A General Introduction to PsychoanalysisFreud, Sigmund
Science
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
The impartial student of Sigmund Freud need not agree with all his
conclusions, and indeed, like the present writer, may be unable to make
sex so all-dominating a factor in the psychic life of the past and
present as Freud deems it to be, to recognize the fact that he is the
most original and creative mind in psychology of our generation. Despite
the frightful handicap of the _odium sexicum_, far more formidable today
than the _odium theologicum_, involving as it has done for him lack of
academic recognition and even more or less social ostracism, his views
have attracted and inspired a brilliant group of minds not only in
psychiatry but in many other fields, who have altogether given the world
of culture more new and pregnant _appercus_ than those which have come
from any other source within the wide domain of humanism.
A former student and disciple of Wundt, who recognizes to the full his
inestimable services to our science, cannot avoid making certain
comparisons. Wundt has had for decades the prestige of a most
advantageous academic chair. He founded the first laboratory for
experimental psychology, which attracted many of the most gifted and
mature students from all lands. By his development of the doctrine of
apperception he took psychology forever beyond the old associationism
which had ceased to be fruitful. He also established the independence of
psychology from physiology, and by his encyclopedic and always thronged
lectures, to say nothing of his more or less esoteric seminary, he
materially advanced every branch of mental science and extended its
influence over the whole wide domain of folklore, mores, language, and
primitive religion. His best texts will long constitute a thesaurus
which every psychologist must know.
Again, like Freud, he inspired students who went beyond him (the
Wurzburgers and introspectionists) whose method and results he could not
follow. His limitations have grown more and more manifest. He has little
use for the unconscious or the abnormal, and for the most part he has
lived and wrought in a preevolutionary age and always and everywhere
underestimated the genetic standpoint. He never transcends the
conventional limits in dealing, as he so rarely does, with sex. Nor does
he contribute much likely to be of permanent value in any part of the
wide domain of affectivity. We cannot forbear to express the hope that
Freud will not repeat Wundt's error in making too abrupt a break with
his more advanced pupils like Adler or the Zurich group. It is rather
precisely just the topics that Wundt neglects that Freud makes his chief
corner-stones, viz., the unconscious, the abnormal, sex, and affectivity
generally, with many genetic, especially ontogenetic, but also
phylogenetic factors. The Wundtian influence has been great in the past,
while Freud has a great present and a yet greater future.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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