Arthur Janov's Blog, page 49

an Examination of Psychoanalysis (Part 7/13)

Free Association

As Freud wrote in his History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, "The history of psychoanalysis proper...starts with the technical innovation of the rejection of hypnosis. " Hypnosis was discarded for a number of reasons including , the realization that patients could not recall repressed, unconscious material when fully awake. Further, it became clear to Freud that trauma, though repressed, permeated the psyche in a total way, leaving no train of thought unrelated or unimplicated. This recognition formed the basis for the psychoanalytic technique of free association. Free association now replaced hypnosis as the central probing device of the mind.
In the words of A.A. Brill (reference!!!), Freud persuaded his patients "to give up conscious reflection and abandon themselves to calm concentration, follow their spontaneous mental occurrences and impart everything to him. It was the job of the analyst to discover the connection between traumatic memory and the associations provided in this way."[1] .
Sulloway points out that intrusion might be a better translation of the original German than association.[2] Freud viewed free association as a process whereby ideas intruded upon waking consciousness. That the unconscious (the instincts) could not be directly experienced . The only way to know it was through its derivative ideas. Psychoanalysis thus became confined to the level of ideation -- to concept and language. It became the "talking cure." Derivative ideas were made conscious by using free association techniques, having the patient ramble on and on until something significant (to the therapist) was said. This was supposedly a breakthrough of unconscious material, after which the analyst would help the patient gain insight into the connections between the associations and the original trauma.
So, the patient talked and the analyst talked because it was assumed that language was the only means by which we could have access to consciousness. And what is more, in the classical Freudian approach, the analyst said very little, never betraying his own feelings to the patient. His role was to be the silent observer, the donor of insights, and a model of rectitude for the patient. In his Outline to Psychoanalysis, Freud stated this position plainly:

There is no hope of our being able to reach (the real state of things) since everything new that we deduce must nevertheless be translated back into the language of our perceptions from which it is impossible for us to set ourselves free.

It was certainly important to realize that the unconscious could be probed directly via language; that language could do a detective job on itself, pinpointing traces from the unconscious. But in restricting himself to the medium of words, Freud was inevitably led to the conclusion that the knowable unconscious was linguistic in nature. To some extent it is, but that is by no means the whole picture, for the principal role of the unconscious is to code and store suffering and other emotions. A child doesn't suffer from intellectual conflict with her parents. She suffers because her emotions had to be buried in order to get along at home
Although unconscious content permeates language, language cannot alone fully express the unconscious. This is because the unconscious is primarily comprised of non-verbal elements, particularly Pain. And because of this the linguistic approach achieves the opposite of its intent: it buries feelings deeper and deeper.
Remember, there are hundreds of millions of years of evolution between the sensate-feeling brain and the human rational one. That is why when one is cut-off from one's feelings one can discuss the most incredible events with no emotional content to the language.
The non-verbal elements lying behind the gates of Pain in the unconscious are knowable in their own ways -- through their own "language" -- through the feelings and sensations , which are the "raw material" of the unconscious process.

There is a tautology inherent in the Freudian concept of consciousness. We only know what is knowable, and what is knowable is only what can be ascertained through intellect and language. According to Freud and the Freudians, t he unconscious is not knowable directly. If knowledge is viewed as the exclusive property of the intellect, then anything beyond the scope of ideas and language cannot be known. What's more, any further discovery of knowledge is limited to the use of these conceptual tools. This would be fine if experience were mediated purely by intellect, yet quite clearly it is not. As the colloquialism goes, there are some things that you just can't put into words.
If Freud hadn't perpetuated the demonology of the 19th century, he would have delved into the unconscious. As it was, he thought such probing to be deleterious to mental health. Freud's discoveries were mediated through the brilliance of his intellect. It is no wonder that he gave such kudos to the intellect (and language) in developing psychoanalytic therapy. It is interesting to note that, although Freud challenged many of the entrenched beliefs of his day, he implicitly accepted the intellectual boundary to knowledge. The unfortunate legacy of this assumption is a psychotherapy in which self-knowledge is attainable only through intellectual activity. By awarding the proprietorship of self-knowledge to the uppermost parts of consciousness, the knowledge gained becomes more and more detached from the reality it supposedly explains. Ultimately, knowledge limited to one level of consciousness reinforces the mind-body split which is itself the essence of neurosis. 

The great paradox of psychoanalysis is that we can know ourselves in such a way as to preclude true knowledge of ourselves:

Reality will always remain "unknowable." What scientific work elicits from our primary sense perceptions will consist in insight into connections and interdependencies in the external world, which can somehow or other reliably be produced or reflected in the internal world of our thoughts.[3]

What the above explains is how insight and knowledge of oneself can be used as defenses. Analysis and interpretation of the information provided by the process of free association is where the psychoanalytic method truly fails. The analyst makes the whole business more complicated than it need be. Since he thinks the unconscious will always be a mystery, he pursues off-track approaches rather than going directly to the source. It is intricate work to have to apply principles from the fund of psychoanalytic theory to individual experience. It assumes that the answers to personal experience lie in someone else's head. It distrusts the intelligence of feeling, puts too much faith in mental understanding, and is blind to the fact that traumatic memories and neglected needs are straining to become conscious.

[1]
[2]
[3]Freud, Outline, p. 106.

an Examination of Psychoanalysis (Part 7/11)

Free Association

As Freud wrote in his History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, "The history of psychoanalysis proper...starts with the technical innovation of the rejection of hypnosis. " Hypnosis was discarded for a number of reasons including , the realization that patients could not recall repressed, unconscious material when fully awake. Further, it became clear to Freud that trauma, though repressed, permeated the psyche in a total way, leaving no train of thought unrelated or unimplicated. This recognition formed the basis for the psychoanalytic technique of free association. Free association now replaced hypnosis as the central probing device of the mind.
In the words of A.A. Brill (reference!!!), Freud persuaded his patients "to give up conscious reflection and abandon themselves to calm concentration, follow their spontaneous mental occurrences and impart everything to him. It was the job of the analyst to discover the connection between traumatic memory and the associations provided in this way."[1] .
Sulloway points out that intrusion might be a better translation of the original German than association.[2] Freud viewed free association as a process whereby ideas intruded upon waking consciousness. That the unconscious (the instincts) could not be directly experienced . The only way to know it was through its derivative ideas. Psychoanalysis thus became confined to the level of ideation -- to concept and language. It became the "talking cure." Derivative ideas were made conscious by using free association techniques, having the patient ramble on and on until something significant (to the therapist) was said. This was supposedly a breakthrough of unconscious material, after which the analyst would help the patient gain insight into the connections between the associations and the original trauma.
So, the patient talked and the analyst talked because it was assumed that language was the only means by which we could have access to consciousness. And what is more, in the classical Freudian approach, the analyst said very little, never betraying his own feelings to the patient. His role was to be the silent observer, the donor of insights, and a model of rectitude for the patient. In his Outline to Psychoanalysis, Freud stated this position plainly:

There is no hope of our being able to reach (the real state of things) since everything new that we deduce must nevertheless be translated back into the language of our perceptions from which it is impossible for us to set ourselves free.

It was certainly important to realize that the unconscious could be probed directly via language; that language could do a detective job on itself, pinpointing traces from the unconscious. But in restricting himself to the medium of words, Freud was inevitably led to the conclusion that the knowable unconscious was linguistic in nature. To some extent it is, but that is by no means the whole picture, for the principal role of the unconscious is to code and store suffering and other emotions. A child doesn't suffer from intellectual conflict with her parents. She suffers because her emotions had to be buried in order to get along at home
Although unconscious content permeates language, language cannot alone fully express the unconscious. This is because the unconscious is primarily comprised of non-verbal elements, particularly Pain. And because of this the linguistic approach achieves the opposite of its intent: it buries feelings deeper and deeper.
Remember, there are hundreds of millions of years of evolution between the sensate-feeling brain and the human rational one. That is why when one is cut-off from one's feelings one can discuss the most incredible events with no emotional content to the language.
The non-verbal elements lying behind the gates of Pain in the unconscious are knowable in their own ways -- through their own "language" -- through the feelings and sensations , which are the "raw material" of the unconscious process.

There is a tautology inherent in the Freudian concept of consciousness. We only know what is knowable, and what is knowable is only what can be ascertained through intellect and language. According to Freud and the Freudians, t he unconscious is not knowable directly. If knowledge is viewed as the exclusive property of the intellect, then anything beyond the scope of ideas and language cannot be known. What's more, any further discovery of knowledge is limited to the use of these conceptual tools. This would be fine if experience were mediated purely by intellect, yet quite clearly it is not. As the colloquialism goes, there are some things that you just can't put into words.
If Freud hadn't perpetuated the demonology of the 19th century, he would have delved into the unconscious. As it was, he thought such probing to be deleterious to mental health. Freud's discoveries were mediated through the brilliance of his intellect. It is no wonder that he gave such kudos to the intellect (and language) in developing psychoanalytic therapy. It is interesting to note that, although Freud challenged many of the entrenched beliefs of his day, he implicitly accepted the intellectual boundary to knowledge. The unfortunate legacy of this assumption is a psychotherapy in which self-knowledge is attainable only through intellectual activity. By awarding the proprietorship of self-knowledge to the uppermost parts of consciousness, the knowledge gained becomes more and more detached from the reality it supposedly explains. Ultimately, knowledge limited to one level of consciousness reinforces the mind-body split which is itself the essence of neurosis. 

The great paradox of psychoanalysis is that we can know ourselves in such a way as to preclude true knowledge of ourselves:

Reality will always remain "unknowable." What scientific work elicits from our primary sense perceptions will consist in insight into connections and interdependencies in the external world, which can somehow or other reliably be produced or reflected in the internal world of our thoughts.[3]

What the above explains is how insight and knowledge of oneself can be used as defenses. Analysis and interpretation of the information provided by the process of free association is where the psychoanalytic method truly fails. The analyst makes the whole business more complicated than it need be. Since he thinks the unconscious will always be a mystery, he pursues off-track approaches rather than going directly to the source. It is intricate work to have to apply principles from the fund of psychoanalytic theory to individual experience. It assumes that the answers to personal experience lie in someone else's head. It distrusts the intelligence of feeling, puts too much faith in mental understanding, and is blind to the fact that traumatic memories and neglected needs are straining to become conscious.

[1]
[2]
[3]Freud, Outline, p. 106.

An Examination of Psychoanalysis (Part 6/13)

Freud's Theory as Therapy:

The Talking Cure That Doesn't Heal

The Aim of Psychoanalysis

The goals of a therapy offer a clear definition of what the therapy conceives health to be . In Outline Of Psychoanalysis[1], Freud offers his idea and goal of analysis: "Is it too bold," he asks , "to hope that it must be possible to submit the dreaded spontaneous illnesses of the mind to our control and bring about their cure?"

Obviously, Freud conceived the task of therapy to be one of control -- of getting the illness to submit. Later, he uses the metaphor of war to describe the alliance of the patient and analyst against the illness:

The analytical physician and the weakened ego of the patient...are to combine against the enemies, the instinctual demands of the id, and the moral demands of the superego.

Freud is saying that patients must exist in a state of permanent warfare -- cold warfare, perhaps -- and that the analyst must join the battle as an ally to help the ego in its task of "keeping down the instinctual claims of the id." The chief armament is the intellect, both the patient's and the analyst's:

Our knowledge shall compensate for his ignorance and shall give his ego more mastery over the lost provinces of his mental life.

Unfortunately, neurosis is not an illness of ignorance, and the business of therapy is not compensation -- especially not in the currency of "our [the analyst's] knowledge." Neurosis is an illness of feeling, and the patient has his own knowledge to discover through his feelings. No amount of received information will make up for what he can recover from his own unconscious. Furthermore, "the lost provinces" is what has made him unwell in the first place. Therapy must be a voyage of discovery. A patient must never lose his curiosity or the thrill of self-discovery. If the dialectical process of Pain and liberation, agony and discovery is not addressed, than a "cure" will remain elusive.
The cognitive focus of psychoanalysis is made plain in the Outline. So is the canonization of the analyst as a beneficent provider of health-giving wisdom. No matter how knowledgeable and wise the analyst, his wisdom is not curative. No amount of his acquired learning is as valuable to the patient as the patient's own history and feelings. Only the patient's own natural processes can bring him health.
Freud wrote in the Outline:

The new superego (analyst as substitute father) now has an opportunity for a sort of after-education of the neurotic; it can correct blunders for which his parental education was to blame.

And later:

The method by which we strengthen the pa-tient's ego has as its starting point an increase in the ego's self knowledge. Thus the first part of the help we have to offer is intellectual work...

And:

(We are) in a position to conjecture the nature of his repressed unconscious material and to extend, by the information we give him, his ego's knowledge of his unconscious.

From all this we learn that analysis works from the premise that the problems and solutions to neurosis lie in the thinking brain -- and more often than not, in the thinking brain of the analyst. We also get an idea of how Freud saw his own role in therapy: "We serve the patient in various functions as an authority and a substitute for his parents, as a teacher and educator..." Add to these interpreter, sage, restorer, ally, corrector, critic, detective, historian, persuader and superego, and we have quite a formidable figure. Certainly Freud's followers took their cues from this vantage point.
For many, the Freudian therapist is too presumptuous, and condescending, shrouded in the veil of his own fund of esoteric knowledge; knowledge which was itself intellectually obtained like a catechism. The analyst's attitude is built into the theory, for the analytic process assumes the omniscient, all-powerful authority figure therapist. Her presence should not intrude upon the patient nor obscure the patient's own light.
Since the patient is suffering from a disease of feeling, it is erroneous for the analyst is treat him with intellectual medicine. The power of the process must be shifted from therapist back to patient. One principal task is to provide an environment in which a patient can stop intellectualizing and start feeling. A restrained, intellectual, "proper" analyst exudes and circumscribes the kind of atmosphere in which the patient behaves. A stiff-tie, starched-shirt milieu is not conducive to feeling. It is no different for a child with his parents. If they are free, warm and feeling, the child automatically becomes feeling without one word said about liberty and freedom. The atmosphere is absorbed by a child who lives inside it with no particular awareness. The same is true in the therapist patient relationship. Humility is built into that relationship when the ultimate power and knowledge reside in the so-called "sick" one.

[1]_Translated by James Strachay (New York: W.W. Norton), 1949.

An Examination of Psychoanalysis (Part 6/11)

Freud's Theory as Therapy:
The Talking Cure That Doesn't Heal

The Aim of Psychoanalysis

The goals of a therapy offer a clear definition of what the therapy conceives health to be . In Outline Of Psychoanalysis[1], Freud offers his idea and goal of analysis: "Is it too bold," he asks , "to hope that it must be possible to submit the dreaded spontaneous illnesses of the mind to our control and bring about their cure?"

Obviously, Freud conceived the task of therapy to be one of control -- of getting the illness to submit. Later, he uses the metaphor of war to describe the alliance of the patient and analyst against the illness:

The analytical physician and the weakened ego of the patient...are to combine against the enemies, the instinctual demands of the id, and the moral demands of the superego.

Freud is saying that patients must exist in a state of permanent warfare -- cold warfare, perhaps -- and that the analyst must join the battle as an ally to help the ego in its task of "keeping down the instinctual claims of the id." The chief armament is the intellect, both the patient's and the analyst's:

Our knowledge shall compensate for his ignorance and shall give his ego more mastery over the lost provinces of his mental life.

Unfortunately, neurosis is not an illness of ignorance, and the business of therapy is not compensation -- especially not in the currency of "our [the analyst's] knowledge." Neurosis is an illness of feeling, and the patient has his own knowledge to discover through his feelings. No amount of received information will make up for what he can recover from his own unconscious. Furthermore, "the lost provinces" is what has made him unwell in the first place. Therapy must be a voyage of discovery. A patient must never lose his curiosity or the thrill of self-discovery. If the dialectical process of Pain and liberation, agony and discovery is not addressed, than a "cure" will remain elusive.
The cognitive focus of psychoanalysis is made plain in the Outline. So is the canonization of the analyst as a beneficent provider of health-giving wisdom. No matter how knowledgeable and wise the analyst, his wisdom is not curative. No amount of his acquired learning is as valuable to the patient as the patient's own history and feelings. Only the patient's own natural processes can bring him health.
Freud wrote in the Outline:

The new superego (analyst as substitute father) now has an opportunity for a sort of after-education of the neurotic; it can correct blunders for which his parental education was to blame.

And later:

The method by which we strengthen the pa-tient's ego has as its starting point an increase in the ego's self knowledge. Thus the first part of the help we have to offer is intellectual work...

And:

(We are) in a position to conjecture the nature of his repressed unconscious material and to extend, by the information we give him, his ego's knowledge of his unconscious.

From all this we learn that analysis works from the premise that the problems and solutions to neurosis lie in the thinking brain -- and more often than not, in the thinking brain of the analyst. We also get an idea of how Freud saw his own role in therapy: "We serve the patient in various functions as an authority and a substitute for his parents, as a teacher and educator..." Add to these interpreter, sage, restorer, ally, corrector, critic, detective, historian, persuader and superego, and we have quite a formidable figure. Certainly Freud's followers took their cues from this vantage point.
For many, the Freudian therapist is too presumptuous, and condescending, shrouded in the veil of his own fund of esoteric knowledge; knowledge which was itself intellectually obtained like a catechism. The analyst's attitude is built into the theory, for the analytic process assumes the omniscient, all-powerful authority figure therapist. Her presence should not intrude upon the patient nor obscure the patient's own light.
Since the patient is suffering from a disease of feeling, it is erroneous for the analyst is treat him with intellectual medicine. The power of the process must be shifted from therapist back to patient. One principal task is to provide an environment in which a patient can stop intellectualizing and start feeling. A restrained, intellectual, "proper" analyst exudes and circumscribes the kind of atmosphere in which the patient behaves. A stiff-tie, starched-shirt milieu is not conducive to feeling. It is no different for a child with his parents. If they are free, warm and feeling, the child automatically becomes feeling without one word said about liberty and freedom. The atmosphere is absorbed by a child who lives inside it with no particular awareness. The same is true in the therapist patient relationship. Humility is built into that relationship when the ultimate power and knowledge reside in the so-called "sick" one.

[1]_Translated by James Strachay (New York: W.W. Norton), 1949.

The Permanence of Needs

Allow me to relate one research experiment we did to verify my point. It was at the UCLA Pulmonary Laboratory.We wired two patients to a number of instruments, oxygen levels, carbon dioxide, and blood samples every 3 minutes while they relived, as it turned out, oxygen deficit at birth, something we had not planned at all. Neither patient observed the other so we had a rather pure experience on the part of both men. After the reliving, we did another experiment where each patient mimicked the primal in every way (same movements and breathing) except being in the past. Both almost fainted after 3 or 4 minutes in what was clearly a hyperventilation syndrome (clawed hands). While in the past feeling they breathed very deeply (I call this "locomotive breathing" because that is what it sounds like and seems to emanate from the brainstem--medulla), for about twenty minutes with no hyperventilation. What the researchers from the pulmonary laboratory found was that when the patient was back in the old feeling and its context of anoxia at birth the body needed oxygen; the patient was "back there" in every way, not the least of which was physiologically. It was evidence of the veracity of reliving; that patients can and do go back in time. And they not only go back psychologically but in a complete biologic state. The corollary to this is that the early need for love stays the same and does not change throughout our lifetime. We seek symbolic, substitute fulfillment but it is never fulfilling and compels us to go on seeking more and more, always in vain. The critical time when need must be fulfilled has past.

The Death of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs has died and we lost a giant who changed the world literally. But I ask myself why did he develop cancer at such a young age? And I want to add my thoughts to this question, with the understanding that it is at best guesswork. It is a guess based on years of experience with patients, over sixty years, now, added to a great deal of current research.

Steve was an unwanted child. What does that say? That the mother was having trouble could not take care of him and had no prospect of being a mother to him throughout his life. He was given up for adoption. But in those nine critical months while in the womb there is a tale. And we know now that if a mother is depressed the offspring is also likely to have depressive tendencies. When the mother is anxious the stress hormone levels of the fetus/baby goes up and he too is under stress; not just a stress for the moment but a stress level that is higher than normal and creates havoc in the system. It is imprinted and remains a constant active memory. It requires that the system deal with it all of the time, and that means, inter alia, repression; a closing of the gates so that the pain remains sequestered. The repression is a serious, active force grinding down the system bit by bit, often unknown and unfelt until irreversible damage is done. Research today is full of information about very very early trauma and later cancer and heart disease.

It is my opinion that most of us untraumatized individuals remain fairly healthy throughout life. It takes a massive intrusion while we are just starting out in life before birth that warps the system and begins its toll. It is a stealthy enemy; a quiet, insidious menace that gnaws away month after month, year after year until the organ fails and disease begins its life. I am thinking that it happened to Steve Jobs because a healthy active nondrug taking human should ordinarily not fall so seriously ill so early in life. Of course, this is a guess and if I am proven wrong so be it; but I offer a proposal, a hypothesis, if you will, about what may have played into his disease. It is not an unreasonable assumption. And you know that even when there is no love and no loving figure to watch out for you in the first weeks and months of life the damage, heavy imprinted damage is there. Early it doesn't take much to do it. And very early in life it can be only a matter of days or weeks with no parental figure that catastrophic illness gets its start. Needs are so intense in the womb and at birth, as well as the first weeks of life on earth. They must be fulfilled.

Otherwise the good seem to die young. So goodbye, Steve, you changed my world and you never knew me. But I am indebted to you for my life today. It is so tragic that you had so much to give and yet you may have been given so little to start your life. Life really is not fair because if there were someone up there judging good deeds and giving out rewards how could he or she have missed you.

On Dying and Death

Why not deal with death in this blog? I have but I will add a bit. I have seen patients who have an inordinate fear of death; not the normal kind but the kind that says, "I am going to die right now!". That's what happens in anxiety attacks; that feeling of gloom and doom. Why? Because it was true but not true now. You were going to die before the defenses stepped in and blocked the feeling. It was imprinted and is now a permanent memory. That is what an anxiety attack is: I will die now! If you have leaky gates that feeling is close up to the top awareness all of the time, which accounts for frequent anxiety attacks and that sensation of immediate death. It was immediate and is now in our imprinted feeling mass, I call it our apperceptive mass.

What can we do about it? Feel it and put it back in the past in context so it's no longer immediate and constantly scary. We need to feel why we were about to die; most likely lack of oxygen at birth, a drinking or drug-taking carrying mother or a mother terrorized all along her pregnancy, either from internal reasons or fear of her husband and his violence. No matter the source it is now installed permanently in the offspring, and the minute her defenses are weak, death approaches; that is, history surges forth, real memory, not some ephemeral wisp of the past. If there were no immediate threat of death originally, there will be none now. But life in the womb and at birth are often the most perilous of our lives, and it is then and there that pure terror resides. Terror is a memory that lives inside of anxiety and propels it. We call it anxiety but it still that terror of dying. We feel it like it is now because in the memory it is now, not later. It is the memory that is coming up intact.

If you want some advice from someone who had it, don't think about because it is inevitable and think about life if you can. If your history forces you to focus on the past terror then you have to get rid of it, reliving that past fully. It is the best I can offer.

An Examination of Psychoanalysis (Part 5/13)

  To cure someone of neurosis , a patient's inner reality has to be accepted as true on some level.
If the childhood seductions did not occur on a physical level (which they do, all too frequently), then they occurred on an emotional level. The adult with memories of childhood seduction was seduced. As a child he was repeatedly seduced into fulfilling the needs and expectations of the parent, rather than freely being himself. He was repeatedly seduced into acting, speaking, walking, thinking, behaving in whatever ways appeased and satisfied the parent. This kind of covert seduction might be even more harmful than "real" seduction because it is so insidious. Under the guise of parental authority and obedience, the child develops neurotic fears and problems "for no apparent reason." The child feels violated, but he is told that this is what it means to be a good boy. The child has no choice but to feel that all of his fears are without cause -- because the cause is unadmitted. Most parents are guilty of imposing their own wills and needs, of repeatedly manipulating their children to be what they never were and to do what they never did. If Freud's concept of unconscious wishes does indeed enter the picture, it enters it on the side of the parent, not of the child. It is the parent's own unconscious wishes that are picked up by the child and later contribute to the development of his neurosis.


The significance and ramifications of Freud's move away from the real-life trauma of the seduction theory to the hypothesized wishes of the libido theory. A fascinating but controversial insight into the possible hidden motivations for Freud's theoretical shift has been provided by Jeffrey M. Masson 's book , The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory (1984) ., Masson argues convincingly that Freud abandoned the seduction theory out of a misguided desire to protect both himself and his friend Fleiss. . Apparently, Fleiss had bungled an operation on one of Freud's patients, Emma Eckstein. The operation had been undertaken because of Fleiss' dubious and bizarre theory that sexual problems could be cured through nasal surgery. Eckstein suffered from profuse bleeding as a result of the operation, during which she nearly died.
In an article in The Atlantic Monthly of February 1984 which excerpted his book, Masson writes:

Freud had the option to recognize (his and Fleiss's mistake), confess it to Emma Eckstein, confront Fleiss with the truth, and face the consequences. Or he could protect Fleiss by excusing what had happened. But in order to do this, to efface the external trauma of the operation, it would prove necessary to construct a theory based on hysterical fantasies, a theory whereby the external traumas suffered by the patient never happened, and were inventions. If Emma Eckstein's problems (her bleeding) had nothing to do with the real world (Fleiss's operation), then her earlier accounts of seduction could well have been fantasies.

As Masson points out, once Freud had decided that Eckstein's hemorrhages were hysterical symptoms and the result of sexual fantasies, he was free to give up his original seduction theory. Masson traces Freud's struggle with the issue of real versus fantasized trauma and notes that in 1897 Freud was beginning to recognize that children have aggressive impulses towards their parents. Of course, says Masson, if seductions had actually occurred, then these impulses were natural and righteous reactions to unbearable injury. But once Freud became convinced that the seductions were only fantasies -- that the parents were innocent --then impulses took over from seduction in Freud's theories.

An act was replaced by an impulse, a deed by a fantasy. This new " reality" came to be so important for Freud that the impulses of parents against their children were forgotten, never to reclaim importance in his writings. It was not only the aggressive acts of the parent that were attributed to the fantasy life of a child; now aggressive impulses, too, belonged to the child, not the adult.

Not surprisingly, Jeffrey Masson's reinstatement of the seduction theory met with resistance from the psychoanalytic community. He quotes a letter from Anna Freud, with whom he apparently had a number of disagreements over his disclosures. Anna Freud wrote:

Keeping up the seduction theory would mean to abandon the Oedipus complex, and with it the whole importance of phantasy life, conscious or unconscious phantasy. In fact, I think there would have been no psychoanalysis afterwards.

As Masson points out, this is a crucial point because most therapies "are based openly or implicitly, on Freudian theory."
Masson does not think that Freud made a conscious cold-blooded decision to ignore his earlier experiences. Nevertheless, he believes that, in doing so, Freud had forsaken the important truth "that sexual, physical and emotional violence is a real and tragic part of the lives of many children."

If this etiological formulation is true, and if it is further true that such events form the core of every severe neurosis, then it will be impossible to achieve a successful cure of a neurosis if these central events are ignored.

Masson further says that any analyst who turns memories into fantasies "does violence to the inner life of his patient and is in covert collusion with what made her ill in the first place." Success in the terms of such a treatment is measured in the ability of the patient to suppress her memories and knowledge of the past and to believe that the emotions which overwhelm her are displaced. This means a denial of self and a denial of reality, which spells the end of the patient's independence, since her health is tied to the analyst's view of her. Masson is led to condemn psychoanalysis because "the silence demanded of the child by the person who violated her is perpetuated and enforced by the very person to whom has come for help."

Masson writes:

Free and honest retrieval of painful memories cannot occur in the face of skepticism and fear of the truth. If the analyst is frightened of the real history of his own science, he will never be able to face the past of any of his patients.

It is conceivable that this concept could be expanded to include not the analyst's fear of his science as much as his past. In fact, it may be the analyst's need to deny his own pain, which keeps him from admitting the trauma-filled pasts of his patients.

In Freud's seduction theory, sexual assault is always the central event in the etiology of neurosis. Today it is acknowledged in many schools of psychotherapy that though sexual assault happens frequently and exerts a devastating influence, it is no t the sole cause of debilitating neurosis. Any serious deprivation, neglect, or abuse of basic needs during childhood is a trauma , which leads to neurosis in adulthood. Nevertheless the results of Freud's misguided theory has resonated in psychology for years. As Masson writes in The Atlantic Monthly:

By shifting the emphasis from an actual world of sadness, misery, and cruelty to an internal stage on which actors perform invented dramas for an invisible audience of their own creation, Freud began a trend away from the real world which, it seems to me, is at the root of the present-day sterility of psychoanalysis and psychiatry throughout the world.

Masson's work confirms our belief that psychoanalysis failed because it attributed neurosis to the wrong causes and in some cases, . In fact, it attributed it to causes that do n't exist. This was a mistake , which helped set psychotherapy on its misguided course -- on a course , which led away from a dialectical approach to healing neurosis. When subsequent theorists rejected its focus and method , they buried Freud's important notions. Instead of returning to identify where psychoanalysis veered off track, they shut the door, turn ing their backs on not only the past of their science, but the past of their patients as well.
By abandoning the seduction theory, Freud ensured the failure of his treatment by handing his critics a justification for rejecting psychoanalysis. Today modern Freudians have shifted toward the present by adopting "ego psychology," an approach that focuses on t he present day adjustments of the patient, beginning a steady march into non-dynamic , here and now theories and methods , which discounted the unconscious and steered away from addressing the generating sources of neurosis.

An Examination of Psychoanalysis (Part 5/11)

  To cure someone of neurosis , a patient's inner reality has to be accepted as true on some level.
If the childhood seductions did not occur on a physical level (which they do, all too frequently), then they occurred on an emotional level. The adult with memories of childhood seduction was seduced. As a child he was repeatedly seduced into fulfilling the needs and expectations of the parent, rather than freely being himself. He was repeatedly seduced into acting, speaking, walking, thinking, behaving in whatever ways appeased and satisfied the parent. This kind of covert seduction might be even more harmful than "real" seduction because it is so insidious. Under the guise of parental authority and obedience, the child develops neurotic fears and problems "for no apparent reason." The child feels violated, but he is told that this is what it means to be a good boy. The child has no choice but to feel that all of his fears are without cause -- because the cause is unadmitted. Most parents are guilty of imposing their own wills and needs, of repeatedly manipulating their children to be what they never were and to do what they never did. If Freud's concept of unconscious wishes does indeed enter the picture, it enters it on the side of the parent, not of the child. It is the parent's own unconscious wishes that are picked up by the child and later contribute to the development of his neurosis.


The significance and ramifications of Freud's move away from the real-life trauma of the seduction theory to the hypothesized wishes of the libido theory. A fascinating but controversial insight into the possible hidden motivations for Freud's theoretical shift has been provided by Jeffrey M. Masson 's book , The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory (1984) ., Masson argues convincingly that Freud abandoned the seduction theory out of a misguided desire to protect both himself and his friend Fleiss. . Apparently, Fleiss had bungled an operation on one of Freud's patients, Emma Eckstein. The operation had been undertaken because of Fleiss' dubious and bizarre theory that sexual problems could be cured through nasal surgery. Eckstein suffered from profuse bleeding as a result of the operation, during which she nearly died.
In an article in The Atlantic Monthly of February 1984 which excerpted his book, Masson writes:

Freud had the option to recognize (his and Fleiss's mistake), confess it to Emma Eckstein, confront Fleiss with the truth, and face the consequences. Or he could protect Fleiss by excusing what had happened. But in order to do this, to efface the external trauma of the operation, it would prove necessary to construct a theory based on hysterical fantasies, a theory whereby the external traumas suffered by the patient never happened, and were inventions. If Emma Eckstein's problems (her bleeding) had nothing to do with the real world (Fleiss's operation), then her earlier accounts of seduction could well have been fantasies.

As Masson points out, once Freud had decided that Eckstein's hemorrhages were hysterical symptoms and the result of sexual fantasies, he was free to give up his original seduction theory. Masson traces Freud's struggle with the issue of real versus fantasized trauma and notes that in 1897 Freud was beginning to recognize that children have aggressive impulses towards their parents. Of course, says Masson, if seductions had actually occurred, then these impulses were natural and righteous reactions to unbearable injury. But once Freud became convinced that the seductions were only fantasies -- that the parents were innocent --then impulses took over from seduction in Freud's theories.

An act was replaced by an impulse, a deed by a fantasy. This new " reality" came to be so important for Freud that the impulses of parents against their children were forgotten, never to reclaim importance in his writings. It was not only the aggressive acts of the parent that were attributed to the fantasy life of a child; now aggressive impulses, too, belonged to the child, not the adult.

Not surprisingly, Jeffrey Masson's reinstatement of the seduction theory met with resistance from the psychoanalytic community. He quotes a letter from Anna Freud, with whom he apparently had a number of disagreements over his disclosures. Anna Freud wrote:

Keeping up the seduction theory would mean to abandon the Oedipus complex, and with it the whole importance of phantasy life, conscious or unconscious phantasy. In fact, I think there would have been no psychoanalysis afterwards.

As Masson points out, this is a crucial point because most therapies "are based openly or implicitly, on Freudian theory."
Masson does not think that Freud made a conscious cold-blooded decision to ignore his earlier experiences. Nevertheless, he believes that, in doing so, Freud had forsaken the important truth "that sexual, physical and emotional violence is a real and tragic part of the lives of many children."

If this etiological formulation is true, and if it is further true that such events form the core of every severe neurosis, then it will be impossible to achieve a successful cure of a neurosis if these central events are ignored.

Masson further says that any analyst who turns memories into fantasies "does violence to the inner life of his patient and is in covert collusion with what made her ill in the first place." Success in the terms of such a treatment is measured in the ability of the patient to suppress her memories and knowledge of the past and to believe that the emotions which overwhelm her are displaced. This means a denial of self and a denial of reality, which spells the end of the patient's independence, since her health is tied to the analyst's view of her. Masson is led to condemn psychoanalysis because "the silence demanded of the child by the person who violated her is perpetuated and enforced by the very person to whom has come for help."

Masson writes:

Free and honest retrieval of painful memories cannot occur in the face of skepticism and fear of the truth. If the analyst is frightened of the real history of his own science, he will never be able to face the past of any of his patients.

It is conceivable that this concept could be expanded to include not the analyst's fear of his science as much as his past. In fact, it may be the analyst's need to deny his own pain, which keeps him from admitting the trauma-filled pasts of his patients.

In Freud's seduction theory, sexual assault is always the central event in the etiology of neurosis. Today it is acknowledged in many schools of psychotherapy that though sexual assault happens frequently and exerts a devastating influence, it is no t the sole cause of debilitating neurosis. Any serious deprivation, neglect, or abuse of basic needs during childhood is a trauma , which leads to neurosis in adulthood. Nevertheless the results of Freud's misguided theory has resonated in psychology for years. As Masson writes in The Atlantic Monthly:

By shifting the emphasis from an actual world of sadness, misery, and cruelty to an internal stage on which actors perform invented dramas for an invisible audience of their own creation, Freud began a trend away from the real world which, it seems to me, is at the root of the present-day sterility of psychoanalysis and psychiatry throughout the world.

Masson's work confirms our belief that psychoanalysis failed because it attributed neurosis to the wrong causes and in some cases, . In fact, it attributed it to causes that do n't exist. This was a mistake , which helped set psychotherapy on its misguided course -- on a course , which led away from a dialectical approach to healing neurosis. When subsequent theorists rejected its focus and method , they buried Freud's important notions. Instead of returning to identify where psychoanalysis veered off track, they shut the door, turn ing their backs on not only the past of their science, but the past of their patients as well.
By abandoning the seduction theory, Freud ensured the failure of his treatment by handing his critics a justification for rejecting psychoanalysis. Today modern Freudians have shifted toward the present by adopting "ego psychology," an approach that focuses on t he present day adjustments of the patient, beginning a steady march into non-dynamic , here and now theories and methods , which discounted the unconscious and steered away from addressing the generating sources of neurosis.

An Examination of Psychoanalysis (Part 4/13)

A Theoretical Compromise: Trauma Plus Instinct
So far , we have Freud's etiological theory of neurosis has moved through two stages. In the first, childhood sexual trauma was emphasized (the seduction theory), and in the second, instinctual drives were emphasized (the libido theory). Sulloway points out that in this second stage, "neurosis was interpreted as the repressed 'negative' of a stage of perversion."[1] Freud did not leave it at that, however.
The publication of Beyond the Pleasure Principle in 1920 established the third and final stage of Freud's theory where he renewed his emphasis on childhood trauma as a cause of neurosis. Basically, Freud blend ed his first two stages of thought into a recognition that both factors -- childhood trauma and repressed instincts -- functioned as instruments of neurosis:

Henceforth traumas, operating independently of repressed perversions, were given increasing recognition as major sources of neurotic symptoms...(Freud) subsequently extended the role of childhood traumas to include a regular series of developmental disturbances, or "threats," to libido: birth, loss of the mother as nurturing object, loss of penis, loss of the mother's love, and loss of superego's love.[2]

Sulloway points out that this period of Freud's work also reflected his renewed effort to bring together the two fields of science which he believed would finally result in a unified theory of human behavior:

Of all of Freud's works, Beyond the Pleasure Principle offers perhaps the closest conceptual ties to the unpublished Project for a Scientific Psychology, drafted a quarter of a century earlier. One is struck by the bold and frankly speculative vein of both works as well as by their common guiding principle --attempt to unite psychology with biology in resolving his most fundamental questions about human behavior. Biology, as he reaffirmed in the later work, was indeed "a land of unlimited possibilities."[3]

There are, however, important conceptual differences between Freud's Project and his Beyond the Pleasure Principle -- – differences , which might partly account for the non-biological direction ultimately taken by psychoanalysis as a theory and a therapy. Concepts in the Project were based upon "proximate-causal reductionism" whereby the mechanisms of psychophysics and neurophysiology were used to explain human behavior. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud shifted his vantage point to one of "ultimate-causal reductionism" where historical and evolutionary factors moved into the forefront. Sulloway evaluates:

In many ways Beyond the Pleasure Principle is the culmination of Freud's remarkable biogenetic romance about human psychosexuality, a romance first cultivated some twenty-five years earlier in the wake of his problematic Project for a Scientific Psychology. It is historicism, not mechanisms or psychophysics, that pervades the innovative logic of Beyond the Pleasure Principle. It is also historicism, not mechanism, that enabled Freud to extend his biogenetic romance from the very origins of life itself, through the evolutionary odyssey of primal man, and finally to the conflict-ridden problems of present-day psychological man.[4] 

A Primal Evaluation
Sulloway points out that it is historicism rather than psychophysiological mechanisms which characterizes Freud's later formulations. In these formulations we see Freud opt for hypothesis over reality, for "biogenetic romances" and "evolutionary odysseys" over present, personal human experience. Freud became more of a philosopher than an empirical researcher, preferring ontological ruminations over the once-treasured biological mechanisms. Even with his eventual redemption of trauma to a position of importance in the etiology of neurosis, the person under consideration still remained over-shadowed by rather monumental laws of phylogeny. Individual experience took a back seat to the playing out of mysteries inherent in the species.
Of course, phylogeny is part of the dynamic backdrop to individual experience. Nevertheless, each person truly has a life of his own, with an evolution specific to it. If the dictates of phylogeny are what we must battle, then we know we enter a losing cause -- with compromise the only solution. Psychoanalysis teaches us the inevitability of this compromise and helps us to support it. It teaches us to fear the real self as threatening, for with all of its innately perverse impulses our only recourse is to work on control and sublimation. But, paradoxically, it is actually control (repression) of the real self which has lead to perversity, and it is admission (experience) of the real self which makes sublimation irrelevant.
No doubt there are some powerfully influential forces from the occult world of phylogeny which are unknown to us. That is no reason, however, to make those found the center of attention, subordinating the known realities of individual experience to them. We can relate much more easily to our real experiences, real memories, and real feelings than to universal mysteries of which we are but a minute part. It is certainly difficult to understand how we are going to recover from those real experiences by trying to view them in the light of hypothetical universal principles
With the libido theory, Freud disavow s the reported personal experiences upon which his seduction theory was based in order to espouse the exact opposite. Not only were his patients not traumatized by the parental sexual abuse they had reported, worse: Freud now contended that they actually had longed for it as children. This longing took the form of an unconscious wish which was itself a derivative of some primary biological impulse for sexual union with the parent.
It is just conceivable that a child might wish for sexual union with a parent -- or at least appear to -- but it is not an inborn instinctive impulse, as Freud would have us believe. Certainly a child does not need sexual union. If it occurs at all, it is because the child somehow senses that sex is the only way she may have the contact and love she truly needs. Of course, the child would prefer the natural form of attention, but a desperate child will take what is offered. In spite of appearances, however, it is not the sex the child wants, but the contact. The child's need might appear sexual because that is often the only way parents (and other adults) can look at sensual need. Sexualization of childhood need comes not from the child but from the parent. After all, sexualization can only come from the one with sexuality.
It 's clear that Freud viewed the issue of childhood sexuality from a backward position. Too often, parents want sexual contact with their children, even though beneath that desire lies parents' own neglected primal needs.
The neurotic gets many of his primal needs "satisfied" through sex because sex offers the gratification of all the senses. Therefore it has great symbolic possibilities for ameliorating the past neglect of those senses. In addition, neurotic parents invariably want from their children all the things they were denied in their own childhoods -- affection, stimulation, support, attention, etc. When these two factors combine, the parent is likely to act out his primal needs through sexual contact with his child. This may lead the child to conclude unconsciously: "If I want Daddy to love me, I have to give Daddy what he wants." This idea then gets shortened to: "I want what Daddy wants," which ultimately becomes, "I want Daddy" -- which is then completely misconstrued as a sexual desire. The natural desire for contact came from the child; the sex came from the parent.
How did this erroneous view of childhood sexuality take hold? If children are sexual, then indeed they would have to inhibit their instincts because of the harmful possibilities of incest. But children are not sexual; they are sensual. It is when sensuality is mistaken for sexuality that it is subjected to the taboos appropriate to sexuality and incest. In other words, the necessity to inhibit sexuality between family members is co-opted to help repress sensuality as well.

Infantile sexuality becomes a dangerous concept when it is applied clinically and heralded as a cause for adult neurosis and adult Pain. It is dangerous because it implies that the victim --the child -- is his own assailant. The neurotic adult is left with nothing more than his own childish incestuous desires to explain his agony and his debility. Worse, the concept is itself seductive. It is an adult concept that falsely exonerates the adults who hold it. It perverts the neurotic child's reality by ignoring the deprivation inherent in the very creation of neurosis.
If it is the child's sexual desires that ultimately sicken him, and if it is the cultural taboo on incest that is responsible for such hysterical fear, then no parent need wonder at his or her role. The culprit again becomes an amorphous, impersonal, and immutable force: the taboos of society. The implication is that this conflict is inevitable. All children will desire to have sex with their parents; the desire will always be strongly forbidden; so all children must learn to deal with their desire in the face of the taboo in the best way possible. Those who manage this task will be well; those who don't will be neurotic.

Here Freud is far removed from the grim realities of the neurotic child's life. The child does not fear some abstract taboo, he fears being violated by his parents in concrete ways. He fears being abused, neglected, manipulated, ignored, humiliated, controlled, pressured, raped. He feels fear each time his needs are rebuffed, overlooked, or devalued. He fears not being taken seriously; he fears not having any power to decide how he spends his day, what he eats, how he talks, what he feels.

[1]Ibid., p. 409.
[2]Sulloway, pp. 409-410.
[3]Sulloway, p. 415.
[4]Ibid., p. 415.