"Young Dr. Freud", which I caught on PBS (US TV) last night thanks to the alert by Charles Harris is, as predicted by Charles, the standard admiring view as seen through the eyes of uncritical supporters. It offers no unpleasantness, no doubts, no dissenting opinions. It opens with a quotation from Freud to the effect that he discovered the scientific method to study the mind (the exact quote isn't given at the pbs.org website, unfortunately).
Scientific method? Hah! It is to laugh. I have a classic and treasured paper by the pioneering Freud critic Percival Bailey (1964), long forgotten by all, possibly even by the admirable Allen E. Bailey titles his piece "Sigmund Freud: Scientific Period (1873- 1897)". (Note that "The Interpretation of Dreams" was published in 1900.) In a discussion appended to his paper, Bailey was asked why he stopped at 1897 in Freud's career. He responded: "If you will accept the term science in the sense of Naturwissenschaft, or _natural_ science, Freud didn't do any more "natural scientific" research after 1897. He ended there. After that what he did was speculate. He never tried to subject any of his ideas to experimental tests, and furthermore, he was quite hostile to the suggestion that they be subjected to experimental tests. He maintained that they were self-evident and did not need any demonstration. So I stopped at 1987 because that was the last time that he wrote a scientific paper in the sense of Naturwissenschaft." Or, in Freud's own words (1900 letter to Fleiss): "I am not really a man of science, not an observer, not an experimenter, and not a thinker. I am nothing but by temperament a conquistador---an adventurer if you want to translate the word". BTW, the programme glossed over Freud's use of cocaine, mentioning only that he claimed that on one occasion it "lifted him to the heights". They should have quoted the full remarkable passage, from Freud writing to his fiancee, Martha Bernays (1884): �Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are froward you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn�t eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body. In my last severe depression I took coca again and a small dose lifted me to the heights�I am�collecting the literature for a song of praise to this magical substance� That's Freud for you. A big wild man who has cocaine in his body. Stephen Bailey, P. (1964). Sigmund Freud: Scientific Period. In: J. Wolpe, A. Salter, & L Reyna (eds.). _The Conditioning Therapies_. ______________________________________________________________ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips _________________________________________________________ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
