The history of the psychoanalytic movementFreud, Sigmund
History
The history of the psychoanalytic movement
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis -- History
“Not the slightest effort was made to consider the past or the
transferences. Whenever I thought that the latter were touched, they
were explained as a mere symbol of the libido. The moral instructions
were very beautiful and I followed them faithfully, but I did not
advance one step. This was more distressing to me than to the physician,
but how could I help it?—Instead of freeing me analytically, each
session made new and tremendous demands on me, on the fulfilment of
which the overcoming of the neurosis was supposed to depend. Some of
these demands were: inner concentration by means of introversion,
religious meditation, living together with my wife in loving devotion,
etc. It was almost beyond my power, since it really amounted to a
radical transformation of the whole spiritual man. I left the analysis
as a poor sinner with the strongest feelings of contrition and the very
best resolutions, but at the same time with the deepest discouragement.
All that this physician recommended any pastor would have advised, but
where was I to get the strength?”
It is true that the patient had also heard that an analysis of the past
and of the transference should precede the process. He, however, was
told that he had enough of it. But as it had not helped him, it seems to
me that it is just to conclude that the patient had not had enough of
this first sort of analysis. Not in any case has the superimposed
treatment which no longer has the slightest claim to call itself
psychoanalysis, helped. It is a matter of wonder that the men of Zürich
had need to make the long detour via Vienna to reach Bern, so close to
them, where Dubois cures neuroses by ethical encouragement in the most
indulgent fashion.[21]
The utter disagreement of this new movement with psychoanalysis
naturally shows itself also in its attitude towards repression, which is
hardly mentioned any more in the writings of Jung; in the utter
misconstruction of the dream which Adler, ignoring the dream-psychology,
confuses with the latent dream-thoughts, and also in the lack of
understanding of the unconscious. In fact this disagreement can be seen
in all the essential points of psychoanalysis. When Jung tells us that
the incest-complex is only “symbolic,” that it has “no real existence,”
that the savage feels no desire towards the old hag but prefers a young
and pretty woman, then one is tempted to assume in order to dispose of
apparent contradiction that “symbolic” and “no real existence” only
signify what is designated as “existing unconsciously.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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