Is Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic edifice relevant to the 21st century?

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 24(3) of Psychoanalytic Psychology (see record 2007-10890-003). The article contains two distorting misprints: (1) On p. 257, in the footnote, the title of the author's academic chair should read: Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy of Science; (2) On p. 274, line 2, in the quotation from Marshall Edelson on "Transference Phenomena," the word "on" just before "question-begging evidence" should read negatively as "non."] To warrant the relevance, if any, of Freud's psychoanalytic edifice to the 21st century, its supporters must endeavor, if at all possible, to find genuine evidence for its major pillars or to modify them significantly in response to emerging new evidence. Such a quest must begin with a clear understanding of the range and depth of the failure of Freud's cardinal clinical arguments. I endeavor below to provide such comprehension by laying bare the epistemological gravamen in the case of each of his principal tenets. And I argue that neither the post-Freudian formulations of psychoanalysis nor its so-called "hermeneutic" reconstruction has succeeded in vindicating the psychoanalytic enterprise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Is Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic edifice relevant to the 21st century?": Correction to Grünbaum (2006).

Reports an error in "Is Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic edifice relevant to the 21st century" by Adolf Grünbaum (Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2006[Spr], Vol 23[2], 257-284). The article contains two distorting misprints: (1) On p. 257, in the footnote, the title of the author's academic chair should read: Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy of Science; (2) On p. 274, line 2, in the quotation from Marshall Edelson on "Transference Phenomena," the word "on" just before "question-begging evidence" should read negatively as "non." (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2006-05420-004.) To warrant the relevance, if any, of Freud's psychoanalytic edifice to the 21st century, its supporters must endeavor, if at all possible, to find genuine evidence for its major pillars or to modify them significantly in response to emerging new evidence. Such a quest must begin with a clear understanding of the range and depth of the failure of Freud's cardinal clinical arguments. I endeavor below to provide such comprehension by laying bare the epistemological gravamen in the case of each of his principal tenets. And I argue that neither the post-Freudian formulations of psychoanalysis nor its so-called "hermeneutic" reconstruction has succeeded in vindicating the psychoanalytic enterprise. (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)     

The relevance of Freud's psychoanalysis in the 21st century: Its science and its research.

The relevance of psychoanalysis and its place within its intellectual and cultural surround has been a major issue over the whole of its now more than a century-long history. A very significant aspect of that concern has been the status of psychoanalysis as a theory of the mind, and as a basis for the application of that theory in the conduct of a therapy for the disorders of the mind. This article reviews in depth the long-standing debate about psychoanalysis as a scientific theory, the kind of science that psychoanalysis is--or can be--and the place of research, empirical as well as conceptual (with particular focus upon research into the nature of the therapeutic change process and its desired outcomes), in the incremental growth of that theory and its therapeutic applications in an ever expanding and increasingly secure knowledge base. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Meeting Freud's family.

Reviews the book, Meeting Freud's family by Paul Roazen (see record 1993-99040-000). Over the years, Roazen has built a reputation as an expert on Freud. This is not a view to which many Freud scholars would be inclined to subscribe, but their opinions do not reach the general educated public to any appreciable extent. For most people, anything written about Freud that is thought to carry authority is considered informed comment on the psychoanalytic discipline itself. Roazen's new book is likely to be seized on for further enlightenment and, in view of its title, for inside information. "This book," he tells us, "is an attempt to re-create--based on my understanding of the place of psychoanalysis in intellectual history--the world of Freud's family life" (p. 16). What he wants to report is "the whole ambience surrounding these, people, and how their lives said something special about Freud" (p. 16). He wants to do this on the basis of personal interviews. The family Roazen met were two of Freud's daughters, Anna Freud (in 1965) and Mathilda (Hollitscher) Freud (1966), and one son, Oliver Freud (1966). Anna Freud granted him two interviews; the others appear to have seen him on only one occasion. He also interviewed Martin Freud's estranged wife, Esti, in the spring and summer of 1966. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Is Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Edifice Relevant in the 21st Century?": Correction.

Reports an error in the original article by A. Grünbaum (Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2006[Spring], Vol 23[2], 257-284). Information was omitted from the footnotes. On page 259, the following footnote should have been included: Copyright (2002) from the Freud Encyclopedia: Theory, Therapy, and Culture (pp. 117-136) edited by Edward Erwin. Reproduced by permission of Routledge/Taylor & Francis Books, Inc. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 2006-05420-004.) To warrant the relevance, if any, of Freud's psychoanalytic edifice to the 21st century, its supporters must endeavor, if at all possible, to find genuine evidence for its major pillars or to modify them significantly in response to emerging new evidence. Such a quest must begin with a clear understanding of the range and depth of the failure of Freud's cardinal clinical arguments. I endeavor below to provide such comprehension by laying bare the epistemological gravamen in the case of each of his principal tenets. And I argue that neither the post-Freudian formulations of psychoanalysis nor its so-called "hermeneutic" reconstruction has succeeded in vindicating the psychoanalytic enterprise (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relevance of Sigmund Freud for the 21st century.

