Guilt—Freud and Buber

Abstract

Using the concept of guilt as a starting point, it is the purpose of this paper to determine what relation Freud and psychoanalysis had to ethics. Buber's criticism of the view of guilt found in psychoanalysis is presented together with existential guilt. This is followed by a survey of Freud's theories of moral development, beginning with an 1897 letter to Fliess. Freud finds guilt for oedipal desires in Hamlet and real guilt is touched upon for the first time in 1906. In “Totem and Taboo”, Freud tracks down the earliest form of conscience via parricide. His last note about the sense of guilt was made in 1938. In the concluding discussion, this paper confronts and examines Freud's and Buber's approaches with emphasis on the relation to religion, neurotic and real guilt, and the ethical content of psychoanalysis.