Lecture Notes, Part 6 (© Robert DiSalle 2001)

The Legacy of Freud's Theory

I. The lasting appeal of psychoanalytic theory

MacMillan's explanation of the continuing appeal of psychoanalysis (Cf. Freud Evaluated, Chapter 16)

1. The main criticisms of Freud's theory are not widely known.

From non-psychoanalysts: Widespread rejection based on the scientific, methodological, explanatory, and demonstrated therapeutic weaknesses of Freud's theory.

From within psychoanalysis: Widespread modification or even abandonment of Freud's theoretical structure, and increasing reliance on a "purely clinical" theory not encumbered by Freud's theoretical presuppositions.

2. The theory maintains a pseudo-explanatory power.

Psychoanalytic interpretations appear to be rigidly deterministic, but are actually quite indeterminate.

There are no accepted rules for creating interpretations, nor for judging their correctness. Even psychoanalysts don't agree on any procedures.

The "language of the unconscious" is only a metaphor, given the absence of any criteria for judging any translations.

This makes the theory appeal to:

Academics from non-scientific fields, especially the humanities: "Psychoanalytic explanations appeal to those interested in history, philosophy, and the arts, and especially in literary criticism, precisely because the already have a high degree of tolerance for other equally indeterminate endeavors."

Amateur analysts: given the indeterminacy of the interpretive procedure, "Amateurs can arrive at explanations of their lives, their ideas, their feelings, or their behaviors which are just as plausible as those of the professionals."

3. The appeal of the irrational.

Large numbers of people feel familiar with the notion of being at the mercy of irrational forces. Freud's theory seems to place these into a familiar context, with irrational forces acting with the kind of intentionality of more familiar rational agents. E.g. Freud's discussion of "slips" uses familiar examples of mistakes with obvious conscious or preconscious motivations, and makes it easy for us to slide into thinking of unconscious motivations as operating in the same way.

4. The natural interest in sexuality.

Freud's theory is in a straightforward sense sexually provocative, and this remains a matter of interest for large groups of people, even though his sexual theories are quite primitive and out of date.

5. The appeal of therapy.

There is a widespread assumption that Freudian therapy works, even though it works no better than other "talking therapies, and not as well as the major "non-talking" therapies. Generally, therapeutic outcome is independent of the theory that the therapist believes in.

The precise relation between the therapist's personal qualities and the outcome is not well understood.

The precise nature of psychological improvement, when it happens, is poorly understood.

Psychoanalysts can bring about improvements by "creating meaning" for patients, but this has nothing to do with whether they discover some meaning that the symptoms really have. Truth is not a factor in successful interpretation.

II. If Freud's theory does not stand up to scrutiny as a science, a method of interpretation, or a therapy, does it have any positive legacy?

Are there "insights" of psychoanalysis that survive the all of the challenges to theory?

A. Donald Davidson: Freud's theory as a source of insight into the "paradoxes of irrationality"

The minimal Freudian ideas borrowed by Davidson:

1. The mind contains several "semi-independent structures" with separate mental states.

2. The separate parts are "like people", in having separate beliefs and desires, but also in being able to combine to cause further events.

3. When one substructure acts on another, it is -from the point of view of the one being acted upon- in the manner of a compelling physical force or disposition.

[Note that these aspects of Freud's theory can be considered independent of questionable hypotheses about neurosis and repression.]

Why is irrational behavior paradoxical?

Explanation of behavior typically invokes beliefs, desires, and intentions. It seems paradoxical that anyone would act contrary to their own beliefs, desires, or intentions. Bizarre or wrongheaded actions seem to be mistaken rather than irrational.

The problem: how to explain "akrasia," or behavior that goes against one's better judgment?

"The Plato Principle": No one ever acts irrationally, i.e. against their understanding of what is best; bad actions are always the result of ignorance. No intentional action is intentionally irrational.

" The Medea Principle": Sometimes people act against their understanding of what is best, but only when "overwhelmed" by a superior force that "takes over" the will.

Reasons and causes:

Reasons are not fundamentally different from causes. A reason to perform a certain action can be considered a cause of one's doing it, i.e. a factor that "makes a difference" to whether one does the action or not. But a cause of my doing something, or believing something, does not necessarily amount to a reason for doing it. Wishful thinking may be the cause of my having a certain belief, but is not a reason to have the belief.

This is why irrational behavior is difficult to explain. If I am caused to do something that I have no reason to do, we can say that I am going against my better judgment.

But if some cause is impelling me to do something against my better judgment-some internal mental malfunction, or an external force- then it doesn't make sense to call my behavior irrational.

[Second-level principles or "meta-principles": principles about principles, or principles about my motives and desires. E.g. "I ought to follow my best judgment," or "I ought not to follow certain kinds of desire."]

Irrational behavior involves knowingly going against my better judgment, i.e. knowingly going against the "second-level" principle or "meta-principle" that I ought to follow my better judgment.

How are we to understand the possibility of such behavior? Ordinarily, if I go against my better judgment, there is a "rational" explanation: I had a desire that, for the moment, seemed more important than my judgment.

(Aristotle: Such behavior involves momentarily "forgetting" one's principles or judgments.)

How can a mental event such as a desire cause irrational behavior, as if it were some compelling external or internal force?

This is easy to understand when two minds are involved, with conflicting desires. My desires can cause you to behave contrary to your own desires or judgments.

Conclusion: The irrational behavior of an individual can be explained if we can consider a the individual's mind as "divided" into "compartments," with separate and possibly conflicting desires.

Davidson's explanation of irrationality makes essential use of three Freudian ideas:

Only by partitioning the mind into autonomous "substructures" can we explain how a thought or impulse can cause another to which it bears no rational relation.

