Paul Smith wrote concerning the excerpt from Charles Mackay�s book that I posted on 21 February: >Seriously, I didn't respond to that post, but you can bet that I read it >with great interest. Your mistake was mentioning in the post a site that >specializes in out-of-print books. Needless to say instead of responding >to your post, I spent an hour trying to find certain gems (in >particular, a reasonably priced copy of Nisbitt and Ross' "Human >Inference: Strategies and > Shortcomings of Social Judgment").
Hmmmm�. Obviously a false memory (or visual illusion). What I wrote about *Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds* was that > the UK price of �2.99 for the Wordsworth Reference Edition > (over 700 pages) is an absolute bargain, available on Amazon.co.uk. > (Wordsworth specialises in out-of-copyright books.)� No mention of a site that specialises in out-of-print books, only the bog-standard (as we say over here) Amazon UK website. Going back to the discussion of animal magnetism and �cures� in Mackay�s book, it is worth noting that fifty years after its publication reviewers of Breuer and Freud�s *Studies on Hysteria* typically drew attention to the fact that �patients would be liable to make statements in accordance with the slightest suggestion given to them, it might be unconsciously given to them, by the investigator� (J. Michell Clark). Likewise, Eugen Bleuler wrote: �It is quite possible that the therapeutic successes of the �cathartic method� are based quite simply on suggestion rather than on abreaction of the suppressed effect.� Incredibly, such was the influence of the psychoanalytic propaganda machine in the twentieth century, these perceptive contemporaries of Breuer and Freud have been denigrated as uncomprehending reactionaries. (And for those people still under the impression that Freud�s focusing on sexual aetiologies was an innovation, here is J. Michell Clark again in his review of *Studies on Hysteria* in the journal *Brain*: �It is interesting to note a return, in part at least, to the old theory of the origin of hysteria in sexual disorders...�) Most books on the subject are *still* presenting Breuer and Freud as having revealed that (supposedly hysterical) somatic symptoms can be traced back to memories of distressing events, so enabling the patients to abreact the affect associated with the trauma, leading to the removal of the symptoms. Thus many accounts in psychology texts have �Anna O.� (Bertha Pappenheim) abreacting traumatic memories, resulting in the remission of her symptoms, when in fact Breuer�s original case notes show that at a relatively early stage of the treatment some symptoms disappeared spontaneously, and others regressed considerably, without recourse to the recalling of recent incidents. Note that none of the incidents that Breuer claimed his patient had recalled in the final stages of the treatment in his case history published 13 years later were from childhood. It was only later [1896] that Freud insisted that hysterical symptoms could only be removed by accessing repressed memories of sexual traumas in *early childhood*, though he had happily claimed therapeutic successes previously without any such limitation. (This leaves aside that for the most part it was Freud himself who analytically inferred the traumatic unconscious memories or ideas, rather than that the patients recollected them.) Incidentally, indications that other psychoanalytic fables still survive in some corners of psychiatry comes from an obituary of the psychoanalyst Judd Marmor in the current issue of the British Medical Journal (21 February 2004). Dr Marcia Goin, clinical professor of psychiatry at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and current president of the American Psychiatric Association, is quoted as saying: �Freud was very open; he listened to patients and if it didn't fit, he dismissed the theory.� So Freud was an open-minded Popperian. Now I�ve heard everything! References Borch-Jacobsen, M. (1996). Remembering Anna O.: A Hundred Years of Mystification, Routledge. Hirschm�ller. A. (1989 [1978]). The Life and Work of Josef Breuer, New York University Press. Kiell, N. (1988). Freud Without Hindsight: Reviews of his Work (1893-1939), International Universities Press. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
