03/29/99
Sigmund Freud.
By Gay, Peter
Magazine:
Time South Pacific; March 29, 1999
Section:
TIME 100
Psychoanalyst
SIGMUND
FREUD
He
opened a window on the unconscious--where, he said,
lust, rage and repression battle for supremacy--and
changed the way we view ourselves
There
are no neutrals in the Freud wars. Admiration, even downright
adulation, on one side; skepticism, even downright disdain,
on the other. This is not hyperbole. A psychoanalyst who
is currently trying to enshrine Freud in the pantheon
of cultural heroes must contend with a relentless critic
who devotes his days to exposing Freud as a charlatan.
But on one thing the contending parties agree: for good
or ill, Sigmund Freud, more than any other explorer of
the psyche, has shaped the mind of the 20th century. The
very fierceness and persistence of his detractors are
a wry tribute to the staying power of Freud's ideas.
There
is nothing new about such embittered confrontations; they
have dogged Freud's footsteps since he developed the cluster
of theories he would give the name of psychoanalysis.
His fundamental idea--that all humans are endowed with
an unconscious in which potent sexual and aggressive drives,
and defenses against them, struggle for supremacy, as
it were, behind a person's back--has struck many as a
romantic, scientifically unprovable notion. His contention
that the catalog of neurotic ailments to which humans
are susceptible is nearly always the work of sexual maladjustments,
and that erotic desire starts not in puberty but in infancy,
seemed to the respectable nothing less than obscene. His
dramatic evocation of a universal Oedipus complex, in
which (to put a complicated issue too simply) the little
boy loves his mother and hates his father, seems more
like a literary conceit than a thesis worthy of a scientifically
minded psychologist.
Freud
first used the term psychoanalysis in 1896, when he was
already 40. He had been driven by ambition from his earliest
days and encouraged by his doting parents to think highly
of himself. Born in 1856 to an impecunious Jewish family
in the Moravian hamlet of Freiberg (now Pribor in the
Czech Republic), he moved with the rest of a rapidly increasing
brood to Vienna. He was his mother's firstborn, her "golden
Siggie." In recognition of his brilliance, his parents
privileged him over his siblings by giving him a room
to himself, to study in peace. He did not disappoint them.
After an impressive career in school, he matriculated
in 1873 in the University of Vienna and drifted from one
philosophical subject to another until he hit on medicine.
His choice was less that of a dedicated healer than of
an inquisitive explorer determined to solve some of nature's
riddles.
As
he pursued his medical researches, he came to the conclusion
that the most intriguing mysteries lay concealed in the
complex operations of the mind. By the early 1890s, he
was specializing in "neurasthenics" (mainly severe hysterics);
they taught him much, including the art of patient listening.
At the same time he was beginning to write down his dreams,
increasingly convinced that they might offer clues to
the workings of the unconscious, a notion he borrowed
from the Romantics. He saw himself as a scientist taking
material both from his patients and from himself, through
introspection. By the mid-1890s, he was launched on a
full-blown self-analysis, an enterprise for which he had
no guidelines and no predecessors.
The
book that made his reputation in the profession--although
it sold poorly--was The Interpretation of Dreams (1900),
an indefinable masterpiece--part dream analysis, part
autobiography, part theory of the mind, part history of
contemporary Vienna. The principle that underlay this
work was that mental experiences and entities, like physical
ones, are part of nature. This meant that Freud could
admit no mere accidents in mental procedures. The most
nonsensical notion, the most casual slip of the tongue,
the most fantastic dream, must have a meaning and can
be used to unriddle the often incomprehensible maneuvers
we call thinking.
Although
the second pillar of Freud's psychoanalytic structure,
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), further
alienated him from the mainstream of contemporary psychiatry,
he soon found loyal recruits. They met weekly to hash
out interesting case histories, converting themselves
into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1908. Working
on the frontiers of mental science, these often eccentric
pioneers had their quarrels. The two best known "defectors"
were Alfred Adler and Carl Jung. Adler, a Viennese physician
and socialist, developed his own psychology, which stressed
the aggression with which those people lacking in some
quality they desire--say, manliness--express their discontent
by acting out. "Inferiority complex," a much abused term,
is Adlerian. Freud did not regret losing Adler, but Jung
was something else. Freud was aware that most of his acolytes
were Jews, and he did not want to turn psychoanalysis
into a "Jewish science." Jung, a Swiss from a pious Protestant
background, struck Freud as his logical successor, his
"crown prince." The two men were close for several years,
but Jung's ambition, and his growing commitment to religion
and mysticism--most unwelcome to Freud, an aggressive
atheist--finally drove them apart.
