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THE ASSAULT ON FREUD He invented psychoanalysis
and revolutionized 20th century ideas about
the life of the mind. And
this is the thanks he gets? Many are the ways of coping
with the world’s vicissitudes. Some people fear and propitiate evil spirits.
Others order their schedules according to the display of the planets across the
zodiac. There are those who assume that they carry, somewhere inside of them, a
thing called the conscious. It is mostly invisible, although it can furtively
be glimpsed in dreams and heard in slips of the tongue. But the unconscious is
not a passive stowaway on the voyage of life; it has the power to make its
hosts feel very sad or behave in strange, self-destructive ways. When that
happens, one recourse is to go to the office of a specially trained healer,
lie down on a couch and start talking. The first two beliefs can,
except by those who hold them, easily be dismissed as superstitions. The third-a
tenet of the classic theory of psychoanalysis devised by Sigmund Freud-has
become this troubled century's dominant model for thinking and talking about
human behavior. To a remarkable degree, Freud's ideas, conjectures,
pronouncements have seeped well beyond the circle of his professional followers
into the public mind and discourse. People who have never read a word of his
work (a voluminous 24 volumes in the standard English translation) nonetheless 4'know"
of things that can be traced, sometimes circuitously, back to Freud: penis
envy; castration anxiety; phallic symbols; the ego, id and superego; repressed
memories; Oedipal itches; sexual sublimation. This rich panoply of metaphors
for the mental life has become, across wide swaths of the globe. something very
close to common knowledge. But what if Freud was wrong? This question has been around
ever since the publication of Freud's first overtly psychoanalytical papers in
the late 1890s. Today it is being asked with unprecedented urgency, thanks to
a coincidence of developments that raise doubts not only about Freud's methods,
discoveries and proofs and the vast array of therapies derived from them, but
also about the lasting importance of Freud's descriptions of the mind. The
collapse of Marxism, the other grand unified theory that shaped and rattled
the 20th century, is unleashing monsters. What inner horrors or fresh dreams
might arise should the complex Freudian monument topple as well? That may not happen, and it
assuredly will not happen all at once. But new forces are undermining the
Freudian foundations. Among them: -The problematical proliferation, particularly in the U.S.,
of accusations of sexual abuse, satanic rituals, infant human sacrifices and
the like from people, many of them guided by therapists, who suddenly remember
what they allegedly years or decades ago repressed (see following story). Although
Freud almost certainly would have regarded most of these charges with withering
skepticism, his theory of repression and the unconscious is being used-most
Freudians would say misused-to assert their authenticity. -The continuing success of drugs in the treatment or
alleviation of mental disorders ranging from depression to schizophrenia.
Roughly 10 million Americans are taking such medications. To his credit, Freud
foresaw this development. In 1938, a year before his death, he wrote, "The
future may teach us to exercise a direct influence, by means of particular
chemical substances" Still, the recognition that some neuroses and
psychoses respond favorably to drugs chips away at the domain originally
claimed for psychoanalytic treatment. -The Clinton health-care reform proposals, oddly enough,
which are prompting cost-benefit analyses across the whole spectrum of U.S.
medicine, including treatments for mental illness. Whatever package finally
winds its way through Congress, many experts concede that insurance will not
be provided for Freud's talking cure. (A 50-mm. hour of psychoanalysis costs
an average of $125.) Says Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, director of the National
Institute of Mental Health: "It's clear that classical psychoanalysis,
which is four to five times a week for a four- to five-year duration, will not
be covered. It won't be covered because there is no real evidence that it
works" Goodwin, for the record, professes himself an admirer of Freud the
theoretician. -A spate of new books attacking Freud and his brainchild
psychoanalysis for a generous array of errors, duplicities, fudged evidence
and scientific howlers. This last phenomenon is an
intensification of an ongoing story. While Freud was winning cadres of
acolytes and legions of notional recruits, he and his ideas regularly attracted
sharp attacks, often from influential quarters. As early as 1909, philosopher
William James observed in a letter that Freud "made on me personally the
impression of a man obsessed with fixed ideas" Vladimir Nabokov, whose
novels trace the untrammeled and unpredictable play of individual imaginations,
regularly tossed barbs at "the witch doctor Freud" and "the
Viennese quack~' For similar reasons, Ludwig Wittgenstein objected to the
pigeon-holing effects of psychoanalytic categories, even though he paid Freud a
backhanded compliment in the process: "Freud's fanciful pseudo
explanations (precisely because they are so brilliant) perform a disservice.
