Freud's Converts

Vicki Clifford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429914058
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia

This work is an exploration of the relationship which psychotherapy has with religion. Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers were chosen for this exposition because they were each seduced by the high status given to science. Freud and Rogers, both founders of psychotherapies, left a legacy which is not that of scientists whom they claimed they were. Freud and Rogers each had a problematic relationship with religion. This has had a lasting effect on the work and attitudes of their respective followers. In order to explore effectively this relationship, the work begins with a critical examination of the historical context in which both Freud and Rogers worked, and how in their determination to be scientists both missed the importance of the religious. The work continues with an exploration of the effects of this legacy on the work of contemporary psychotherapists. The context in which their followers work relies on a relationship with the founder, which goes beyond that of science, and in addition, each practitioner is influenced by socio-economic circumstances which are peculiar to them. The resistance from psychotherapists to embrace religion has been complex, although, as it will be illustrated, today there are some who are acknowledging the importance of the spiritual. That psychotherapy functions as a religious movement has been excluded by practitioners in their determination to reflect the wishes of their founder, which was that their work should be regarded as science. Psychotherapists have traditionally been considered the custodians of the real and that their clients are the ones suffering from delusions. With respect to their attitudes to religion–not least the spiritual–the positions seem to be reversed.

CHAPTER ONE
Science and Status

In 1993 Time magazine claimed “Freud is dead”¹. However, over a decade on the evidence is to the contrary. Attention to Freud by both Freudians and psychodynamic practitioners, if we can use publications about him as a measure of interest, shows little sign of abating. Interest from elsewhere, the media, and his critics in particular, also indicate that interest in him is very much alive, although it is not unusual to find Freud in discussions about God, which is what the article in Time is about. If Freud had been successful in his mission, to have psychoanalysis accepted as science, his work would more often be found on the scientific pages of the popular press and of scientific journals than on those pages where it is most often found in discussions about religion.

As will be discussed below a good deal of criticism about Freud and his psychoanalysis is in relation to the “lack of scientific validity” of his theories and of the attitude of Freud and his followers to him and his work. The attitude is illogical, and ranges from reverential at one end to demonising at the other. Attitudes to Freud and psychoanalysis are rarely balanced and rarely from a perspective which is dispassionate. Perhaps this becomes more understandable when we notice that Freud had an unbalanced view of himself and his work which he modelled effectively. At times his self belief was countered by over whelming self doubt. Such swings in attitude appear normal for the prophet, which is often how Freud has been viewed. He is compared to religious leaders, gurus, comparisons which Freud himself also indulged in.

Freud was a scientist whose research was in the field of neuroanatomy for twenty years before he developed psychoanalysis. He was “a man in a white coat” kind of scientist. He was a modernist, a biological determinist who resisted cultural explanations for human behaviour. His work on psychoanalysis was motivated by the tradition of determinism. Biological determinism was very much in vogue in Freud’s time: thus he saw humans and their behaviour as a result of their biology. Freud’s thinking was revolutionised when he visited the Salpêtrière School in Paris where he was privileged to work with Jean-Martin Charcot who demonstrated, through his work on hysteria, that the mind functions or rather it “behaves as though anatomy did not exist or as though it had no knowledge of it”². That Freud was in the company of such eminent scientists as Charcot goes part of the way to explaining his need to have psychoanalysis accepted as science. However, it would be unwise to define Freud only in these terms because although he was a scientist he was other things at the same time, including a self proclaimed “atheistic Jew” and one of religion’s major critics. This makes it more paradoxical that his determination to have psychoanalysis accepted as a new science was such that it became a quest which itself was beyond reason:

I started my professional activity as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neurotic patients. Under the influence of an older friend and by my own efforts I discovered some important new facts about the unconscious (unsighted or inside?) life, the role of instinctual urges and so on, after these findings through a new science, psychoanalysis, a part of psychology and a new method of treatment for the neurosis. I had to pay heavily for this bit of good luck. People did not believe in my facts and thought my theories unsavoury. Resistance was strong and unrelenting. In the end I succeeded in acquiring pupils and (bringing about?) an international psychoanalytic association. But the struggle is not yet over.³