Freud
was intent not merely on originating a sweeping theory
of mental functioning and malfunctioning. He also wanted
to develop the rules of psychoanalytic therapy and expand
his picture of human nature to encompass not just the
couch but the whole culture. As to the first, he created
the largely silent listener who encourages the analysand
to say whatever comes to mind, no matter how foolish,
repetitive or outrageous, and who intervenes occasionally
to interpret what the patient on the couch is struggling
to say. While some adventurous early psychoanalysts thought
they could quantify just what proportion of their analysands
went away cured, improved or untouched by analytic therapy,
such confident enumerations have more recently shown themselves
untenable. The efficacy of analysis remains a matter of
controversy, though the possibility of mixing psychoanalysis
and drug therapy is gaining support.
Freud's
ventures into culture--history, anthropology, literature,
art, sociology, the study of religion--have proved little
less controversial, though they retain their fascination
and plausibility and continue to enjoy a widespread reputation.
As a loyal follower of 19th century positivists, Freud
drew a sharp distinction between religious faith (which
is not checkable or correctable) and scientific inquiry
(which is both). For himself, this meant the denial of
truth-value to any religion whatever, including Judaism.
As for politics, he left little doubt and said so plainly
in his late--and still best known--essay, Civilization
and Its Discontents (1930), noting that the human animal,
with its insatiable needs, must always remain an enemy
to organized society, which exists largely to tamp down
sexual and aggressive desires. At best, civilized living
is a compromise between wishes and repression--not a comfortable
doctrine. It ensures that Freud, taken straight, will
never become truly popular, even if today we all speak
Freud.
In
mid-March 1938, when Freud was 81, the Nazis took over
Austria, and after some reluctance, he immigrated to England
with his wife and his favorite daughter and colleague
Anna "to die in freedom." He got his wish, dying not long
after the Nazis unleashed World War II by invading Poland.
Listening to an idealistic broadcaster proclaiming this
to be the last war, Freud, his stoical humor intact, commented
wryly, "My last war."
Yale
historian Peter Gay's 22 books include Freud: A Life for
Our Times
BORN May 6, 1856, Freiberg, Moravia
1881 Earns medical degree
1885 Receives appointment as lecturer in neuropathology,
University of Vienna
1886 Begins private neurology practice in Vienna;
marries Martha Bernays
1900 Publishes The Interpretation of Dreams
1910 Establishes International Psychoanalytic Association
1938 Emigrates from Vienna to London
1939 Dies Sept. 23 in London
~~~~~~~~
By
Peter Gay
TODAY
WE ALL SPEAK FREUD
His
ideas--or ideas that can be traced, sometimes circuitously,
back to him--have permeated the language
PENIS
ENVY Freud's famous theory--not favored by feminists-that
women wish they had what men are born with
FREUDIAN
SLIP A seemingly meaningless slip of the tongue that is
really e-mail direct from the unconscious
UNCONSCIOUS
Repressed feelings, desires, ideas and memories that are
hidden from the conscious mind
REPRESSION
Involuntary blocking of an unsettling feeling or memory
from conscious thought
OEDIPUS
COMPLEX In classic Freudian theory, children in their
phallic phase (ages three to six) form an erotic attachment
to the parent of the opposite sex, and a concomitant hatred
(occasionally murderous) of the parent of the same sex
CASTRATION
ANXIETY A boy's unconscious fear of losing his penis,
and his fantasy that girls have already lost theirs
SUBLIMATION
Unconscious shifting of an unacceptable drive (lust for
your sister, say) into culturally acceptable behavior
(lust for your friend's sister)
TRANSFERENCE
Unconscious shifting of feelings about one person (e.g.,
a parent) to another (e.g., your analyst)
ID
The part of the mind from which primal needs and drives
(e.g., lust, rage) emerge
SUPEREGO
The part of the mind where your parents' and society's
rules reside; the original guilt trip
EGO
The mind's mechanism for keeping in touch with reality,
it referees the wrestling match between id and superego
PHALLIC
SYMBOLS Almost anything can look like a penis, but sometimes,
as Freud is supposed to have remarked, "a cigar is just
a cigar"
~~~~~~~~
