The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason 3rd Edition by Ernest Gellner (PDF)

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The Psychoanalytic Movement explains how the language of psychoanalysis became the dominant way in which the middle classes of the industrialized West speak about their emotions. Explains how the language of psychoanalysis became the dominant way for the industrialized West to speak about emotion. Argues that although psychoanalysis offers an incisive picture of human nature, it provides untestable operational definitions and makes unsubstantiated claims concerning its therapeutic efficacy. Includes new foreword by Jose Brunner that expands on the central argument of the book and argues that Gellner and Freud might be seen as kindred spirits.

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⭐Gellner was born in Paris in 1925, and was educated in Prague and England. Among other positions he held, he was professor of philosophy and sociology at the London School of Economics from 1949 to 1984. This kind of background is very important to understanding and questioning Freud’s basic ideas. Most of the beginning texts books on “Western Psychology” today talk about Freud as if he was the father of the “unconscious” and an original genius who “discovered” and created, almost single-handily, the beginnings of what we know today as the “Science of Psychology.”This myth is perpetuated hundreds of times over in both college text books and, especially, in the media. Well, Gellner lived all during the time that Freud was creating his own mythology and writing about successful therapeutic encounters with patients that never happened, or at least should be questioned as driven by a man who was a creator of his own novel. Freud reeks of subjectivity and a mania to be someone who was only one of the players of the time.That Gellner was trained in philosophy and sociology is very important to understanding Freud. Gellner is not repeating the standard story about Freud because he had no interest or involvement in the American text book industry or American academic world of book publishing, among other realities. As I noticed immediately, he was only interested in investigating the main ideas behind the psychoanalytic movement as any good philosopher does–just for themselves and in the context of the idea’s life. This book is not a “great read” or in any way targeted to the incoming freshman of American universities. Gellner digs, questions, and relentlessly questions the basic ideas of the psychoanalytic movement. So, if you think that “everyone knows” that we all have “unconscious” minds or areas of thought, reason and many, many buried past events that drive our present interactions and emotions and human possibilities that must be revealed in order for us to be successful, happy or capable of achieving our goals in life–then do not read this book! You start to find out that Freud lived in a rather bloody moment in history and needed money to feed his family and created a novel to make all that happen. You will not find all of that in Gellner’s book. But, you will find “…what Freud in effect did was to supplement and fortify a naïve mentalist model of conscious human behavior, by endowing the conscious mind with a kind of strange doppelganger who, however, all in all, rather resembled his partner.” (p.86) Where is that criticism in Psychology 101? And, of course, in all the following notations of Freud being the person who “discovered the unconscious.” Or, maybe he “created it?” After all, no one in the history of ideas, philosophy, meditation, spiritual quests or other self human examination processes, in any time before Freud, questioned how the mind works in any form of a “scientific” examination as objective as Freud–right? Good Hunting.

⭐Ernest Gellner stigmatizes Freudianism as a secular religion, where the Unconscious (a new version of the Original Sin) is treated as a Revelation, with a sharp distinction between the sacred (those under analysis) and the profane, between the good (the true believers) and the bad, and where reason must be suspended.Freud’s concepts are untestable (the experience – transfer – between analysand and analyst is unique) and nebulous (reality can always be made conform to the system).His basic technique is free association which should lead to the uncovering of repressed mental contents and correspondent therapeutic consequences for the patient.The only testable component of the theory are its therapeutic claims, but the effectiveness of the therapy is extremely dubious and unproven.For the author, Freudianism is a self-perpetuating, falsification-evading, closed system, which controls its own database. In one word, it is a pseudo-science.Its enormous vested interests (also financial) are cultivated and protected by a guild: UNATO (United Nations Analysis and Therapy Organization).This brilliantly written, corrosive text contains excellent short evaluations of Nietzsche, Marx, Berkeley, Plato and Stoicism.A must read for all guild-members and outsiders.

