The history of the psychoanalytic movementFreud, Sigmund
History
The history of the psychoanalytic movement
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis -- History
I will not linger any longer over the biological side of Adler’s theory,
and will not examine whether the palpable inferiority of organs or the
subjective feeling of the same (one often cannot tell which) can
possibly be the basis of Adler’s system. Only permit me to remark that
this would make the neurosis a by-product of the general stunting, while
observation teaches that an excessively large number of hideous,
misshapen, crippled, and wretched creatures have failed to react to
their deficiencies by developing a neurosis. Nor will I consider the
interesting information that the sense of inferiority goes back to
infantile feelings. It shows us in what disguise the doctrine of
infantilism, so much emphasized in psychoanalysis, returns in Adler’s
Individual Psychology. On the other hand, I am obliged to emphasize how
all psychological acquisitions of psychoanalysis have been disregarded
by Adler. In his book “The Nervous Character,” the unconscious still
appears as a psychological peculiarity, but without any relation to his
system. Later, he declared, quite logically, that it was a matter of
indifference to him whether any conception be conscious or unconscious.
For the principle of repressions, Adler never evinced any understanding.
While reviewing a lecture before the Vienna Society in 1911, he said:
“On the strength of a case I wish to point out that the patient had
never repressed his libido, against which he continually tried to secure
himself.”[20] Soon thereafter at a discussion in Vienna Adler said: “If
you ask whence comes the repression, you are told: from culture. But if
you ask whence comes culture, the reply is: from the repression. So you
see it is only a question of a play on words.” A small fragment of the
sagacity used by Adler to defend his “nervous character” might have
sufficed to show him the way out of this pettifogging argument. There is
nothing mysterious about it, except that culture depends upon the acts
of repression of former generations, and that each new generation is
required to retain this culture by carrying out the same repressions. I
have heard of a child that considered itself fooled and began to cry,
because to the question: “Where do eggs come from?” it received the
answer, “Eggs come from hens,” and to the further question: “Where do
the hens come from?” the information was “From the eggs,” and yet this
was not a play upon words. The child had been told what was true.
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