Libido, Culture, and Consciousness: Revisiting Freud’s Totem and Taboo by Daniel S. Benveniste

Advance Praise for Libido, Culture and Consciousness: Revisiting Freud’s Totem and Taboo by Daniel S. Benveniste

Click Here to Read: Fleshing out Freud’s Undeveloped Psychosexual Stages by James L. Kelley Review of Daniel S. Benveniste’s Libido, Culture, and Consciousness: Revisiting Freud’s Totem and Taboo in Clio’s Psyche Spring 2023 Issue, pp. 384-396.

Daniel Benveniste’s new book is a tour de force that emerges from his life-long study of psychoanalysis including his eleven years of living and working in Venezuela. He possesses a rare gift for understanding the workings of the mind individually and in groups of all sizes. I don’t know of anyone in the field of psychoanalysis or anthropology to have written so beautifully and passionately about such a vast range of human experiences. In his new book, Benveniste proposes that when primate instincts are processed through human symbolic function, they give rise to metaphors that are co-created in the space between the individual and the culture. He proposes a new dimension of human development, the psychomythic, and a new way of looking at psychopathology, both of which are inseparable from the cultural and the mythic dimensions of human experience. This is a book not to be missed.—Thomas H. Ogden, MD, author most recently of Coming to Life in the Consulting Room:
Toward a New Analytic Sensibility and Reclaiming Unlived Life.

Daniel, having read your new book, Libido, Culture and Consciousness: Revisiting Freud’s Totem and Taboo, I couldn’t help but remember the early years of your work with Rollo. He prophesied you would contribute fresh and fascinating ideas to the field. I know Rollo would have loved your book. You were always one of his favorite students. I wish you success with this book and the ones to follow. Fondly,—Dr. Georgia L. May