⭐This is one of the most intellectually satisfying books that I have read. Everything just falls into place. My interest in Freud goes back to an undergraduate course in advanced social psychology I took in 1972. We read Totem and Taboo, The Future of an Illusion, and Civilization and Its Discontents. These works are a late career excursus in which Freud uses his theories to explain cultural phenomena. His insights are bold, controversial, and fascinating. I never really bought into his grand psychological mansion built on a foundation of speculative sand, but the subject was theoretically exciting and I read widely and deeply in this area for many years. And as Montaigne shrewdly commented hundreds of years ago: “He who is believed in his presuppositions is our master and our god.”Our author, Ernest Gellner (1925-1995), was one of those central European polymaths that seemed to make outsized contributions to 20th-century academia. He was professor of philosophy and sociology at the London School of Economics, and finished his career teaching social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. The book under review here deftly weaves together insights of psychology, sociology, philosophy, and history. The prose is crystal clear and moves along briskly. An added and unexpected bonus is Gellner’s astute remarks concerning Plato, the Stoics, Hume, Kant, and Nietzsche. These names rarely come up in works on Freudian theory, but here they seem highly relevant.THE PROBLEMFreud’s views on human nature ranged from severe pessimism to mild pessimism. The gigantic, mostly unsolvable problem is human unhappiness. We all face the ordeal of ordinary unhappiness. Our goal of happiness “. . . is at loggerheads with the whole world, . . . There is no possibility at all of its being carried through; all the regulations of the universe run counter to it” (Civilization and Its Discontents, p. 729). Our bodies are prone to disease and decay. The external world unleashes merciless forces of destruction–tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, just to name a few. And perhaps the worst of all is our relations with our fellow human beings (ibid.).We are all thrown into a world we did not create, and that will eventually kill us. As noted above, this produces ordinary unhappiness that we must combat with Stoic resolve. But Freud chose the healing profession as his life’s work. He trained as a medical doctor with a specialty in neuropathology. Psychological illnesses lead to mental unhappiness. Freud famously said in his Studies On Hysteria (1895) that his clinical goal was “transforming neurotic misery into ordinary unhappiness.”THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEMFor at least several thousand years Western culture, under the influence of religion, has tended to view mankind as half-angel, half-beast (p. 11). The 18th century Enlightenment, with its glorification of reason, suspicion of religion, and commitment to science, sought to establish a new worldview. Freud, a child of this Enlightenment, chose the science of medicine as a way of alleviating pain and thus making the world a better place. He specialized in neurotic pathologies and eventually created new theories and methods of treatment in his quest to better the human condition. He initially approached the problem using metaphors borrowed from neurology, physiology, and even mechanics and physics. This early phase quickly became a search for a “scientific psychology,” although elements of his more scientistic thinking would occasionally surface in his later work.The UNCONSCIOUS is the central concept in psychoanalysis (p. 98). This idea did not originate with Freud, but his elaboration of it was crucial to his theory of REPRESSION. An idea or feeling that is repressed disappears from consciousness but remains active in determining attitudes, feelings, and other thoughts. Our conscious mind constructs reasons to account for our behavior, but these rational intentions are merely a mask for unacceptable instinctual wishes. Freud’s structure of the mind is represented by three elements —the id, ego, and superego The id is that part of the psyche which contains aggressive impulses and repressed wishes. It is guided solely by the Pleasure Principle and recognizes no rational rules or even time itself. The ego contains our rational element. It is in charge of perception, reality-testing, and the satisfaction of our desires through a mediation with real-world facts. The superego is our conscience. It is our internalization of society’s norms and tries to keep the ego from acceding too easily to the id’s demands.The guiding thread here is the power of the unconscious instinctual drives in determining our behavior. There exists a deep psyche that is engaged in perpetual civil wars. Our conscious mind, the shining beacon of Cartesian and Enlightenment thought, is really just a small boat lost in a turbulent sea of raging unconscious mental processes.For Freud the root of the problem was mankind’s biological nature—our HUMAN NATURE. Gellner makes a brilliant move by interpreting Freud through Nietzschean lenses. This Nietzschean Minimum (NM) is outlined in a discussion of ten important concepts (pp. 20-22):(1) INSTINCTUALITY. Basic instinctual drives determine our real needs and satisfactions. Some, like sex and aggression, need to be strictly controlled lest they lead to the destruction of the organism.(2) SITUATIONALITY. Our satisfactions are situational and persisting. We are concerned with total situations, not with a mere pleasure/pain balance sheet.(3) REALITY IS OTHER PEOPLE. Our interactions with other people, especially significant others, are our major concern. The most important are our relations of power and submission.(4) TRAUMA AND GESTALT. Perceptions and attitudes are formed mainly by trauma. Single crucial events modify our subjective view of the world.(5) COVERTNESS. Important changes of vision and attitude are not generally conscious or accessible to consciousness, or even under our deliberate control.(6) INFANCY. Many, perhaps all, of our significant changes occur early in life. They frequently persist in the same person for many years.