The Freud Files

by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen

  Already by the turn of the century, there was little consensus in psychology. Thus, for psychologists, the task became one not only of distinguishing the new psychology from what had gone before, but of forwarding their own claims to form the one scientific psychology, over that of their colleagues. Rhetorical analogies to scientific heroes readily lent themselves to such a situation. A number of figures suggested candidates for the role of the new Galileo or Newton of psychology. Théodore Flournoy placed the laurel on Frederic Myers, one of the founders of psychical research.

  Flournoy: Nothing permits one to foresee the end that the future reserves to the spiritist doctrine of Myers. If future discoveries will come to confirm his thesis of the empirically verified intervention of the discarnate in the physical or psychological frame of our phenomenal world, then his name will be inscribed in the golden book of the great initiators, and join those of Copernicus and Darwin; he will complete the triad of geniuses having most profoundly revolutionized scientific thought in the cosmological, biological, psychological order.13

  For Flournoy, who had by then read and reviewed Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, the founding genius of psychology wasn’t Freud, but Myers. Likewise, Stanley Hall stated in 1909 that ‘the present psychological situation calls out for a new Darwin of the mind’.14 In 1912, Arnold Gesell proclaimed it was Hall himself who was the ‘Darwin of psychology’.15 Hall later recalled that this ‘gave me more inner satisfaction than any compliment ever paid me by the most perfervid friend’.16 Others nominated Freud.

  C. G. Jung: Freud could be refuted only by one who has made repeated use of the psychoanalytic method and who really investigates as Freud does . . . He who does not or cannot do this should not pronounce judgment on Freud, else he acts like those notorious men of science who disdained to look through Galileo’s telescope.17

  Eugen Bleuler to Freud, 19 October 1910: One compares [your work] with that of Darwin, Copernicus and Semmelweis. I believe too that for psychology your discoveries are equally fundamental as the theories of those men are for other branches of science, no matter whether or not one evaluates the advancements in psychology as highly as those in other sciences.18

  David Eder: The work of Freud in psychology has been compared by one of his disciples to that of Darwin in psychology.19

  The disciple in question was Ernest Jones, who flattered himself with having been the first to have accorded Freud the title of ‘Darwin of the mind’ in his Papers on Psycho-Analysis of 1913.20 In 1918, in the course of a debate with the psychologists William Rivers and Maurice Nicoll, the latter representing Jung, Jones expanded upon this analogy.

  Ernest Jones: The contrast between this [Jung’s] view and Freud’s is just the same as that between the positions adopted by Drummond and Wallace, on the one hand, and Darwin and Huxley on the other, regarding the origin of the mind and soul – a matter which in the scientific world was decided half a century ago.21

  Frank J. Sulloway: Jones saw himself in relation to Freud as T. H. Huxley – ‘Darwin’s bulldog’ – had stood to the embattled Darwin a half century earlier.22

  Thus one sees that the question of who posterity would view as being the founding genius of psychology was hotly debated at precisely the same time when Freud nominated himself. This self-canonisation, which has been taken as self-evident, immediately loses its authority, and appears for what it was: a peremptory attempt by Freud and his followers to act as if posterity had already unilaterally settled the debates between psychoanalysis and other psychologies in their favour, and discarded any other claimants to this position. Some figures vigorously protested.

  William McDougall: The only authority we have for accepting this [the theory of the social bond presented by Freud in his Group Psychology] as the necessary and sole permissible line of speculation, for regarding our explanation of social phenomena as necessarily confined within the limits of the sexual libido, is the authority of Professor Freud and his devoted disciples. I, for one, shall continue to try to avoid the spell of the primal horde-father and to use what intellect I have, untrammelled by arbitrary limitations.23

  Alfred Hoche: To top it all, the [Freudians’] dogmatic arrogance leads them to compare Freud’s role with the historical position of Kepler, Copernicus and Semmelweis, and are compelled, according to a comical reasoning, to find the proof in the fact that they all had to battle the resistance of their contemporaries.24

