Freud's relevance for contemporary psychoanalytic technique.

It is argued that Freud's influence on contemporary technique is best seen by separating Freud as a hermeneuticist from Freud as a natural scientist. Freud's hermeneutic work is elucidated by a depiction of his earliest model of technique and its application in The Interpretation of Dreams. The division of the latter work into the first 6 chapters as a hermeneutic and the last chapter as a metapsychology is used to show not only the split but the conflict in Freud between his hermeneutic of the mind and his attempt to found psychoanalysis as a natural science. It is shown that the shift in analytic thinking from the primacy of drives to the growth and transformation of the self has maintained interpretation as a necessary, although insufficient, condition for the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis and that interpretation continues to bear the stamp of Freud's hermeneutic of the mind. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory.

The reviewer contends that this book deserves admiration for its masterly review of historical events in the development of psychoanalysis. It should be read by psychoanalysts not only for its enormous fund of skillfully assembled information about the formative years of Freud's thinking, but for its story of how new information was treated by some leaders of the psychoanalytic establishment. In the guise of protecting psychoanalysis, this information was dismissed as harmful. It is precisely such a well-meaning upholding of psychoanalytic doctrine that can throttle its growth. Although some of Masson's interpretations are made in the best Freudian style, Lewis remains unconvinced that, in what Masson calls a "failure of courage," Freud suppressed the truth. Nor did Freud's abandonment of the seduction theory lead to the present-day "sterility" of psychoanalysis, as Masson believes. Rather, the spurious need to defend psychoanalysis that Masson encountered during his investigations has also made many institutes sterile places. Masson thus confounds the limitations of some parts of the psychoanalytic establishment with the future of psychoanalysis itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Freud, civilization, religion, and stoicism.

Freud's debt to stoicism has been seldom discussed. His attitude toward science had a distinct ethical slant taken from the ancient world, via Freud's humanistic education. Freud's method involved detachment but did not imply moral coldness and indifference any more than stoicism did. The stoics wanted to be therapists of the mind just as physicians cared for the body. For both Freud and the stoics, reason was in battle with the passions and required clear sight to have a chance of prevailing over them. In contrasting religious worldviews with the scientific approach, Freud failed to see his own approach as ethical. Freud made extensive forays at individual and collective levels but in the years since Freud's death, the psychoanalytic vision has narrowed. At 150 years after his birth, the authors can still admire Freud's exceptional ethical courage and recognize that if psychoanalysis is to survive, it needs to regain his cultural range and spirit of critical inquiry. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychoanalysis beyond Freud

Since Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) formulated his first psychoanalytic theories about 100 years ago, there has been a rapid development in psychoanalytic theory and therapy. In this paper, central concepts in the four psychoanalytic "psychologies"--drive/ego psychology, object relations theory, self psychology and interpersonal psychoanalysis--are presented. Basic concepts in psychoanalysis have been under a continuous critical review, and psychoanalytic theories remain versatile. The unconscious and the exploration of subjective experience are central common themes. The role of the psychoanalyst has changed from expert to explorer, working together with the patient. At the same time, the analyst has become more active in the therapy room. The analyst's contribution to what is happening between the analyst and the patient has been increasingly emphasized. The development in psychoanalysis has parallelled both developments in the theory of knowledge as well as the change in cultural trends. Creating meaning is central to the psychoanalytic process, but there are divergent views as to how this happens: by articulating meaning, by uncovering meaning, by constructing or deconstructing meaning. The narrative tradition in which the central point is to tell stories about oneself, is discussed more thoroughly in the paper. The authors challenge the view that psychoanalysis is the work of Freud only.     

The Wolf Man's subjective experience of his treatment with Freud.

Little is known about how Freud actually conducted a treatment. However, from Serge Pankejeff's (the Wolf Man's) subjective experience of his treatment with Freud, as reported in his memoirs and published interviews, one can gain a unique perspective on Freud's technique and the therapeutic action of this technique. The purpose of this article is to extract from Pankejeff's subjective experience of Freud those aspects of their work together that were most memorable and meaningful for the patient. Freud's work with Pankejeff has been severely criticized for breaching his own technical recommendations. However, the authors suggest that, in fact, it was these very controversial interventions that were experienced by Pankejeff as most therapeutic. Furthermore, the authors propose that Freud extracted from Pankejeff's symptoms those features that confirmed his theory of infantile sexuality and, in so doing, overlooked Pankejeff's grief and depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Freud's forgotten evolutionary project.

