The history of the psychoanalytic movementFreud, Sigmund
History
The history of the psychoanalytic movement
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis -- History
Adler’s theory was, from the very beginning, a “system,” which
psychoanalysis was careful not to become. It is also an excellent
example of a “secondary elaboration” as seen, for example, in the
process which the waking thought produces in dream material.[18] In this
case instead of dream material there is the material newly acquired from
the viewpoint of the ego and brought under the familiar categories of
the same. It is then translated, changed, and as thoroughly
misunderstood as happens in the case of dream-formation. Adler’s theory
is thus characterized less by what it asserts than by what it denies. It
consequently consists of three elements of quite dissimilar value;
first, good contributions to the psychology of the ego, which are
superfluous but admissible; secondly, translations of analytical facts
into the new jargon, and, thirdly, distortions and perversions of these
facts when they do not fit into the ego presuppositions. The elements of
the first kind have never been ignored by psychoanalysis, although it
owed no special attention to them. Psychoanalysis had a greater interest
in showing that all ego strivings are mixed with libidinous components.
Adler’s theory emphasizes the counterpart to it; namely, that all
libidinous feeling contains an admixture of egotism. This would have
been a palpable gain if Adler had not made use of this assertion to
deny, every time, the libidinous feelings in favor of the impelling ego
components. His theory thus does exactly what all patients do, and what
our conscious thinking always does, it rationalizes, as Jones would say,
in order to conceal the unconscious motives. Adler is so consistent in
this, that he considers the object of evincing domination over the
woman, to be on the top, as the mainspring of the sexual act. I do not
know if he has upheld this monstrous idea in his writings.
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