There are some 20 essays in this collection authored by professionals on the current diffusion of Freudian metapsychology into other fields of study—history, philosophy, physics and mathematics, the humanities, religion, and sociology.
Stephen Toulmin's Psychoanalysis, Physics, and the Mind-body Problem is discussed by Paul Ricoeur and by Don Swanson. This tripartite essay has the tight and lucid thought of the scholar. Throughout, the reader is caught up in the vigor of the rereading of Freud's writings that is in progress in Western Europe now that three quarters of a century has elapsed since Freud's ostracism by European scholars and medical colleagues.
A panoramic view of the growth of the metapsychology in America during the past 75 years is presented by John Demos in his Oedipus in America: Historical Perspectives on theReception of Psychoanalysis in the United States. The psychohistory of America during the last two centuries is outlined in