[1914] The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement by Sigmund Freud

Author:Sigmund Freud [Freud, Sigmund]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement
ISBN: 978-0-307-82401-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1914-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

The task to which I am unequal, namely, that of reproaching the opponents “suaviter in modo” for their injustice and arbitrariness, was taken up by Bleuler in 1911 and carried out in most honorable fashion in his work, Freud’s Psychoanalysis: a Defense and a Criticism. It would be so entirely natural for me to praise this work, critical in two directions, that I hasten to tell what there is in it I object to. This work appears to me to be still very partisan, too lenient to the mistakes of our opponents, and altogether too severe to the shortcomings of our followers. This characterization of it may explain why the opinion of a psychiatrist of such high standing, of such indubitable ability and independence, has not had greater influence on his colleagues. The author of Affectivity (1906) must not be surprised if the influence of a work is not determined by the value of its argument but by the tone of its affect. Another part of this influence—the one on the followers of psychoanalysis—Bleuler himself destroyed later on by bringing into prominence in 1913, in his Criticism of the Freudian School, the obverse side of his attitude to psychoanalysis. Therein, he takes away so much from the structure of the psychoanalytic principles that our opponents may well be satisfied with the assistance of this defender. It was not new arguments or better observations that served Bleuler as a guidance for these verdicts, but only the reference to his own knowledge, the inadequacy of which the author no longer admits as in his earlier writings. Here, an almost irreparable loss seemed to threaten psychoanalysis. However, in his last utterance (Die Kritiken der Schizophrenie, 1914) on the occasion of the attacks made upon him owing to his introduction of psychoanalysis into his book on “Schizophrenie,” Bleuler rises to what he himself terms a “haughty presumption”: “But now I will assume a haughty presumption; I consider that the many psychologies to date have contributed mighty little to the explanation of the connection between psychogenetic symptoms and diseases, but that the depth psychology (‘tiefen Psychologie’) furnishes us a part of the psychology still to be created, which the physician needs in order to understand his patients and to heal them rationally; and I even believe that in my ‘Schizophrenie’ I have taken a very small step towards this.” The first two assertions are surely correct, the latter may be an error.

Since by the “depth psychology” psychoanalysis alone is to be understood, we may, for the present, remain satisfied with this admission.

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