  Wilhelm Weygandt: Freud’s teaching has been compared with the puerperal fever theory of Semmelweiss, which was initially ridiculed and then brilliantly recognised. If we certainly also revolt against this, it would still be cruel to compare Freud with Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy. It is perhaps closer to think of Franz Joseph Gall, whose theories, despite some striking points of view and findings, fell into rejection immediately due to their uncritical exaggeration and utilisation, including good and bad components.25

  Freud: I was either compared to Columbus, Darwin and Kepler, or abused as a general paralytic.26

  Adolf Wohlgemuth: Freud–Darwin! You may as well couple the name of Mr. Potts, of the Eatonswill Gazette, with that of Shakespeare or Goethe . . . Both Copernicus’ and Darwin’s work was violently attacked and herein may be some resemblance to Freud’s, but yet what a sea of difference! Who were the attackers of Copernicus and Darwin? The Church, whose vested interests were endangered. Astronomers, as far as they dared in those dark days and were not Church dignitaries, or teachers at clerical universities, received the work of Copernicus and his successors with admiration. Biologists and geologists were almost unanimously enthusiastic about Darwin’s work. The chief objectors . . . to Freud’s theories, I say, are psychologists vom Fach [professional psychologists], that is exactly those people who stand to Freud’s work in the same relation as the astronomers to Copernicus, and the biologists and geologists to Darwin’s work, and who hailed it with joy and admiration.27

  So why should we have faith in Freud, rather than in his rivals? Because Freud ‘triumphed’ to such a degree that we hardly remember names such as Stern, Flournoy, Hall, Myers or McDougall? Because the ‘scientific revolution’ effected by this new Copernicus banished them to the realms of pseudo-science? This would be to invoke precisely what one is attempting to explain. This would amount to begging the question, conceding everything to the ‘victor’, whereas we would like to know precisely how he won and why. Was it because Freud’s competitors were finally forced to concede defeat? Because a consensus emerged around his theories, despite the ‘violent oppositions’ and the ‘resistance to psychoanalysis’ that he alleged? Or was it, quite simply, because he managed to make everyone forget the controversy itself, and even the existence of many of his rivals?

  Freud: Neither speculative philosophy, nor descriptive psychology, nor what is called experimental psychology . . . as they are taught in our Universities, is in a position to tell you anything serviceable of the relation between the body and the mind or to provide you with the key to an understanding of possible disturbances of the mental functions.28

  Freud: The theory of psychic life could not be developed, because it was inhibited by a single essential misunderstanding. What does it comprise to-day, as it is taught at college? Apart from those valuable discoveries in the physiology of the senses, a number of classifications and definitions of our mental processes which, thanks to linguistic usage, have become the common property of every educated person. That is clearly not enough to give a view of our psychic life.29

  ‘Make the past into a tabula rasa’, chanted the French revolutionaries. It is in the nature of revolutions to do away with opponents, whether it be with the swipe of the guillotine or with epistemic breaks, and to rewrite history from the moment of ‘year 1’ of the new scientific or political order. Freud’s parable of the ‘three blows’ provides a marvellous illustration of this purging of history, right down to its transcription. Indeed, this edifying story has its own interesting genealogy, which is passed over in silence by Fr
eud. As Paul-Laurent Assoun has shown in his Introduction to Freudian Epistemology,30 before being taken up by psychologists, the comparison of humiliations produced by the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions comes from the well-known Darwinian propagandist Ernst Haeckel, who popularised it in several of his works.

