Stephen Black wrote:
> On 28 Aug 2003, Allen Esterson raised the following provocative question:
> >
> > So how come that although most of Freud�s early patients were women,
> > his theory of psychosexual development was male-based? I have my own
> > explanation for this, but I�d be interested to hear what other
> > TIPSters think.
>
> Because Freud developed his theory first, then invented facts to
> support it?
>
> Tell us what you think, Allen.
Dennis Goff wrote:
> My "theory" has been that most of Freud's theory was autobiographical.
NJM wrote:
> My theory is that most of Freud's theories are just downright silly.
I think there is considerable truth in both Stephen�s and Dennis�s
suggestions (though in Freud�s case we have to treat the word
"autobiographical� in a less than literal sense). (As for NJM�s scurrilous
�theory�, I�ll come to that later!)
Freud�s theories of psychosexual development are founded on his first
intimations of the Oedipus theory expressed in a letter to Wilhelm Fliess
in October 1897, and on the ideas contained in �Three Essays on the Theory
of Sexuality� (1905). In relation to his so-called self-analysis (which,
he wrote, �has continued in dreams�), he reported in the letter to Fliess
that between the ages of two and two-and-a half years his �libido towards
*matrem* was awakened, namely, on the occasion of a journey with her from
Leipzig to Vienna, during which we must have [sic] spent the night
together and there must have been [sic] an opportunity of seeing her
*nudam*�� At this point Freud interpolates parenthetically: �You [Fliess]
inferred the consequences of this for your son long ago, as a remark
revealed to me.� Robert Wilcocks (1994, pp. 185-186) has pointed out that,
given Freud was in the process of arriving at his first general
formulation of his Oedipus thesis (expressed to Fliess twelve days later),
this remark must surely be understood as Fliess�s having reported his
infant son Robert being faced with a similar situation to that surmised by
Freud to have occurred on his childhood journey, namely that the young
Robert (under two at the time) had seen his mother naked, and at that
moment had happened to have an erection (a common occurrence in infant
boys). Let�s leave aside that Freud�s physician, Max Schur, pointed out
the factual errors in what he described as Freud �reconstruction� of the
train journey (Esterson 1993, pp. 138-139), and merely note the flimsiness
of this �evidence� for the sexual desires of a male infant for his mother
on which he was later to base so much.
The supposedly epoch-making �Three Essays� develops the other central
strand of Freud�s psychosexual theories, infantile masturbation, which he
describes as �leav[ing] behind the deepest (unconscious) impressions in
the subject�s memory, determin[ing] the development of his character, if
he is to remain healthy, and the symptomatology of his neurosis, if he is
to fall ill after puberty� (1905, SE 7, p. 189). The link between these
two strands is the castration complex, which together with the Oedipus
complex, came to be seen by Freud as �the key to every neurosis� (1926, SE
21, p. 184).
Almost certainly Freud�s obsession with infantile masturbation (and its
supposedly crucial influence on later development) relates in some way to
his own experiences. The only (indirect) relation of these theories to his
early *female* patients lies in the fact that the collapse of his
seduction theory in late summer 1897 left him having to explain away his
extravagantly proclaimed infantile sexual abuse claims, which he
eventually was able to do (with the help of a great deal of obfuscation
and misrepresentation) by postulating the occurrence of unconscious
infantile phantasies of �seduction� produced �to fend off� shameful
memories of infantile masturbation (1906, SE 7, p. 274; 1914, SE 14, p.
18). (The majority of the �seduction theory� patients were women, though
one third were men.)
So Dennis�s suggestion that these theories were �autobiographical� has
much going for it, as long as we appreciate that by Freud's
�autobiography� here we mean events that he *surmised* had happened to
himself in infancy. In that sense Stephen is right in suggesting that
Freud effectively invented facts to fit his theories. But for sheer
unadulterated invention Freud�s late papers on female sexuality take some
beating, especially Lecture 23 of �New Introductory Lectures on
Psychoanalysis (1933, SE 22, pp. 112-135). It is instructive to note that
he goes out of his way to assure his readers that in that chapter he is
�bring[ing] forward nothing but observed facts, almost without any
speculative additions�, a breathtaking assertion for anyone who has
followed critically the development of his ideas in the two earlier papers
on female sexuality (1925, SE 19, pp. 173-179; 1931, pp. 225-243). (For a
detailed analysis of these papers, see Esterson 1993, pp. 140-149.).
So are many of Freud�s notions �just downright silly�, as NJM suggests?
Well it depends what you think about such notions as that the �aggressive,
oral and sadistic wishes� of infant girls, as a generality, express
themselves after repression �as a fear of being killed by [their] mother�
(1931, SE 21, p. 237), and specifically a �fear of being poisoned� in the
further elaboration in �New Introductory Lectures� (1933, SE 22, p. 122).
Or of the idea that a woman�s happiness is especially great �if [the early
childhood] wish for a penis finds fulfilment� [in] a little [baby] boy who
brings the longed-for penis with him� (SE 22, p. 128). Or how about the
notion that in non-neurotic women the infantile �wish for a penis� changes
into the wish for a *man*, and thus puts up with the man as an appendage
to the penis� (1917, SE 17, p. 129). (Perhaps the women among TIPSters
might like to comment on that one.)
References:
Esterson, A. (1993). Seductive Mirage: An Exploration of the Work of
Sigmund Freud. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court.
Freud, S. (1953-1974). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth Press.
Masson, J.M. (trans. and ed.) (1985). The Complete Letters of Sigmund
Freud to Wilhelm Fliess. Harvard University Press.
Wilcocks, R. (1994). Maelzel�s Chess Player: Sigmund Freud and the
Rhetoric of Deceit. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.
Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html
www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10
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