In the last decades psychoanalysis has tended to recast itself as a hermeneutic discipline geared at the retelling of human lives, and Freud is recast as a great writer in the humanist tradition rather than as the scientist as which he saw himself. Although this reconceptualization has good reasons, it tends to obscure the fact that Freud primarily saw himself as a theorist of human nature. One of Freud's deepest convictions was that psychopathology needs to be explained on the basis of evolutionary biology. This paper argues that this may have been one of Freud's greatest ideas. The reason it has been "repressed" by psychoanalysis is that Freud based it on Lamarckian principles. The current flourishing of evolutionary psychology and psychiatry may well turn Freud into one of the precursors of the psychology of the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Do as I say, not as I do": Ralph Greenson, Anna Freud, and superrich patients.

Ralph Greenson's The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis acted as a bible for generations of analysts on what to do and what not to do in psychoanalysis. Yet Greenson ignored the strictures of his own textbook, The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis, in his treatment of a number of superrich patients and celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe and Lita Annenberg Hazen. This article presents new evidence from the examination of the papers of Ralph Greenson and Anna Freud at UCLA and the Library of Congress. Although it is well known that Greenson stretched boundaries with Monroe, his practice of blurring boundaries with other patients, and helping to funnel their money to Anna Freud's Hampstead Center, is not known. Hazen was not only President of Greenson's Foundation for Research in Psychoanalysis but was also, through Greenson's encouragement, a major contributor to Anna Freud's Hampstead Center. Greenson even went so far as to answer a personal advertisement on her behalf and fly to New York for a weekend to interview the suitor. These activities took place with Anna Freud's knowledge, approval, and collusion. Other cases are also discussed. If only he had taken his own advice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A return to the source: Rereading Freud in the midst of contemporary trauma theory.

In the current, often contentious, climate that surrounds childhood sexual trauma and its relation to adult forms of psychopathology, Freud's theorizing has received a great deal of attention. There has been much discussion and speculation about the role sexual trauma played in his thinking about psychopathology. While some theorists suggest that Freud overlooked and even suppressed his patients' reports of sexual trauma when he moved from his "seduction" theory to his "fantasy" theory, others suggest that his revision was an extension, rather than a reversal, of his early theorizing. This article will review in detail the development and revisions of Freud's thinking. It will also suggest areas of agreement between Freud's thinking and some contemporary trauma theory, as well as point to areas of divergence. The therapeutic implications of adopting some versions of contemporary trauma theory will also be developed. The aim is to stimulate further discussion about this issue in terms of its theoretical and therapeutic implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Will the real Freud stand up, please?

Comments on an article by T. Parisi (see record 1987-21061-001). Parisi's article is helpful in placing Freud's theory construction in an accurate historical context. He correctly argued that views of Freud that portray him as a wrong-headed neurophysiologist, a frustrated physicalist, or a biological reductionist are wrong. B. Silverstein takes issue with Parisi on his view of Freud, without arguing for or against the Freudian position. Parisi pointed out that Freud's research and clinical experience helped him to see more clearly than anyone before or since that a theory of mind would have to successfully incorporate two fundamentally different classes of phenomena: the physical (biological) and the mental. While avoiding mysticism, Freud did hold to a dualistic position. Very early in his career, Freud espoused a dualistic-interactionist position in which equal but qualitatively different status was granted to the physical and to the mental. Even though Freud could not conceive of the mechanism that allowed mind and body to interact, he believed causal efficacy could flow in both directions. With psychoanalysis, Freud developed a theory of relationships between mind and body without providing a metaphysical or mechanical account of how the mind-body interaction that the theory assumed must occur did occur. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Freudian repression, the common view, and pathological science.

A sustained misconceptualisation of a theory leading to invalid applications and inferences indicates a failure in the scientific process. This has repeatedly occurred with Freud's theory of repression, a cornerstone of psychoanalytic theory. This paper traces the development of Freud's theory of repression and compares this with the "common view" found in mainstream psychology: the motivated forgetting of trauma. A fixation with Freud's original, and superseded theory (1893-1897) ignores the theoretical developments that constitute mature psychoanalysis (1900 -1940), and has impacted upon attempts to test Freudian theory and the current "recovered memory" debate. Although certain accidental factors contribute to this misunderstanding, the sustained failure to comprehend Freudian repression reveals a breakdown in the process of critical inquiry. Implications for psychology as a whole are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Conscious and unconscious: Freud's dynamic distinction reconsidered.

Reviews the book, Conscious and unconscious: Freud's dynamic distinction reconsidered by Patricia S. Herzog (see record 1991-97475-000). Patricia Herzog's book is a critical examination of the way in which Freud presented the conscious/unconscious distinction. Herzog is a philosopher, and she provides the careful, analysis of Freudian concepts that good philosophers can, but which is unfortunately often missing from psychoanalysis. Her concerns are not empirical or therapeutic bur conceptual: the consistencies, inconsistencies, and interrelations in the family of Freud's theoretical concepts which has conscious and unconscious as key members. Herzog has provided a scholarly, close-to-the-text treatment of Freud's conscious/unconscious distinction, most surely a central aspect of the theory of psychopathology. But her presentation makes it hard work to grasp and integrate the points, and the reader is left to struggle alone to discover the links between her critique of Freud and themes in modern psychoanalytic or other psychological theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychoanalysis as a natural science.