  Ernst Haeckel: The two great fundamental errors are asserted in [the Mosaic hypothesis of creation], namely, first, the geocentric error that the earth is the fixed central point of the whole universe, round which the sun, moon, and stars move; and secondly the anthropocentric error, that man is the premeditated aim of the creation of the earth, for whose service alone the rest of nature is said to have been created. The former of these errors was demolished by Copernicus’ System of the Universe in the beginning of the 16th century, the latter by Lamarck’s Doctrine of Descent in the beginning of the 19th century.31

  Haeckel: Just as the geocentric conception of the universe – namely, the false opinion that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that all its other portions revolved around the earth – was overthrown by the system of the universe established by Copernicus and his followers, so the anthropocentric conception of the universe – the vain delusion that Man is the centre of terrestrial nature, and that its whole aim is merely to serve him – is overthrown by the application (attempted long since by Lamarck) of the theory of descent to Man.32

  Haeckel: In the same way that Copernicus (1543) gave the mortal blow to the geocentric dogma founded on the Bible, Darwin (1859) did the same to the anthropocentric dogma intimately connected to the first.33

  This ‘genealogical schema’ (Assoun) appears to have circulated freely in scientific circles, to the point where it was taken up without attribution by Thomas Huxley,34 and by the physiologist Emil Du Bois-Reymond in a talk given in 1883 under the title ‘Darwin and Copernicus’. This talk caused a sensation, and immediately made Du Bois-Reymond one of the favourite targets of the anti-Darwinians.

  Emil Du Bois-Reymond: Hardly had I been presented by Haeckel as an adversary of Darwin, I suddenly passed in the eyes of the reactionary organs and the clerics as the most distinguished defender in Germany of the Darwinian doctrine and they formed a circle around me to throw at me rantings full of furious hatred.35

  Haeckel did not appreciate his position being usurped in such a manner.

  Haeckel: Fifteen years ago I myself developed the comparison of Darwin and Copernicus, and showed the merit of these two heroes who had destroyed anthropocentricism and geocentrism, in my lecture, Über die Entstehung und den Stammbaum des Menschengeschlechts [On the development and family tree of the human race].36

  Haeckel: Darwin became the Copernicus of the organic world, just as I had already expressed in 1868, and as E. Du Bois-Reymond did fifteen years later, repeating my statement.37

  Seeing Haeckel’s sensitivity to questions of intellectual priority, it is not difficult to imagine what would have been his response to Freud’s lecture. The latter did not content himself, like Huxley or Du Bois-Reymond, with comparing Darwin to Copernicus. He took over the reasoning and even the terms of Haeckel, simply adding a third stage, which Flournoy had already done before him: after the critique of geocentrism, of anthropocentrism, that of egocentrism – with no mention of Haeckel or Flournoy, both of whom he read. Even within psychoanalysis, some were struck by the audacity of Freud’s claims.

  Karl Abraham to Freud, 18 March 1917: The other paper, which you sent me in proof [‘A difficulty in the path of psycho-analysis’ in which Freud took up the theme of the three blows] gave me special pleasure, not only because of its train of thought but particularly as a personal document . . . Judging from the most recent paper, you might after all be tempted to come to this furthest north-eastern corner of Germany, if I tell you that your colleague Copernicus lived in Allenstein for many years.38

  Freud to Abraham, 25 March 1917: You are right to point out that the enumeration in my last paper is bound to create the impression that I claim my place alongside Copernicus and Darwin. However, I did not want to relinquish an interesting idea just because of that semblance, and therefore at any rate put Schopenhauer in the foreground.39

  Here we see a commonplace presented as an ‘interesting idea’ which had simply occurred to Freud, who elides the history of this analogy. The manner in which these debates have been forgotten, leaving Freud as the sole claimant to the prize, is emblematic of the effects of the Freudian legend. The Lancet, 11 June 1938: His [Freud’s] teachings have in their time aroused controversy more acute and antagonism more bitter than any since the days of Darwin. Now, in his old age, there are few psychologists of any school who do not admit their debt to him. Some of the conceptions he formulated clearly for the first time have crept into current philosophy against the stream of wilful incredulity which he himself recognised as man’s natural reaction to unbearable truth.40

