Introduction

Freudian theory is used in association with a range of sociological approaches: functionalism, Marxism, structuralism and post-structuralism, feminism. Sociology has always known about Carl Jung, but has never done anything about him. A scattering of articles has appeared in the journals since the 1970s. Mostly it is not the major sociology journals that they have appeared in, and the sociological mainstream has either not known or taken no notice. Presenting material from sociology and anthropology together raises the question of the relationship between them. The cultural anthropologists had considered this in relation to Native Americans but not to themselves. For the sociologists this concern is central; moreover, it appears overwhelmingly as the child or even the preconception of theory, remote from empirical reference. This chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.