Now any ass has these pictures to use in 'explaining' symptoms of illness.' The steady rain of anti-Freud
arguments did little to discourage the parade of his theories or to dampen the
zeal of his followers. In fact, Freud erected an apparently invulnerable
umbrella against criticisms of psychoanalytical principles. He characterized
such disagreements, from patients or anyone else, as "resistance" and
then asserted that instances of such resistance amounted to "actual
evidence in favor of the correctness" of his assertions. For a long time,
this psychoanalytic Catch-22 worked wonders: those who opposed the methods put
forth to heal them and others could be banished, perhaps with a friendly
handshake and a knowing smile, as nuts. That illogical defense has
largely crumbled. The recent discovery of documents relating to Freud and his
circle, plus the measured release of others by the Freud estate, has provided a
steadily expanding body of evidence about the man and his works. Some of the
initial reassessments are unsettling. For one example, the 10-year
collaboration between Freud and Carl Gustav Jung broke off abruptly in 1914,
with profound consequences for the discipline they helped create. There would
henceforth be Freudians and Jungians, connected chiefly by mutual animosities.
Why did a warm, fruitful cooperation end in an icy schism? In A Most
Dangerous Method (Knopf; $30), John Kerr, a clinical psychologist who has
seen new diaries, letters and journals, argues that the growing philosophical
disputes between Freud and Jung were exacerbated by a cat-and-mouse game of
sexual suspicion and blackmail. Freud believed an ex-patient of Jung's named
Sabina Spielrein had also been Jung's mistress; Jung in turn surmised that
Freud had become involved with his sister-in-law, Minna Bernays. Both
antagonists in this standoff held bombshells that could blow each other's
reputation from Vienna to Zurich and back'. both backed off, divided up the
spoils of their joint investigations and retreated into opposing tents of
theory. Was this any way to found an
objective science? Freud's defenders argue that his personal life is irrelevant
to his contributions to learning-a rather odd contention, given Freud's
statement that his development of the analytic method began with his
pioneering analysis of himself. Nevertheless, Arnold Richards, editor of the
American Psychoanalytic Association newsletter, dismisses any attention paid
to Freud's private conduct: "It has no scientific practical consequence.
It's not relevant to Freud's theory or practice.” What, then, about attacks on
Freud's theory and practice? In Father Knows Best: The Use and Abuse of
Power in Freud's Case of 'Dora' (Teachers College Press; $36), academicians
Robin Tolmach I,akoff and James C. Coyne offer a fresh view of one of Freud's
most famously botched analyses. When "Dora," 18, sought Freud's help
at her father's insistence in 1901, she told him the following story: her
father was having an affair with the wife of Herr "K", a family
friend. Herr K had been paying unwanted sexual attentions to Dora since she
was 14 and was now being encouraged in this pursuit by her father, presumably
as a way to deflect attention from the father's alliance with Frau K. After
hearing this account, Freud, as feminists say, did not get it. He decided Dora
really desired Herr K sexually, plus her father to boot, and he criticized her
"hysterical" refusal to follow her true inclinations, embrace her
circumstances and make everyone, including herself, satisfied and fulfilled.
She left Freud's care after three months. If this sounds damning, the
same and then some can be found in Allen Esterson’s Seductive Mirage:
An Exploration of the Work of Sigmund Freud (Open Court; $52.95). As a
mathematician, Esterson is vulnerable to charges from Freud loyalists that he
is an amateur, unqualified to discuss the mysteries of psychoanalysis. Maybe
so, hut his relentless examinations of discrepancies, doctored evidence and apparent
lies within Freud's own accounts of individual cases make for disturbing reading.
