On 26 October Aubyn wrote:
> In his response, Allen does include a passage that captures the basis
> for my original inquiry to him about his postings to this list on Freud.
> Allen wrote:
>
> �This leads on naturally to some observations in regard to Sulloway's
> book on Freud that are worth making for what they reveal about the...
> extraordinary subservience towards Freud that prevailed throughout
> most of the second half of the twentieth century, especially in the
> United States (and to some extent still lingers on today in much of
> the media)�
>
> This is where I disagree with Allen � I just have not seen this
> �extraordinary subservience towards Freud� in academic psychology in the
> last 50 yeas. I suppose the media may have been more credulous of
> Freud for much of the 20th century, but in the last 10 or 15 years I
> doubt even this assertion can really be supported � most stories I
> read about Freud in the media these days are moderately to strongly
> critical.
>
> What I think I have learned from my exchange with Allen is that he views
> just about any use or acceptance of Freudian psychology as �extraordinary
> subservience towards Freud�; I suppose the continuing presence of
> bits and pieces of psychoanalytic theory embedded in the academic
> canon of psychology can be legitimately debated, but I think it is
> a little misleading to characterize this Freudian presence on the
> margins of psychology as �subservience�.
First a couple of minor points. It goes without saying (or should have)
that what I wrote in the passage in question did not apply to the "last 10
or 15 years". And in relation to my sentence in which I referred to the
"extraordinary subservience towards Freud that prevailed throughout most
of the second half of the twentieth century, especially in the United
States", Aubyn's quoting only a few words from it, and adding his own
words "in academic psychology", gives a misleading impression of what I
was contending. But this is of little significance beside Aubyn's main
misapprehension in his interpretation of my words. If he looks at the
context in which I wrote, he will see that it was not to do with Freudian
theories in general, as is implied in Aubyn's posting, but specifically
with Freud's *integrity*. In the sentence immediately following my writing
of the "extraordinary subservience towards Freud" I cited Cioffi's writing
that Sulloway's *Freud* exemplifies 'how difficult it is, even for an
aspiring iconclast, to stand upright in the presence of the Freud
legend�'.", and followed this immediately with a further quote from
Cioffi:
"Although much of what he recounts undermines it, Sulloway does not
directly address the most potent and strategically necessary myth of all
-- the myth of Freud's superlative integrity. For the Freud myths were not
devised by Freud's followers; they are no more than reiterations of
accounts Freud himself had given. To depart from these would have been
impugn Freud's veracity and who [in 1979 --A.E.] with the exception of one
or two noble spirits, has been willing to do that. Certainly not Sulloway,
who mealy-mouthedly concludes: 'The myths were merely Freud's historical
due and they shall continue to live on protecting his brilliant legacy to
mankind'."
In other words, I was not writing about the acceptance of Freud's theories
(in regard to which there has always been considerable opposition), but
about the virtually universally held view (until recently) that, whatever
one might take issue with in relation to his theories, he was a man whose
veracity was not in doubt. Within this context it is legitimate to
consider the credulity that was almost universal towards Freud's
supposedly factual claims about his clinical experiences, but not towards
the theories themselves, which is a different issue entirely (except
indirectly insofar as they are supposedly buttressed by the clinical
claims). But it is perfectly possible to challenge Freud's theories (as
has been done, of course, from the outset of his publishing them) without
impugning his veracity. It is to the latter that the passage alluded to by
Aubyn relates.
Although the points made by Aubyn are based on a misapprehension of what I
wrote, and therefore do not address it, I will supply some information to
support my contention of almost universal subservience to the notion of
Freud, the "man of absolute integrity", in much of the latter half of the
twentieth century. (The quoted words are those Anthony Storr, the Jungian
analyst and writer, stated on BBC radio in the early 1980s.)
There are one or two examples of writings before 1980 by authors who
challenged the legend of Freud's great integrity, but who knows about
them? I can cite offhand only one book that did so, but how many TIPSters
have read it, or even heard of it? (*The Hoax of Freudism*, R. M.
Jurjevich, 1974.) In the atmosphere prevailing at the date of publication
it disappeared virtually without trace, although it contains much that
presaged the wave of well-documented critical writings of the 1990s and
after. (I came across the book in the course of my own researches into the
literature on Freud, in the bookshelves of Senate House reference library,
London University.)
