If the 20th century was the «America century», it was also the century of Sigmund Freud (Roth, 1998)[3]. Such works as «The Interpretation of Dreams» (1900) [4], «Psychopathology of Everyday Life» (1901) [5], «Introduction to Psychoanalysis. Lectures» (1915 — 1916) [6], books that have achieved phenomenal success, Freud has changed our understanding of ourselves. Just as Copernicus showed that the Earth is not at the center of the universe, just as Darwin showed that humans evolved from «lower» animals, Freud demonstrated that human experience, thoughts and actions are determined not only by our rational consciousness, but also by irrational forces, beyond our consciousness and control — forces that can only be understood and brought under control in a long therapeutic process, which he called psychoanalysis.
Freud also changed the vocabulary by which we understand ourselves and others. Before you opened this book, you already knew something about the id (id) and superego (superego), envy of the penis (penis envy) and phallic symbols (phallic symbols), castration anxiety (castration anxiety) and the Oedipus complex (Oedipus complex). In popular culture, psychotherapy is actually identified with psychoanalysis. Freud’s theory, which focuses on the interpretation of ambiguous events, underlies «postmodern» approaches to scientific criticism, such as deconstruction. Freud’s influence on contemporary culture is deeper and more lasting than Einstein or Watson and Crick, Hitler or Lenin, Roosevelt or Kennedy, Picasso or Eliott or Stravinsky, more than the Beatles or Bob Dylan.
Freud’s cultural influence rests, at least implicitly, on the assumption that his theory is scientifically sound. However, from a scientific point of view, Freud’s classical psychoanalysis is not suitable either as a theory of mind or as a therapeutic approach (Crews, 1998[7]; Macmillan, 1996[8]). There is no empirical evidence for any of the tenets of psychoanalytic theory, such as the idea that development goes through an oral, anal, phallic, and genital stage, or that little boys have passion for their mother and hate and fear their fathers. There is no empirical evidence that psychoanalysis is more effective than other forms of psychotherapy such as gradual desensitization or self-confidence training. There is no empirical evidence that the mechanisms by which psychoanalysis achieves its goals, such as transference and catharsis, are actually based on theory.
Of course, Freud lived in a specific period of time, and it can be argued that his theory was correct in relation to European culture at the end of the last century, even if it is not confirmed today. However, historical analysis shows that the material presented by Freud was systematically distorted and based on his theory of unconscious conflicts and infantile sexuality, that he misunderstood and distorted the scientific data available to him. Freud’s theories were not products of their time: they were misleading and erroneous even when he published them.
Drew Westen (1988[9] ), psychologist at Harvard Medical School, agrees that Freud’s theories are archaic and outdated, but argues that Freud’s legacy lives on in a variety of theoretical assumptions and is widely accepted by scientists: the existence of unconscious mental processes; the importance of conflict and ambivalence in behavior; the development of children as adults; mental representations as a mediator of social behavior; stages of mental development. However, some of these provisions are controversial. For example, there is no evidence that the way children are raised has a lasting effect on their personality. Moreover, Westen’s arguments sidestep the question of the infallibility of Freud’s views on these things. It is one thing to say that unconscious motives play a role in behavior. It is quite another thing to say that all our thoughts and actions are guided by repressed sexual and aggressive urges; that children have erotic feelings for a parent of the opposite sex; and that little boys are hostile to their father, whom they regard as a rival in the struggle for their mother’s affections. This is what Freud believed, and as far as we can tell, he was wrong on all counts. For example, the unconscious memories found in laboratory studies of automatism and implicit memory are quite different from the unconscious memories in psychoanalytic theory (Kihlstrom, 1999[10]).
Westen also argues that psychoanalytic theory itself has evolved since the time of Freud and, accordingly, it is unfair to associate psychoanalysis so closely with Freud’s views on repressed, infantile, sexual and aggressive impulses. But again, these concepts are used, whether or not Freud’s theories are correct. Moreover, it remains an open question how true these «neo-Freudian» theories are in comparison with the classical views of Freud. For example, it is not entirely clear to what extent Erickson’s theory of mental development is more accurate than Freud’s theory.
While Freud’s influence on the culture of the twentieth century was enormous, his influence on psychology is, as it were, «dead weight». The vast topics that Westen writes about existed in psychology before Freud or emerged relatively recently independently of his influence. At best, Freud is of interest to psychologists as a historical figure. He is better studied as a writer in a philological department than as a scientist in a psychology department. Psychologists can do without it.
Footnotes
[1] Kihlstrom, JF (2000) Is Freud Still Alive? No, Not Really. In Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology, 13th Ed., by R. Atkinson, R.C. Atkinson, E.E. Smith, D.J. Bem, & S. Nolen-Hoeksema. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 2000. WWW: http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~kihlstrm/freuddead.htm)
[3] Roth, M. (1998). Freud: Conflict and culture. New York: Knopf.
[7] Crews, F.C. (Ed.). (1998). Unauthorized Freud: Doubters confront a legend. New York: Viking.
[8] Macmillan, M.B. (1996). Freud evaluated: The completed arc. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press.
[9] West, D. (1998). The scientific legacy of Sigmund Freud: Toward a psychodynamically informed psychological science. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 333-371
[10] Kihlstrom, JF (1999). Conscious and unconscious cognition. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of cognition (pp. 173-203). Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press.