Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought by Erich Fromm

Author:Erich Fromm [Fromm, Erich]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781480402393
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-02-25T23:00:00+00:00

If we analyze Freud’s analysis of the dream what do we find? He brings various associations to the dream, one about the young woman who complained of her husband’s having forgotten to bring her flowers on her birthday, another about his dissertation on the coca plant which had drawn Karl Koller’s attention to the anaesthetic qualities of cocaine. The dried plant leads to associations from his school life where the teacher had given him the task of cleaning a herbarium. Seeing the monograph lying before him reminds him of something his friend Fliess had written him the day before and the folded colored plates lead to an association about his aptitude for making them and his propensity for buying books. He goes on to talk about a conversation with Dr. Königstein.

If we ask what insight we have into Freud from his interpretation of the dream I am afraid we must admit that we learn almost nothing about him. And yet the meaning of the dream is so obvious and indeed exceedingly important as a key to understanding Freud’s personality.

A flower is a symbol of love, Eros, friendship and joy. What has Freud done with love and joy? He has transformed them into objects of scientific research; love and joy have been removed from the flower which is now dried and an object of scientific research. What could be more characteristic of Freud’s whole life? He has transformed love (in his own terms, sexuality) into an object of scientific observation and in this process it has dried up and lost its meaning as human experience. This is what Freud expresses so clearly in this dream and yet by heaping association upon association which end up in practically nothing, he succeeds in covering up the awareness of the meaning of the dream: the transformation of love from life to an object of science. This dream, like many others, is an example of the fact that Freud, by innumerable associations, succeeds very often in covering up the real meaning of the dream because he does not want to see this meaning. To put it differently, Freud’s method of endless associations is an expression of resistance against the understanding of the meaning of his dreams.

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