This special issue of Psychoanalytic Psychology celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sigmund Freud on May 6, 1856. The 15 papers and one book review in different ways address the question of Freud's continued relevance. The contributors to this special issue approach the topic in multiple ways. Some authors stay close to the question, while other authors write on topics dear to them. All are, nonetheless, distinguished contributors to contemporary psychoanalysis and most need no introduction to the readership of this journal. Individual contributions to the special issue are summarized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Motivation and explanation: An essay on Freud's philosophy of science.

Reviews the book, Motivation and explanation: An essay on Freud's philosophy of science by Nigel Mackay (1989). The book under review is not only an essay on Freud's philosophy of science (as the subtitle has it) but more particularly, a determined attack on the "separate-domain" thesis. This thesis asserts that psychoanalysis belongs to "a domain of explanation separate from explanations of nonhuman phenomena." In refuting this claim, Mackay argues that psychoanalysis falls clearly within the domain of normal science and, by implication, deserves all the rights and privileges of other established disciplines. We hear the echo of Freud when he wrote that "I have always felt it as a gross injustice that people have refused to treat psycho-analysis like any other science." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A response to The relevance of Sigmund Freud for the 21st century.

The relevance of Freud's ideas for the 21st Century had been discussed (Reppen, 2006; see record 2006-05420-001). Although most of the contributors to that compendium believed that they were, I suggest that a 'yes' or 'no' answer is not possible with regard to the corpus of Freud's ideas as a whole; each idea has to be evaluated separately. Freud's theorizing is built on two different bases: a psychological and a biological one. Not only do these eventuate in two different kinds of formulations throughout this theory, but sometimes even with regard to the same construct at different times in his writing. As a consequence, the assessment of the relevance of Freud's ideas for the 21st Century must be made construct by construct. A sampling of Freud's ideas about motivation, psychopathology and treatment were examined as to their contemporary relevance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of From classical to contemporary psychoanalysis: A critique and integration.

Reviews the book, From classical to contemporary psychoanalysis: A critique and integration by Morris N. Eagle (see record 2010-09133-000). The entire contents of the current volume is conceptually organized, a veritable tour de force in its capacity to grab hold of a mass of sprawling, unruly theories, clinical data, and related research, and shape them into an easily digestible, overarching view of the current state of psychoanalysis. The book is divided between Freud’s theories and selected contemporary theories, and each of those two major sections consists of subsections on the nature of mind, object relations, psychopathology, and treatment, as seen from both the Freudian and the contemporary perspective. The third and last section of the book presents divergences and convergences between both camps, and among theories within each camp. It is hard to imagine any course taught in a psychoanalytic institute of any persuasion that would not derive immense benefit from the inclusion of related readings from this book. Most apparent in this volume is the clarity of Eagle’s thought and the deeply respectful attitude he brings to others’ work, even those he disagrees with. Eagle provides a cogent rationale for even the most arcane of Freud’s speculations regarding the functioning of the mental apparatus, including some unique insights such as the “ironic centrality of object relations” in that model. With equal clarity he lays out the contemporary critique of Freud’s work, especially his model of mind, a critique which proposes to substitute notions of experience as unformulated and indeterminate (e.g., Donnell Stern), the unconscious as consisting of veridical representations of early interactions (e.g., attachment theorists, Daniel Stern, Beebee and Lachman), and the mind as socially constructed (e.g., Stolorow, Mitchell). As these contemporary theorists have critiqued Freud’s model, Eagle provides an incisive critique of these newer models. However, I suspect that even the strict constructionists in each theoretical camp will appreciate Eagle’s efforts to present their theory in its best and most reasonable light. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Questions for Freud: The secret history of psychoanalysis.

Review of book: Questions for Freud: The Secret History of Psychoanalysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997, xiv + 239 pp. Reviewed by Hannah S. Decker. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychic reality and mental representation: Contemporary misapplications of Freud's concepts.

The meanings of the 2 interrelated concepts of psychic reality and mental representation have changed radically lately under the influence of the prevailing empirico-pragmatic epistemology in psychoanalysis. The concepts, at present, are not different in meaning from the academic psychologist's concept of perception and imaging. The original Freudian concepts were dealing with indosomatic stimuli and not with the stimuli of the external world. A review and discussion of the emergence of the 2 concepts in Freud's theory lead to the realization that psychoanalysis has, and still is, developing along radically different--if not even opposite--epistemologies to that of Freudian psychoanalysis. Keeping track of the original connotations of psychoanalytic concepts puts the new changes in perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Might Freud's legacy lie beyond the couch?

The paper advances the view that Freud's main legacy will be the application of psychoanalysis to community and social problems and issues, rather than in contributions to the treatment of mental illness. The history of applied psychoanalysis is outlined with suggestions for the training and validation of Community Psychoanalysis as a discrete field. How Community Psychoanalysis differs from Clinical Psychoanalysis is reviewed. The paper finishes with a sketch of typical modern applications to rearing of children and prevention of emotional disorders in children, contributions to understanding large social groups including racial and ethnic strife, school violence, terrorism, prejudice and conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Freud's models of the mind.

