First Published in 2002

To those who see Freud solely as a psychologist and a psychotherapist it may be surprising to find him discussed as a major contributor to sociology. In this book, Robert Bocock argues that Freud’s work, far from being exclusively concerned with individual personality seen in abstraction from the social and cultural environment, does have important implications for social theory and is not always given the serious sociological study it deserves.

Bocock demonstrates Freud’s central relevance to sociological discussions about gender, sexuality, the family, religion, ideology and symbolism, political authority, and language, and examines the considerable influence that Freud’s theories have had upon sociological schools.