The denial of death Becker, Ernest

Table of Contents:

PART I: The Depth Psychology of Heroism
1. Introduction: human nature and the heroic
2. The terror of death
3. The recasting of some basic psychoanalytic ideas
4. Human character as a vital lie
5. The psychoanalyst Kierkegaard
6. The problem of Freud's character, Noch Einmal

PART II: The Failures of Heroism
7. The spell cast by persons- the nexus of unfreedom
8. Otto Rank and the closure of psychoanalysis on Kierkegaard
9. The present outcome of psychoanalysis
10. A general view of mental illness

PART III: Retrospect and Conclusion: The Dilemmas of Heroism
11. Psychology and religion: what is the heroic individual?

Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie - man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.

(http://books.simonandschuster.com/The-Denial-of-Death/Ernest-Becker/9780684832401)