Reviews
Synopsis
An intellectual biography of Sigmund Freud written from a sceptical
point of view. The claim of the book is that Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis,
was misled and misleading, bewitched by the simplicity of his own ideas.In
its afterword, the book puts forward the opinion that the Recovered Memory
movement (exposing child sex abuse) has Freud's fingerprints all over it.
Customer Comments
Average Customer Rating: Number of Reviews: 1
dphodgson@msn.com from Wokingham, England , 18 September, 1999
This book is a brilliant demolition job of Freud's theories.
This is a brilliant demolition job on the theories of Freud and the
psychoanalytic movement. Webster writes superbly and though closely argued
and subtle as well as being long, I found the book as unputdownable as
any gripping novel. Fiction, however it is not; nor is this book written
in the sensationalist and over-weeningly triumphalist way that many "exposes"
are. From an immensely detailed and masterly knowledge of the literature,
including the correspondence and notes of Freud, it argues that Freud's
theoretical constructs are based on misdiagnosis and fundamental mistakes
about neurology. Freud is shown to have rendered his theories beyond the
reach of falsifiability and set about creating a quasi-religious movement
in which the only ultimate authority was himself. The book identifies Freud's
motivation as a powerful messianic drive for intellectual greatness implanted
in him by his parents' expectations. Psychoanalysis is described as a substitute
religion firmly yet invisibly rooted in the Judaeo-Christian theology of
human nature which permeates virtually the whole Western intellectual culture
even today. Perhaps Freud's biggest error according to this book is that
he promulgated psychoanalysis as if it were a science when it is a religion
or a faith. He was successful in this because of the modern Western need
for secular substitutes for orthodox Christian faith dressed up as science.
The book also shows how psychoanalysis creates and meets psychological
needs similar to the church penitential practices of confession and absolution.
There is a fascinating chapter on the relationship between Christian doctrines
of original sin and Freud's theories. The appendix on "recovered memory"
is a useful summary of this hot topic for the uninitiated. The book is
provocative not only for psychoanalysts. It is in fact an essay of cultural
analysis. The invention and history of psychoanalysis illustrates the book's
thesis that the Western cultural tradition is in thrall to a rationalism
based on the mind-body or angel-beast dualism in theories of human nature
which ultimately derive from the Judaeo-Christian religious teachings.
The book implies this intense rationalism is intrinsic to Christianity
and all faith in a Creator God or an ineluctable outgrowth from it; though
students of non-Western forms of Christianity would find scope for debate
here. The book appeals for a wider, more imaginative, understanding and
explanation of the human condition rooted in Darwininian evolutionary theories
which will breach the mind-body and flesh-soul split and pay more attention
to the empirically-observeable character of the whole range of human life;
including religion. This book will provoke Christians in its apparent atheism
and occasional flashes of scorn for Christianity. The book appears to reject
all belief in God as self-evidently irrational. It stands for that stream
of empirical philosophy which has always critiqued rational thought for
its willingness to postulate concepts as real and its tendency to value
ideas over materials. But this book is rarely dogmatic in tone and the
implied atheism is nuanced enough to stimulate those of faith to examine
their own theories of human nature and enter debate - which is what this
book wants people to do. I loved it - even though I disagree with it on
the God-question - because it is the treatise which finally convinces me
that I can ignore all arcane and obscure attempts to persuade me of the
value of Freudian analysis.
Artikkel i Dagbladet
Einar Kringlen
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