  Stephen Jay Gould: [A]s Freud observed, our relationship with science must be paradoxical because we are forced to pay an almost intolerable price for each major gain in knowledge and power – the psychological cost of progressive dethronement from the center of things, and increasing marginality in an uncaring universe. Thus physics and astronomy relegated our world to a corner of the cosmos, and biology shifted our status from a simulacrum of God to a naked, upright ape.41

  ‘The powerful, ineradicable Freud legend’42

  The fable of the three blows provides a good example of what the historians Henri Ellenberger and Frank Sulloway have called ‘the Freudian legend’. One sees here nearly all of the key elements of the master narrative woven by Freud and his followers: the peremptory declaration of the revolutionary and epochal character of psychoanalysis, the description of the ferocious hostility and irrational ‘resistances’ which it gave rise to, the insistence on the ‘moral courage’43 which was required to overcome them, the obliteration of rival theories, relegated to a prehistory of the psychoanalytic science, and a lack of acknowledgement of debts and borrowings.

  Legenda is a story meant to be repeated mechanically, almost unknowingly, like the lives of the saints that were daily recited at matins in the convents of the Middle Ages. Just as the removal of these legendae from history facilitated their vast transcultural diffusion, so the legendary de-historicisation of psychoanalysis has allowed it to adapt to all sorts of contexts which on the face of it ought to have been inhospitable to it, and to constantly reinvent itself in a brand-new guise.

  Each has his own version of the legend – positivist, existentialist, hermeneutic, Freudo-Marxist, narrativist, cognitivist, structuralist, deconstructivist and now even neuroscientific. These versions are as different as can be, but they have this in common: they all celebrate the exceptionalism of psychoanalysis, removed from context, history and verification. The longevity of psychoanalysis is not incidentally bound up with the manner in which the Freud legend continues to expand and adapt itself to changing intellectual and cultural milieux. In this sense, it is not simply a question of reducing the Freud legend to a fixed narrative, which would simply require a point-by-point refutation, as Sulloway attempted.44 Rather, the legend has an open structure, capable at any moment of integrating new elements and discarding others whilst maintaining its underlying form, which remains recognisable. The elements can change, particular theories or conceptions of Freud can be abandoned or remodelled to the point where they become completely unrecognisable, but the legend survives.

  James Strachey: Though it may flatter our vanity to declare that Freud was a human being of a kind like our own, that satisfaction can easily be carried too far. There must have been something very extraordinary in the man who was the first able to recognize a whole field of mental facts which had hitherto been excluded from normal consciousness, the man who first interpreted dreams, who first accepted the facts of infantile sexuality, who first made the distinction between the primary and secondary processes of thinking – the man who first made the unconscious mind real to us.45

  Strachey: [Fre
ud’s self-analysis,] like Galileo’s telescope, opened the way to a new chapter in human knowledge.46

  Jones: Future generations of psychologists will assuredly wish to know what manner of man it was who, after two thousand of years of vain endeavour had gone by, succeeded in fulfilling the Delphic injunction: know thyself . . . Few, if any, have been able to go as far as he did on the path of self-knowledge and self-mastery – even with the aid of the pioneer torch he provided with his methods and previous exploration, and even with the invaluable assistance of years of daily personal work with expert mentors. How one man alone could have broken all this new ground, and overcome all difficulties unaided, must ever remain a cause for wonder. It was the nearest to a miracle that human means can compass, one that surely surpasses even the loftiest intellectual achievements in mathematics and pure science. Copernicus and Darwin dared much in facing the unwelcome truths of outer reality, but to face those of inner reality costs something that only the rarest of mortals would unaided be able to give . . . It would not be a great exaggeration if we summed up in one phrase Freud’s contribution to knowledge: he discovered the Unconscious.47

  Joseph Schwartz: [The development of the analytic hour by Breuer and Freud was] analogous to Galileo’s use of the telescope to explore previously unknown structures in the night sky. Freud and Breuer were the first to permit the human subject to speak for him/herself . . . For the first time, a space had been created where the meanings of subjective experience could be purposefully sought until they were found.48