Despite Freud's unwavering intention that psychoanalysis should conform to the requirements of a natural science, this aim has not been realized. Some analysts hold the aim to have been mistaken. Others believe it can and should be achieved, proposing that traditional metapsychology be replaced by a new conceptual framework utilizing modern concepts not available to Freud. Utilizing data obtained from current findings in developmental psychology based on direct observation of parent-child interaction as well as from therapeutic sessions, a possible framework is sketched using principles derived from ethology, control theory, and human information processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The centrality of the system Ucs in the theory of psychoanalysis: The nonrepressed unconscious.

After Freud discovered an unconscious system (Ucs) between 1894 and 1896, a window opened for him to formulate a comprehensive theory of the human psyche, which he called psychoanalysis. The Ucs was its foundation. The object relations theories, ego psychology, self-psychology, and their offshoots managed to erode that concept from the theory in different ways and tried to replace psychoanalysis. The reason is that Freud, for a long time, associated the unconscious with the repressed. It was possible by reviewing his work in the field of repression, defense, and the unconscious to uncover the nature of the system Ucs. It is not possible for a school of psychology within psychoanalysis to ignore the systemic unconscious and replace it with a dynamic unconscious and still claim that it is psychoanalytic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anna Freud (1895–1982).

Presents an obituary for Anna Freud. No one would have been more surprised than Anna Freud herself to find a memorial tribute to her in the pages of the American Psychologist. She never took a course in psychology and always referred to her field as psychoanalysis, not psychology. It is perhaps a sign of the changing face of American psychology that this obituary has been requested. Anna Freud was born on December 3, 1895, and was the last of Sigmund Freud's six children and the third of his daughters. None of the other children went anywhere near the practice of analysis. With the death of Anna Freud on October 9, 1982, at the age of 86, the last direct link to the founder of psychoanalysis has disappeared. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dream analysis by mail: An American woman seeks Freud's advice.

When a young American woman who had a disturbing dream that continued to occupy her daily thoughts, she wrote to Sigmund Freud, sending him an account of her dream and asking for his help. This article reprints the 1927 letter to Freud and his reply, neither of which has been published before. The exchange of letters is discussed in the context of the popularity of psychology and psychoanalysis in America in the 1920s and in the context of Freud's letter writing habits and his life in 1927. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pathological science and the myth of recovered memories: Reply to McNally.

Responds to McNally's comments (see record 2007-18727-004) on the current author's original article. Richard McNally's thoughtful commentary points to a noncontroversial source of the fixation with Freud's early theory of repression. At the same time, however, McNally's account does not directly address the critical issue at the heart of my original article, namely that Freud's later theory of repression is persistently misconceptualized and accompanied by a breakdown in critical inquiry. Although the account proposed by McNally does not necessarily contradict this proposal, other potential sources of bias should also be considered. In particular, the acrimony provoked by the recovered memory dispute and the prevalence of ad hominem attacks against Freud suggest that emotional factors may also be obscuring rigorous debate. Issues surrounding the scientific inquiry of Freud's theory of repression are further discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On history and psychoanalysis.

Freud claimed that psychoanalysis represented a major assault on human narcissism. This view is only partially correct for it is largely ahistorical. Freud's view must now be balanced against the historians' perspective on psychoanalysis, which in its turn represents a potential narcissistic blow to psychoanalysis, so long as psychoanalysts isolate themselves from fuller recognition of the sociocultural matrix of Freud's work. This article, by a psychoanalyst, presents some of the newer perspectives of historians on the development of Freud's work against the background of late 19th century Austrian and German political, cultural, and social history. Through understanding this past, we are better able to understand the present dilemmas of psychoanalysis, in particular the relevance of social forces in the development of emotional disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

John Watson's paradoxical struggle to explain Freud.

John Watson was fascinated by the discoveries of psychoanalysis, but he rejected Freud's central concept of the unconscious as incompatible with behaviorism. After failing to explain psychoanalysis in terms of William James's concept of habit, Watson borrowed concepts from classical conditioning to explain Freud's discoveries. Watson's famous experiment with Little Albert is interpreted not only in the context of Pavlovian conditioning but also as a psychoanalytically inspired attempt to capture simplified analogues of adult phobic behavior, including the "transference" of emotion in an infant. Watson used his behavioristic concept of conditioned emotional responses to compete with Freud's concepts of displacement and the unconscious transference of emotion. Behind a mask of anti-Freudian bias, Watson surprisingly emerges as a psychologist who popularized Freud and pioneered the scientific appraisal of his ideas in the laboratory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)