Five reasons to forget Freud?

Women in psychoanalysis are still on the receiving end of misogyny

'Although nobody is afraid to criticise the Freudian roots of our profession anymore', says Dr Joanna North, reviewing Michaela Chamberlain's book, Misogyny in Psychoanalysis, 'it still doesn't mean old patterns of thinking, and behaviour have been relegated to the Freudian history books.' She points to Chamberlain's own experiences of being warned by a tutor to not 'fall into the trap of being a strident, strong woman' and argues that women are still affected by the impact of the power imbalance in the psychoanalysis model. 

North argues that training schools don't need to create another batch of mini-Freuds. Instead, she argues, we should look at how to 'create more discerning students who adopt a fluid modern version with equality combined with a good healthy look at the origins of psychoanalytic thought'.

'Freud's cures were largely ineffectual when they were not downright destructive'

…writes Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen in an extract from Freud's Patients: A Book of Lives. In Borch-Jacobsen's book, we discover more about Freud's actual clinical practice and what really happened to some of his lesser-known clients. He delves into the case of Margarethe Csonka, sent to see Freud by her father and who was the subject of an article he wrote named 'Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman'. Csonka later told her biographers that she had 'led Freud down the garden path' during their sessions, by telling him merely custom-made dreams in order to be left alone. 

Does Freud take too much credit for 'the talking cure?'

A more recent book, The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim, by Gabriel Brownstein, explores the  story of 'Anna O', aka Bertha Pappenheim. (Anna O was the pseudonym given to her by her physician, Josef Breuer.) It was Bertha who coined the phrase 'talking cure' to describe the talk therapy process that Breuer used to treat her condition. Her symptoms included visual disturbances, hallucinations, partial paralysis, and speech problems. Breuer diagnosed her with 'hysteria' and later discussed her case with his friend, Freud. They later fell out over Freud's insistence that hysteria was rooted in childhood sexual abuse. 

Brownstein argues that through the interpretations and reinterpretations of Bertha Pappenheim's illness, we see a multitude of prejudices and that, 'our struggle to understand Pappenheim is our struggle to understand ourselves.' He goes on to look at how even today, people (more women than men) have been dismissed by the medical profession after reporting their FND (functional neurological disorder, which would have been labelled as hysteria in the past). 

'He sacrificed the respectability of psychoanalysis for the sake of his own gain'

Back in 2000, psychologists were questioning the real motives behind Freud's theories. Here, Chloe Smith looks at how, although at the beginning of his career, he challenged contemporary beliefs and took psychology in a new direction, he soon changed course. Based on a limited number of case studies, he concluded that 'hysteria' in adulthood was caused by the repression of sexual abuse in childhood. At first, writes Smith, 'he was passionate about his theory and defended it avidly.' Then, after realising that his seduction theory could be an explanation for some, but not all neurosis, Freud abandoned it. 'It was not the large-scale reputation-making discovery that he wanted, so he shunned it.' writes Smith. 'In order to abandon his theory discreetly, he said that patients were in fact reporting fantasies of seduction. He took away the notion of childhood innocence, replacing it with the idea of lust, anger and sexuality.'  Smith argues that it was Freud's relentless desire for fame which was behind him covering up the weaknesses in his theory.

Freud's 'penis envy' theory was 'unfairly based on a model where there was no place for femininity'

Riya Yadav, argues that at its best, Freud's concept of 'penis envy; (the idea that a woman realises she does not possess a penis and experiences an envy of the male, which, Freud believed, accounted for much of female behaviour), is a 'slightly silly theory with some symbolic use if not taken too literally.' But, she asks, at its worse, if it is an escape route for abusers that affects women even today.

His theories were 'quite ludicrous' but… do they still hold appeal?

Writing back in 2006, Professor Michael Billig, claims that despite the implausibility of many of Freud's theories, he persists in reading his work. 'Just when I would think that his arguments were spinning off into silliness and I was about to put down the book in exasperation, I would be brought up short with an insight that could not be lightly brushed aside.' He goes on to advise his students to 'not expect well-founded theories, which are carefully laid out and cautiously elaborated. Instead, to [find] a mixture of wisdom and folly with just enough of the former to excuse the latter. '

Others agree that Freud still holds relevance. Back in 2000, The Psychologist Guest Editors Bernice Andrews and Chris R. Brewin introduced a on Freudian theory in the light of modern research and looked at what he did get (partly) right and what he didn't, examining the concept of transference, unconscious, and repression. 'Our intention is simply to accompany the reader on a voyage of discovery concerning the status of some significant aspects of Freudian theory in the light of the most recent scientific knowledge.'

Simon Baron-Cohen agrees that Freud may yet still offer some significant theory, saying here that 'it is altogether too easy to dismiss the Freudian approach as pre-scientific [but] if his analysis of just half a dozen single-case studies reveals a pattern that might reflect a human universal, this is as valuable as larger-scale surveys or carefully designed experiments conducted in a well-controlled manner.

• You can find lots more on Freud and those around him in our archive, including Anna Freud, the Freud Museum, the Freudian motivation behind the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, and even Freud and the British royal family.