(7) SURREALISM. Important principles in our development do not obey the rules of time, space, logic, and causality. Vital ones may be ignored and lesser issues may exercise outsized influence.(8) CUNNING. Our instinctual drives exhibit a bestial cunning in order to serve their animal lusts. These are often thwarted due to their stupidity in relation to fact and logic.(9) FRAUD. Our best qualities—conscience, reason, pursuit of ideals—are also at the service of our cunning animal instincts. They are thus linked to dishonesty, weakness, and illness.(10) PATHOLOGY. These hurtful, hidden, and instinct-linked phenomena are the causes of psychological diseases that frequently masquerade as physical symptoms.Gellner notes some differences between Nietzsche and Freud. Nietzsche dwells mostly on the power aspects of our nature, Freud on the sexual aspects. Nietzsche highlights the aesthetic and political demerits of European civilization. Freud works towards personal and (hopefully) societal well-being (p. 22). Nietzsche celebrates human suffering. Freud tries to cure it.THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMFreud’s professors at the University of Vienna gave him a solid scientific grounding in the best nineteenth-century positivist thought. His favorite professor, Ernst Brucke, was an eminent physiologist. The favored explanatory factors were materialism and motion, and psychology was to be reduced to physiology. Freud initially followed this approach, and in 1895 he wrote an unpublished essay titled “Project For a Scientific Psychology.” Here he stated that he wanted ” a psychology that shall be a natural science: that is, to represent psychical processes as quantitatively determinant states of specifiable material particles,. . .” (p. 87). A year later, in 1896, he moved away from this project and started formulating PSYCHOANALYSIS. This became his famous “talking cure,” and though always controversial, it made him world-famous.In order to uncover the root problems of the patient it is necessary to probe deeply into his psyche. But the id tries to block access by repressing certain mental contents that are vital for an accurate analysis. The analyst uses certain techniques such as free association, dream interpretation, and transference in order to unlock the twisted blockages buried deep within the Unconscious. This intervention by a trained professional brings to an end the conflict between ego and libido, and the result is the restoration of the subject’s mental unity (p. 56). Ideally the truth sets the patient free from painful neuroses. He is now free to enjoy the benefits of ordinary unhappiness.PROBLEMS WITH THE SOLUTIONAvailing oneself of psychoanalytic therapy is a time-consuming and expensive process. Given these important considerations a person suffering mental anguish deserves an effective treatment. After 120 years of psychoanalytic practice there is very little evidence that its cures succeed. Gellner cites several important empirical studies (pp. 158-163) . One quote from a Jungian analyst sums it up rather nicely: “. . . the evidence that psychoanalysis cures anyone of anything is so shaky as to be practically non-existent” (p. 161). Freud and his followers claimed that the effectiveness of psychoanalysis was confirmed by clinical interactions. But science demands sturdier stuff.The most impressive insights of this brilliant book are found in its devastating criticisms of the Freudian theories themselves. Our author lists numerous weak points in the Freudian edifice. I will note just a few to give the reader some familiarity with the gist of the critique.(A) “Psychoanalysis maintains that all surface data are suspect and unreliable, . . . All surface data and most depth interpretations are false, . . . ” (p. 176).(B) The centerpiece of psychoanalysis is the Unconscious. Only Freud and his followers have a privileged access (through their theoretical peep-hole) into the maelstrom of conflicting motives and dangerous instincts (p. 183).(C) Freud “. . . decoded not so much the psyche as history.” Like Marx ” he too returned meaning and hope to a disenchanted world, rejoined fact and value, saved the world from cold inquiry and handed it over to facile humanist peddlers of salvation” (p. 220).Gellner sums up the critical thrust of his book using a quote from Sir Peter Medawar (p. 222): “The opinion is gaining ground that doctrinaire psychoanalytic theory is the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century.”SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY1) Crews, Frederick—Freud: The Making of an Illusion. (A masterful, highly critical biography. Required reading for all serious students of Freud.)2) Freud, Sigmund—“Project for a Scientific Psychology,” (excerpt) in Peter Gay, The Freud Reader, pp. 87-89.3) Freud, Sigmund—Civilization and Its Discontents (abridgment) in Peter Gay, The Freud Reader, pp 722-772.4) Grunbaum, Adolf—The Foundations of Psychoanalysis. (A scientific critique by a highly respected philosopher of science.)

⭐Ernest Gellner stigmatizes Freudianism as a secular religion, where the Unconscious (a new version of the Original Sin) is treated as a Revelation, with a sharp distinction between the sacred (those under analysis) and the profane, between the good (the true believers) and the bad, and where reason must be suspended.Freud’s concepts are untestable (the experience – transfer – between analysand and analyst is unique) and nebulous (reality can always be made conform to the system).His basic technique is free association which should lead to the uncovering of repressed mental contents and correspondent therapeutic consequences for the patient.The only testable component of the theory are its therapeutic claims, but the effectiveness of the therapy is extremely dubious and unproven.For the author, Freudianism is a self-perpetuating, falsification-evading, closed system, which controls its own database. In one word, it is a pseudo-science.Its enormous vested interests (also financial) are cultivated and protected by a guild: UNATO (United Nations Analysis and Therapy Organization).This brilliantly written, corrosive text contains excellent short evaluations of Nietzsche, Marx, Berkeley, Plato and Stoicism.A must read for all guild-members and outsiders.

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