Review of book: Joseph Sandler, Alex Holder, Christopher Dare, Anna Ursula Dreher. Freud's Models of the Mind. Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1997, xvi + 203 pp. Reviewed by Martin A. Schulman. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Recollecting Freud.

Reviews the book, Recollecting Freud by Isidor Sadger (2005). The author, Isidor Sadger (1867-1942), was a Viennese neurologist who first heard Freud lecture in September 1895, and then later joined (1906) Freud's Wednesday Psychological Society. The name of that organization was later changed to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, and Sadger remained in it until 1933. The book itself contains, he tells us, "nothing other than what I personally experienced, and the impressions that Freud's character, his actions and writing made on me. In no place have I sought to present biographical details that I did not myself witness" (p. 5). This review is presented in two parts: (1) an examination of its merits and limitations, and (2) an explanation of how a text first written in the late 1920s came to be published now for the first time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Status of sexuality in contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy as reported by therapists.

Contemporary psychoanalytic literature places less emphasis than its classical counterpart on sexuality in explaining human motivation. However, up until now no methodical research has been done on the status of sexuality in clinical work. We report on a qualitative interview study that examined the status of sexuality in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy (n = 10). We studied the extent to which therapists used sexual factors to explain patient behavior: To what extent were sexual themes dominant in the treatment, what importance did therapists attach to them, and what factors affected their place in therapy? The data gathered from the investigation were related to theoretical thinking on the marginalization of sexuality in psychoanalytic theory and practice. On the basis of the investigation, we describe four factors that affect the status of sexual themes in therapy: the extent of the belief in the centrality of sexuality in human motivation, the level of expressiveness of therapy, the narrowing of the concept of sexuality and the separation between sexuality and intimacy, and the tendency to avoid sexual issues because of the discomfort their discussion causes to patient or therapist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Freud's legacy--is it still with us?

Unconscious processes of mind are a fact of life, both as phenomenon and as explanatory concept and were recognized before Freud. But it was Freud who not only put "the unconscious" on the map but also operationalized it in a new way--as a dynamic unconscious, laying down the foundation of a science of the unconscious, his Copernican revolution. The new science first provided a dual purpose method: investigating the emotional and ideational manifestations of disordered human behavior and psychological conflict and healing those disorders. In becoming a general psychoanalytic psychology, it played an important role in unraveling the dynamics of sexuality in the individual and society, literature and the arts, and in group dynamics in peace and war. The author emphasizes hitherto unacknowledged aspects: (1) The distinction between a theory of method and a theory of disorder; and (2) The role of interpersonal, or dyadic, dynamics in Freud's method, completing the largely monadic or intrapersonal focus in Freud. The author also discusses critiques of Freud's method both within and without psychonalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The therapeutic experience of psychoanalytic inquiry.

Even from so brief an outline, as background for this review, it is possible to see why the continued effort to defend Freud's metapsychology and extend it into the present, has fallen on hard times. The first, Ferenczi's Diary, is, in my opinion, of critical historical importance; the second, Edelson's Theory in Crisis, is clearly rooted in that history, continuing Freud's heavy emphasis on sex into contemporary psychoanalysis; the third, Goldberg's Fresh Look, represents an effort to do psychoanalytic therapy with a group of patients that is explicitly excluded from it by classical diagnostic metapsychology; and the fourth, R. Marshall and S. Marshall's Transference-Countertransference Matrix, presents an original contemporary paradigm for joining together the study of transference, first noticed by Freud after his 1900 work with Dora, with the study of countertransference, first directly explored by Ferenczi in 1931-1932 with R. N. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Living in the shadow of the Freud family.

Reviews the book, Living in the shadow of the Freud family by Sophie Freud (see record 2007-07641-000). This book is fascinating for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is "written and edited" by Sophie Freud, Sigmund Freud's distinguished granddaughter, Professor Emerita of Social Work at Simmons College. The book will be of interest to anyone who wishes to learn more about the life and culture of the creator of psychoanalysis. The author challenges some of the assumptions made by Freud biographers, including the belief that his nursemaid stole pennies from the family, resulting in her firing and imprisonment. This book reveals the importance of writing. The author reminds us that the "psychological literature suggests that we should help old people to remember their childhood", and the book demonstrates the truth of this observation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Freud and Psychology.

Reviews the book, Freud and Psychology edited by S. G. M. Lee and Martin Herbert (see record 1971-29146-000). This volume presents twenty papers, an introduction and bibliographies on psychoanalysis. The papers are divided into seven sections which are headed "Psychoanalysis as Science: General Theoretical Considerations", "Psychoanalysis as Science: Methodological Considerations", "Freud's Genetic Theories: Infant Experience and Adult Behaviour", Psychosexual Development and Character Formation", "Defence Mechanisms", "Unconscious Motivation and Dreaming", and "Conclusions." The authors are psychologists and psychoanalysts of many persuasions who originally published these works between 1938 and 1966. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)