Esterson's argument is often most effective when it quotes the analyst
directly on his therapeutic techniques. Freud regularly sounds like a
detective who solves a crime before interviewing the first witness: "The principle is that I
should guess the secret and tell it to the patient straight out" Once
Freud had made a diagnosis, the case, as far as he was concerned, was closed,
although the treatment continued: "We must not be led
astray by initial denials. If we keep firmly to what we have inferred, we
shall in the end conquer every resistance by emphasizing the unshakable nature
of our convictions." Noting the fact that Freud's
published case histories largely record inconclusive or lamentable results,
some loyalists have adopted a fall-back position: Freud may not have been very
good at practicing what he preached, but that lapse in no way invalidates his
overarching theories. These defenders must now
confront Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis (International
Universities Press; $50) by Adolf Grünbaum, a noted philosopher of science and
a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. The book, which builds on
Grünbaum's 1984 critique of psychoanalytic underpinnings, is a monograph
(translation: no one without a Ph.D. need apply) and a quiet, sometimes
maddeningly abstruse devastation of psychoanalysis' status as a science. Grunbaum dispassionately
examines a number of key psychoanalytic premises: the theory of repression
(which Freud called "the cornerstone on which the whole structure of psychoanalysis
rests"), the investigative capabilities offered by free association, the
diagnostic significance of dreams. Grünbaum dces not claim that the idea of repressed
memories, for instance, is false. He simply argues that neither Freud nor any
of his successors has ever proved a cause-and-effect link between a repressed
memory and a later neurosis or a retrieved memory and a subsequent cure. Off the page, Grünbaum is
able to make his critique a little more accessible to lay people. Of the
presumed link between childhood molestation and adult neurosis, he remarks,
"Just saying the first thing happened and the second thing happened, and
therefore one caused the other, is not enough. You have to show more.'
Grünbaum finds similar flaws in the importance Freud attached to dreams and
bungled actions, such as so-called Freudian slips: "All three of these
tenets-the theory of neurosis, the theory of why we dream and the theory of
slips-have the same problem. All are undermined by Freud's failure to prove a
causal relationship between the repression and the pathology. That's why the
foundation of psychoanalysis is very wobbly.' How wobbly? Interestingly, Grünbaum
himself thinks all is not lost, although his verdict is not entirely cheering:
"I categorically don't believe Freud is dead. The question is, Are they
trustworthy explanations? Have the hypotheses been validated by cogent, solid
evidence? My answer to that is no." Frank Sulloway, a visiting
scholar of science history at M.I.T. and a longtime critic of Freud's methods,
takes a somewhat more apocalyptic view: "Psychoanalysis is built
on quicksand. It's like a 10-story hotel sinking into an unsound foundation.
And the analysts are in this building. You tell them it's sinking, and they
say, 'It's O.K.; we're on the 10th floor"' Sure enough, the view from
this imaginary elevation remains largely untroubled. Psychoanalysts like to
point out that their treatment is gaining converts in Spain, Italy and Latin
America, plus parts of the former Soviet Union, where it had formerly been
banned. Some 14,000 tourists a year flock to the Freud Museum in London, where
they walk through the Hampstead house Freud owned during the last year of his
life. His daughter Anna, who carried on her father's work with dedication and
skill, remained there until her death in 1982. Freud's library and study, the
latter containing a couch covered with an Oriental rug, remain largely as he
left them. Some visitors last week may have come fresh from seeing a Channel 4
TV documentary put together by Peter Swales, another persistent critic of
Freud, titled Bad Ideas of the 20th Century: Freudism. If so,
their interest in Freud memorabilia seemed undiminished. Michael Molnar, the
Museum's research director and an editor of Freud's diaries, acknowledges that
psychoanalysis is being challenged by new drug treatments and advances in
genetic research. "But;' he argues, "Freud is in better shape than
Marx.” Across the English Channel, a
play called The Visjtor, by the young French dramatist Eric-Emmanuel
Schmitt, has opened in Paris, featuring the octogenarian Freud and his
daughter Anna as principal characters. Meanwhile, the Grand Palais is staging
an exhibition called "The Soul in the Body;' with objects that manifest
the interplay between art and science. One of the major displays is the couch
on which Freud's patients in Vienna reclined. In his leather-upholstered office
a few blocks away, Serge Leclaire, 69, an expresident of the French Society
for Psychoanalysis, notes all this cultural hubbub in France and contrasts it
with the assaults on Freud in the U.S. "What happened to Freudian
psychoanalysis in America is the fault of American psychoanalysts;' he says.
