to astonishment. For therapists, this book is a work of reference; for all of us, it is a joy to read.’
— Heitor O’Dwyer de Macedo, psychoanalyst and author of De l’amour à la pensée