Sigmund Freud

Totem and Taboo Sigmund Freud

Totem and Taboo is Sigmund Freud's attempt to apply his psychoanalytical theories to totemism, as practiced by various primitive human tribes and indigenous populations.

Freud had a personal interest in anthropology, and was particularly curious about archaeological excavations and their associated insights. His contemporary Carl Jung considered early man and tribal communities to contain a wealth of psychological insight; an idea with which Freud agreed.

Totem and Taboo examines totemism; the practice of individual tribes, groups and families of a given people having their own distinctive totem. Freud posits that alongside the totem signifying respective clans, many incest taboos developed in the totemist societies. These evolved to the point where related males and females were excluded from each other's company.

After arriving at this conclusion, Freud investigates the links between totemism and phenomena such as psychological projection. He was convinced that the neuroses witnessed in his Vienna practice were manifest in native peoples. Notably, he advances the idea that neurotic hatred is projected upon the visage of a totem.

Later, Freud examines links between tribal mysticism and animism, and the inner narcissism of the human soul. He advances the idea that early conceptions of the universe are projection of the tribal person's innermost consciousness.

When it was first published, Totem and Taboo was lauded by anthropologists and psychoanalysts alike for its bold examinations which attempted to reconcile the study of human beings with the fledgling theories of psychoanalysis. However, over time the book has been debunked and discredited to the point where it is now wholly disregarded by modern anthropologists.