"They froze things into a doctrine, almost a religion, with its own dogma,
instead of changing with the times.” For their part, U.S. psychoanalysts
admit that Freud has been taking some pretty hard knocks lately but deny that
his impact or importance has waned as a result. Says George H. Allison, a
Seattle-based analyst: "I think Freud's
influence in mental health as well as the humanities is much greater than it
was 40 years ago. I hear much more being written and said about Freud.” Allison
points to the proliferation of therapies-there are now more than 200 talking
cures competing in the U.S. mental health marketplace, and 10 to 15 million
Americans doing some kind of talking-and he argues that "they really are
based on Freudian principals, even though a lot of people who head these
movements are anti-Freudian officially. But they are standing on the shoulders
of a genius." This image raises anew the
quicksand question. If Freud's theories are truly as cozy as his critics
maintain, then what is to keep all the therapies indebted to them from slowly
sinking into oblivion as well? Hypothetically, nothing, though few expect or
want that event to occur. Surprisingly, Peter Kramer, author of the current
best seller Listening to Prozac, comes to the defense of talking cures
and their founder: "Even Freudian analysts don't hold themselves 100% to
Freud. Psychotherapy is like one of those branching trees, where each of the
branches legitimately claims a common ancestry, namely Freud, but none of the
branches are sitting at the root. We'd be very mistaken to jettison
psychotherapy or Freud" Frederick Crews, a professor
of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and a well-known reviewer
and critic, once enthusiastically applied Freudian concepts to literary works
and taught his students to do likewise. Then he grew disillusioned and now
ranks as one of Freud's harshest American debunkers. Even while arguing that
Freud was a liar and that some of his ideas did not arise from clinical observations
but instead were lifted from "folklore;' Crews grows cautious about the
prospect of a world suddenly without Freud or his methods: "Those of us
who are concerned about pointing out Freud's intellectual failings are not, by
and large, experts in the entire range of psychotherapy. I take no position on
whether psychotherapy is a good thing or not:' Such prudence may be well
advised. Freud was not the first to postulate the unconscious; the concept has
a long intellectual ancestry. Nor did Freud ever prove, in empirical terms
that scientists would accept, the existence of the unconscious. But Jonathan
Winson, professor emeritus of neurosciences at Rockefeller University in New
York City, who has done extensive research on the physiology of sleep and
dreams, now claims Freud's intuition of its existence was correct, even if his
conclusions were off the mark: "He's right that there is a coherent
psychological structure beneath the level of the conscious. That's a marvelous
insight for which he deserves credit. And he deserves credit too for sensing
that dreams are the 'royal road' to the unconscious:' That, finally, may be the
central problem with declaring Freud finished. For all of his log rolling and
influence peddling, his running roughshod over colleagues and patients alike,
for all the sins of omission and commission that critics past and present
correctly lay on his couch, he still managed to create an intellectual edifice
that feels closer to the experience of living, and therefore hurting,
than any other system currently in play. What he bequeathed was not (despite
his arguments to the contrary), nor has yet proved itself to be, a science.
Psychoanalysis and all its offshoots may in the final analysis turn out to be
no more reliable than phrenology or mesmerism or any of the countless other
pseudosciences that once offered unsubstantiated answers or false solace.
Still, the reassurances provided by Freud that our inner lives are rich with
drama and hidden meanings would be missed if it disappeared, leaving nothing in
its place. Shortly after Freud actually
died in 1939, WH. Auden, one of the many 20th century writers who mined
psychoanalysis for its ample supply of symbols and imagery, wrote an elegy
that concluded: ... sad is Eros, builder
of cities, and weeping anarchic
Aphrodite. Auden's choice of figures
from Greek mythology was intentional and appropriate. Perhaps Homer and
Sophocles and the rest will prove, when all is said and done, better guides to
the human condition than reud. But he did not shy away from such
competition. -Reported by Ann
Blackman/Washington, Barry Hillenbrand/London, Janice M. Horowitz/New York and Benjamin Iyry/Paris
