You don't have to be Jewish: But Freud Did

Objective: Despite recurrent suggestions that Freud's theories are no longer relevant, this paper seeks to demonstrate that all modern perspectives on the human psyche which investigate ‘binaries’[1] or ‘othernesses’ in the mind, derive from Freud's own uneasy position as an assimilated Jew struggling to be accepted by the anti-Semitic establishment in Vienna. Conclusions: Freud's identification of the concepts of conscious and unconscious and differences in male and female sexuality has now broadened into a general focus on ‘othernesses’ which are relevant to current understandings of narcissism and boundaries. Clinically, this offers us novel views of our patients' minds, rather than the usual ‘sick’ and ‘well’ categories.