The above quotation is a transcription of the only known recording of Freud, in English, in which he leaves us in no doubt that even at the end of his life, when he recorded this, he was still determined to have psychoanalysis regarded as a new science. He knew that he would have to part-company with traditional sciences but was still determined to stay in the sciences. Although he claims that he had “succeeded”, he also assures us that the “struggle” would continue. As we shall see below Freud was inconsistent about how he regarded what he did. As noted, he fluctuated between self assurance and self doubt about his place in the academy. He could not have foreseen just how problematic his comment on his “new science, psychoanalysis”, would be for his biological and theoretical descendants and we can only speculate as to what was in his mind when he said “the struggle is not yet over”.

However, no one can deny that he was right in his prediction that psychoanalysis would continue to struggle to be a science. Many practitioners today still regard psychoanalysis as a science but their arguments are unconvincing if we hold to a notion of science which is about empiricism and proof⁴. Psychoanalysts continue the justification of their scientific validity in debates, conferences, journals and books, which is testimony to Freud’s work not yet being a fait accompli. Their continued “unrelenting struggle” to convince the world of their scientific validity is, a sign that psychoanalysts still protest too much.

The reasons which Freud had for claiming that psychoanalysis had scientific status are different to the reasons offered by contemporary Freudians. In Freud’s time and culture science was a more dynamic term. Contemporary psychoanalysts, whilst clinging to the desire to be scientists, have the complication of their relationship with Freud and the huge body of traditions which they inherit. In other words, the ambitions of contemporary psychoanalysts, seeking to be scientists, are tainted by the desire to be true to the claims of their founder. Today’s psychoanalysts live in an era where science enjoys a different kind of supremacy to that which it held in Freud’s time and consequently contemporary psychoanalysts are battling to be accepted by what could be regarded as an out dated model.

Apart from the obvious lack of empirical evidence one of the stumbling blocks for psychoanalysis as science is that if it was/is science followers of psychoanalysis would have little difficulty in rejecting Freud and/or his findings and moving on. This is not the case. Psychoanalysts and psychotherapists of a psychodynamic nature revere Freud and his work in ways which contradict what we understand as a scientific paradigm⁵ which traditionally demands the fall of the existing theory as it gives way to the new theory⁶.

Neither Freud nor his work has engendered this kind of take over. Even those who have left the Freudian camp do not dismiss his ideas completely but build on them regardless of their flaws. And as will be demonstrated below, even those opposed to Freud rely on the psychoanalytic model to deconstruct him. Freud commands the kind of reverence which other great men of science, Charles Darwin, being an obvious example, do not enjoy. In fact, even to explain psychoanalysis as art, which Peter Gay and Susie Orbach have tried, does not explain their reverence for Freud. People who may want to paint like Picasso or Monet, who even copy their ways of dressing, smoking, speaking and even walking, as has been the case with Freud⁷, would rarely have such difficulty in accepting their mistakes both theoretical and personal. A point worth noting is that even some who claim to be anti-Freudian, who voice their distaste for all things Freudian, are ultimately unwilling to depart from him.⁸

Whilst scientists endeavour to usurp their predecessors by disproving their theories the psychoanalyst holds fast to Freud and his work and is cautious not to disprove Freud or offend his memory. This is where the activity of delusion by contemporary psychodynamic practitioners is most present, by virtue of its glaring absence.⁹ In Freud’s time psychoanalysts who developed his ideas were accused, by Freud, of being heretics. Today’s psychoanalysts still have this legacy to consider if taking a similar risk. As I hope to demonstrate below, to be seen to contradict Freud is not acceptable if you want to remain a psychoanalyst. From his grave Freud still directs his movement. Freud stated that to be a psychoanalyst one had to believe in what have come to be regarded as his four pillars¹⁰. In making this statement he was creating a dogma which his followers have found difficult to challenge, at least overtly¹¹. This we shall explore in a later chapter. This said the parallels between Freud and religious founders whose words and actions become sacred and as such unquestioned by those who wish to be followers become understandable.

