The Unconscious Significance of Hair

The implications of this book were thought to be far wider and deeper than its title suggests. It examines hair-activities in the light of dreams, anthropology, folklore, symptoms, and perversions, showing them to be an expression of instinct-driven tensions and conflicts. The author argues that if our thoughts and behavior are symptomatic expressions of an unconscious conflict or complex, our more significant ideas, beliefs, institutions, customs, and laws must be even more psychopathic. The book is a psychiatric criticism of normality based on a chosen item of typically normal behavior.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 110 pages
Publication date: 01 December 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Originally published in 1951, this book's implications were far broader and more profound than its title suggests. The author selects hair activities as a sample of uncritically accepted human behavior, then carefully examines them in the light of dreams, anthropology, folklore, symptoms, and perversions. He reveals them as an expression of instinct-driven tensions and conflicts, challenging the popular illusion that they are determined by reason or adaptation to reality. The corollary is inescapable: if our thoughts and behavior in this innocent particular are symptomatic expressions of an unconscious conflict or complex, how much more psychopathic would our more significant ideas, beliefs, institutions, customs, and laws prove to be upon similar detailed investigation? Is our self-expression in life and civilization nothing more than a symptom, identical in its source and mechanism with the symptoms of nervous and mental illness?

The book is a psychiatric criticism of normality based on a chosen item of typically normal behavior. It is written in a way that will be easily understood by every intelligent reader. This book is a re-issue of the original publication, originally published in 1951. The language used reflects the era, and no offense is intended by the Publishers to any reader through this re-publication.

Weight: 210g
Dimension: 216 x 138 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032170626