The view prevailing at that time (and for many decades before) concerning
Freud's integrity is well represented by the presentation of Freud's work
by Walter Kaufman in volume 3 (*Freud, Adler and Jung*, 1980) of his
highly-praised series of volumes *Discovering the Mind*. Kaufman recycled
with complete credulity several of Freud's misleading accounts of his
clinical experiences, writing at one point: "Freud had extraordinarily
high standards of honesty, and I know of no man or woman who was more
honest than Freud." (p. 102)
Turning to a slightly earlier period (1961), here are the words of Lionel
Trilling, a leading literary critic and commentator. In his Introduction
to the Penguin abridged version of Ernest Jones's three volume biography
of Freud, Trilling extols Freud's life and work as follows: "The work is
large, and ordered, and courageous, and magnanimous in intention; and of
the life we can say nothing less." Again, "he reached his discoveries by
means of thought that which walked no less humbly than courageously. The
humility of the scientist, his submission to facts, is something of which
the scientist often boasts, but the facts to which Freud submitted were
not only hard but also human, which is to say disgusting, or morally
repellent, or even personally affronting."
Of the second volume (1955) of Jones's trilogy, which faithfully recycled
all Freud's misleading accounts of his experiences, and also what Cioffi
called "the myth of Freud's superlative integrity", the London Times
reviewer wrote: "Masterly...the more one knows of [Freud] the more his
stature grows."
In the 1940s Wittgenstein, in "conversations" designed for publication,
said in relation to the view of Freud in the intellectual circles with
which he was familiar: "It will be a long time before we lose our
subservience."
Coming to more recent times, the fact that the New York Times reviewer of
Gay's 1988 biography regarded it as "scrupulously grounded" is an
indication of the wide belief still prevailing at that time that Freud's
clinical experiences were accurately reported by Freud (as conveyed
faithfully by Gay). And more recently still, Oliver Sacks described
Freud's lifework as follows: "Freud made a prodigious, patient, lifelong
study of the way people think, feel, dream, act... He moved from this huge
mass of observations to certain general principles about the mind and in
particular about its dynamic nature, and this is a scientific project. I
think it is one which is analogous, say, to Darwin going to the Galapagos
and going round the world making a huge number of observations on the way
animals live and evolve, pondering this for years and then writing his
*Origins*." (*On Giants' Shoulders*, ed. M. Bragg, 1998). Inherent in this
eulogy to Freud by Sacks is that in his writings Freud accurately
presented his clinical experiences, with the same integrity with which
Darwin recorded his findings.
And to re-emphasise my point that it is the view of Freud's integrity to
which I was alluding when I wrote of the "subservience to Freud", not to
views about his theories, Adolf Grunbaum expressed something close to
outrage in response to Cioffi's indicating that Freud's general claims
about the successful cure rate of psychoanalysis (this was before his very
late retreat on these claims) were not to be taken at face value
("Behavioral and Brain Sciences", vol. 9(2), 1986, p. 273-274). Grunbaum's
naive assumption that Freud's accounts of his experiences were to be
trusted (only Freud's failure to appreciate the affects of suggestion, and
his misguided interpretative technique, are subjected to pungent criticism
by Grunbaum) pervades his critique of Freudian theory in his book *The
Foundations of Psychoanalysis* (1984).
More recently still, there is the PBS TV series "Young Dr Freud",
transmitted in 2002 in both the US and the UK, that disseminated a version
of Freud's early psychoanalytic experiences that faithfully followed
Freud's own accounts of his clinical experiences, in other words, took as
given the veracity of these accounts.
But individual citations of this nature, however representative, cannot in
themselves demonstrate conclusively the virtually universal acceptance of
the legend of Freud, the intrepid *and supremely honest*, explorer of the
hidden depths of the human mind *even among people, including academic
psychologists, who disagreed profoundly with much of his theorising*,
during a lengthy period of American cultural history in the twentieth
century. However, as I've already noted, I know of very few writers or
commentators who expressed any doubts about Freud's veracity, or his
integrity in general, until the 1980s. If any TIPSters know of any, please
let me know.
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
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=57
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=58
http://www.psychiatrie-und-ethik.de/infc/1_gesamt_en.html
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