While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus.Andrew Solomon
About This Quote
The great psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud was a man with a difficult task. He sought to understand the human mind and to interpret it in a way that would help others. In his book, "Civilization and its Discontents," he talks about two men named Albert and Jones. Albert, who is married to Jones, will only speak to his wife when she is in the bathroom.
The reason why he says this is because he does not want her to hear what he has to say. In this case, it would be very cruel of him to communicate with her in such a way because she might hear something that would make her sad or angry with him. While it may be true that she might hear something that would make her mad at him, the fact still remains that he is a prisoner in his own home.
If he cannot talk freely in front of her in the bathroom, then he will not speak at all. Freud uses this example to show how we can be prisoners of our own minds and how we cannot understand others completely. We may know so little about them and what they do or think about certain things but we often feel the need to control their actions or thoughts based on what we think they should do or believe about them.
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