Review of Jagna Brudzińska, Bi-Valenz der Erfahrung: Assoziation, Imaginäres und Trieb in der Genesis der Subjektivität bei Husserl und Freud, Dordrecht: Springer, 2019

Abstract

Jagna Brudzińska's Bi-Valenz der Erfahrung: Assoziation, Imaginäres und Trieb in derGenesis der Subjektivität bei Husserl und Freud is the first book-length study 1 to investigate the relationship of phenomenology and psychoanalysis from the perspective of Edmund Husserl's genetic philosophy. 2 The book addresses scholars of philosophy and psychology who wish to gain a deeper understanding of genetic phenomenology and the philosophy of psychoanalysis alike.Taking a historical perspective pursued with a systematic interest, the text can be read by students who might benefit from an introduction into Husserl's genetic phenomenology as well as accomplished scientists that work in the fields of phenomenology and psychoanalysis.The latter is due especially to the author referencing both published texts and unpublished manuscripts from Husserl's œuvre for her study, allowing phenomenology to appear in a new light.The precision and scope of Brudzińska's grasp of both phenomenological and psychoanalytic theory as well as her own involvement in the interdisciplinary advancement of both disciplines make this book a commendable reading to these audiences.Following a concise historical account of the philosophical and psychiatric exchanges between phenomenology and psychoanalysis from the lifetimes of Edmund Husserl and Sigmund Freud through the caesura of the second world war to Lacan and Ricœur (Brudzińska, 2019a, 1-6), the first chapter of Bi-Valenz der