In Freud’s time science had become the God of all things: to be scientific was beyond just being a man in a white coat. There were social, political and financial implications which were peculiar to being a scientist. To be a scientist held status which out weighed those who would once have been competitors. If one was a scientist this had implications for what one was not. For example, science was not art and certainly not religion. Science would eventually have answers, would explain the universe in ways which religions had not. To be religious, to believe in the unexplained, was regarded as superstitious and undesirable. But more than this, belief in things beyond science carried further connotations of being unintelligent. Freud found science and religion irreconcilable and his followers have maintained the same attitude. These beliefs, although out dated to a degree, have left a legacy for those who continue to debate about the divide between science and religion. Such debates are as compelling as ever but warrant a discussion which is beyond the scope of this project.

As we know from Freud’s work and correspondence his views on religion were less than flattering. Few people who are religious would regard Freud’s oft quoted view of “religion as a universal obsessional neurosis”¹² as complimentary. Freud did say this but, when viewed in the context of his other work, he also regarded religion as necessary if only as a way of preventing anarchy. For Freud and many others to be a scientist was to demonstrate evolution: science and atheism had become bed fellows. Science for Freud was a secular practice which excluded religion and did not rely on faith, and although this is now more of an area of contention, for Freud science, atheism, and the secular were allies, if not synonymous. This is ironic given that history shows that science was largely the domain of men of religion, for example, Galileo, Newton and even Darwin himself did not reject the possibility of God¹³.Lest we forget, Freud was a modernist given to grand theories, who used large brush strokes for his theories: to universalise religion as neurosis was but one of his brush strokes. As we shall see below, Freud was selective particularly in his choices about what was deemed an obsessional neurosis. For example, his own cigar smoking was omitted. His famous retort when challenged about his cigar smoking that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” is but one example of this.

By and large today when people talk of science they imply qualities such as truth and objectivity, implied in which is distance and reason, detachment from the object of study, but ultimately the ability to reason without the burden and this is how it was and still is viewed—of subjectivity. These are the illusions¹⁴ under which science has demanded status. Science and the secular have become almost synonymous, in so far as to be secular carries values and status which overlap with science. So when Freud made his famous claim that he had discovered a new branch of the science of psychology he was also making an alliance with the secular. This is the legacy which his followers have to contend with. Freud as a self proclaimed atheistic Jew, or as the title of Peter Gay’s book states, “A Godless Jew”¹⁵, has made it extremely difficult for his descendants to view religion in a positive way. The irony of Gay’s title has yet to be fully explored! If you are a God you do not need the idea of other Gods.

Although Freud’s claim about his new science has been the cause of immense controversy both during his life and since his death, scholars have noted that the notion of science for Freud working in Europe did not hold the same ideals of empiricism¹⁶as in the United Kingdom. Whilst this work is not about a religion versus science debate it is useful to question what drove Freud’s determination to reinvent science so that psychoanalysis could be accepted. Freud knew what was expected of a scientist, he had been one for twenty years before he discovered psychoanalysis, and his new work did not fit the criteria of empiricism or objectivity.

Freud’s works have been divided in various ways. For example, his works on religion have been regarded as an independent canon. These works were a form of armchair anthropology, derived from books rather than field studies. Added to this were Freud’s observations of patients and his inferences and comparisons of obsessional behaviours with that of religious ritual. Freud’s findings relied on his interpretation and inference of individual cases which could not be repeated and as such were not empirical in the way science demanded. Freud’s notion of science was stretching the common use of the word.

What is often marginalised is the context in which Freud felt it necessary to make such a claim and what was at stake if he did not. Freud was neurotic, had many illnesses and was at times bo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PREFACE
• PROLOGUE
• Introduction
• 1 Science and Status
• 2 The Construction of Freud
• 3 (i) Freud's Legacy
• 4 (i) The Construction of Carl Rogers
• 5 Roger's Legacy
• 6 (i) Post-Secular Psychotherapy
• Conclusion
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX