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Psychobattles
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19526 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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11 / 1991 |
2,145 Words |
| Author
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Larry D. Nachman
Larry D. Nachman is professor of political science at the
College of Staten Island, CUNY, and is a frequent contributor
to Commentary and Salmagundi. He is completing a book on
psychoanalysis and social theory. |
THE SECRET RING
Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics
of Psychoanalysis
Phyllis Grosskurth
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1991
8304 pp., $22.95
As this nasty century draws to a close, it is clear that any list of its achievements in the realm of letters and thought will include the name of Sigmund Freud near or at the top. It is now hard to imagine thinking without the use of his categories. Like all works that have become classics, his writings continue to generate excitement and controversy as they did when they first appeared. But, in the case of Freud and his works, there are questions and conflicts that do not arise with other major thinkers of the past.
These issues originated with Freud and continue today in part because of the nature of work and in part because of the circumstances in which his theories originated. Freud did not institute merely a major new theory of human nature and a novel way of observing human behavior, he also created a therapy. Freud started out as a practicing physician with a specialty in neurology. But when he produced his theory of psychoanalysis, it was, in his own mind, of such a nature that he thought it must not be absorbed in a standard and conventional way into the practice of medicine. He believed--and continued to hold this belief as long as he lived--that psychoanalysis did not require medical training and should not be the monopoly of physicians.
However, if the theory and practice of psychoanalysis was not to be included within the medical profession, how was it to be institutionalized? If it were not so institutionalized, it would remain the idiosyncratic method of treatment of one single physician, and its practice would die with him.
The other possible institutional setting, the university, had long been foreclosed. Indeed, Freud had originally hoped to become a university professor and lead the life of a research scientist. He was advised against pursuing this ambition because there was little hope for a Jew to be able to get such a post. He became a doctor by default, and he always felt that being a physician was unsuitable both to his talents and to his disposition. Even with all the triumphs and successes of his life, he expressed in old age--with mingled satisfaction, bitterness, and irony--his feelings at having had his real calling
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