On Freud’s “The Uncanny”

‘The Uncanny or the Uncanny intimacy: if the Freudian Das Unheimliche brought problems to the French translations, the exploration of this specific kind of anxiety that is dread – provoked by the uncertainty of the boundaries and of the psychic "house" – first took Freud into the polysemy of language, before he explored the effects of the "double", splitting and the permutations of the egos. One hundred years after his seminal publication, the clinical and metapsychological richness of the Freudian text continues to produce offspring: the present book bears witness to this forcefully, specifically when it comes back to the differences concerning the determinism of the uncanny feeling, between animist beliefs and repressed representations suddenly brought to light. In the analytic situation, if the emergence of the Uncanny is variably interpreted by the authors, the identity wavering it provokes is precious when it indicates to the ego that it is no longer the master in his own house. "Eloge de l’inquiétant" (Praise of the Uncanny) wrote J.B. Pontalis.’-André Beetschen, former President of the APF (French Psychoanalytic Association).

‘In this post-truth world, which has become increasingly uncertain and uncanny, it is enlightening to have a book that brings back Freud’s "The Uncanny" to give meaning to our experiences. In 1919, his paper greatly contributed to the understanding of the impact of Others on our Selves, and the uncanniness contained therein. In 2019, a group of renowned psychoanalysts with different theoretical backgrounds now revisit the paper and provide new perspectives that may prove helpful to our clinical practice as well as to the teaching of psychoanalysis.’-Sergio Lewkowicz, training and supervising psychoanalyst, Porto Alegre Psychoanalytic Society, Brazil; Former president and chair of the Institute of the Porto Alegre Psychoanalytical Society; Fábio Leite Lobo award winner, Brazilian Federation of Psychoanalysis in 2011; current Latin American representative, IPA Board

‘This book is a justified and original tribute to the importance, depth and complexity of Freud’s work: a complexity that is also manifested in the argumentative style that Freud has chosen for a text that, as N. Royle states, appears as 'haunted, ghostly, strange and weird', and certainly imposes upon us not to ‘domesticate’ the 'uncanny' in psychoanalysis. It is no coincidence that Freud, led by the concept of the compulsion to repeat and the First World War in progress at the time, war called in his letter to Eitingon a "carnage", writes a series of works between 1915 and 1919 that will culminate in the formulation of the concept of 'Todestriebe'. A series of "Thoughts for the times on war and death" (1915) that are 'forced upon us' by the "disillusionment of the war", but which will inevitably lead to a necessary restructuring of the whole theoretical framework. Readers will appreciate the ability and authority of the authors in unraveling the complex network of Freud’s writing.’-Jorge Canestri, Training analyst, Italian Psychoanalytical Association. President of the European Psychoanalytical Federation