Only by characterizing the "substructures" as having features of minds--especially beliefs, purposes, and affects--can we think of substructures as acting from motivations.

Only by admitting the autonomy of the substructures can we understand how theyact like mere causes relative to one another.

If we could not explain irrationality in this way, we could not explain "self-criticism," i.e. "Second-level" criticism of our own desires. In such a case "the agent has reasons for changing his own habits and character, but those reasons necessarily come from a domain of values extrinsic to the contents of the views to undergo change."

B. David Shapiro on Neurotic Character:

Difficulties of historical interpretation.

On the one hand, historical understanding is the basis of psychoanalysis: interpretation of current symptoms is supposed to lead to insight into their infantile causes, and a "working through" of the original feelings.

On the other hand, the recovery of childhood memories is generally incomplete or unreliable, or both.

Accurate recovery of childhood memories is

1. Of questionable therapeutic benefit;

2. Theoretically questionable--there is no clear distinction between what is discovered and what is constructed.

A relativist view: Childhood history is not an objective set of facts that the analyst discovers, but a construction that the analyst invents for the sake of facilitating therapy: it is "the means to future effects and not the result of past causes". It enables the patient "to see his life as continuous, coherent, and, therefore, meaningful."

But how does the analyst answer the question, "Do you tell me this because you believe it, or because you think it would be good for me to believe it?"

If the interpretation is really the analyst's construction, how can it be part of an honest therapeutic relationship?

But what else could it be but a construction, since there is no way of judging its truth?

Historical vs. Characterological understanding:

Freud's historical view: Neurotic personalities "suffer from reminiscences," i.e. From childhood memories whose "cathected affect"lingers to trouble the patient as an adult. Infantile sexual fantasies "intrude" into an adult's life through impulses that can't be understood from the adult's point of view.

Behavior that seems irrational in light of current beliefs and desires makes sense from the point of view of preserved past desires and beliefs.

Even if the patient can't remember any of these impulses, they will reveal themselves by being repeated in the patient's relationship with the analyst (by "transference").

The characterological view: Explanation of adult symptoms through the dynamics and the nature--the characteristic attitudes, subjective experiences, and thought patterns --of the adult personality.

Neurotic symptoms are rarely "isolated intrusions" into the adult personality, but are invariably consistent with adult character and attitudes.

The various neuroses are definable by various "cognitive styles," i.e. by characteristic or stereotypical ways of thinking, observing, reacting, etc., as well as characteristic ways of thinking of one's relation to others and to the world at large. See, for example, David Shapiro's classic work, Neurotic Styles (1965), and also Autonomy and Rigid Character (1981), Psychotherapy of Neurotic Character (1989).

Neurosis as "self-estrangement":

Freudian view: The parts of one's personality from which one feels "estranged" -the part that doesn't make sense to the adult rational mind- are necessarily left over from past, "cathected" childhood fears, anxieties, attachments, etc.

Characterological view: "It is not a case of a rational adult being affected by an estranged voice of his childhood. It is, rather, a case of an adult who does not recognize his own voice....who is not merely out of touch with particular memories or fantasies but is unaware of whole aspects of his subjective experience."

Key to therapy: Not the recovery of preserved infantile experience, but the articulation of the workings of the adult personality.

Neurotic Anxiety:

Freud's view: Adult ego is defending itself against threats that no longer exist (castration, abandonment, punishment)

Characterological view: Feelings or acts are threatening, not because their associations with infantile experiences, but because of their present subjective significance for the person's present personality.

On the Freudian view, the subjective aspect of motivations is ignored: they are "drives," "needs", or "directed energies" seen from a quantitative point of view- "without reference to the kind of person whose feeling it is."

If this is true, then such motivations can only be understood in relation to the external threat or cause that has produced them.

Characterological view: It is the nature of a particular personality or "character," that determines what will be a cause of anxiety, or seen as a threat.

Character is expressed by one's characteristic attitudes and sense of self, i.e. sense of what kinds of behavior and thought are appropriate to one's image of oneself.

Infantile development may have a powerful and lasting effect on character, but character becomes an independent and self-sufficient entity.

To know what is "characteristic" of a person-what is thinkable and unthinkable for that person's thoughts and behavior- we do not need any historical or developmental information

The threats felt by the neurotically anxious are not imaginary, or past threats that no longer exist.

They are present threats to the person's sense of self.

Transference:

Freudian view: Patients repeat or re-live, in relation to the analyst, infantile relationships with other people (especially parents). This (in theory) provides the analyst with evidence about those infantile feelings which the patient is prevented from remembering.

The past is assumed to be preserved in its original infantile form-separated off from the patient's development into an adult- and transference is merely an "agency of transmission" of this past into the present.

Characterological view: Transference feelings are invariably consistent with the general pattern of the adult personality.

The patient's relation to the analyst reflects the dynamics of the adult's personality, not the simple repetition of unconscious memories.

Freudian view: The preserved "energy" of the original infantile feelings makes them relevant to the adult personality.

Characterological view: The relevance of the infantile feelings to the adult personality is what gives them their energy.

To the extent that a patient preserves the past at all, it is only in the way that its effects are incorporated into the present patterns of motivation and response, the present sense of who the patient is.

If we explain the neurotic personality as a reaction to what no longer exists, we direct the patient's attention away from his or her own personality.

"The patient reacts as he does because he is what he is"-not because he is responding to situations that no longer exist, but because of his own characteristic way of responding to present situations.

Freudian view: Historical explanation is a kind of deterministic, scientific explanation that "depersonalizes" the neurotic condition.

It is like any other medical condition, a kind of abcess or tumor (cathected affect from the past) that must be removed.

Historical explanation therefore is "exculpatory": the patient is not to be held up to moral reproach.

Historical explanation therefore removes personality disorders from the realm of morality to the realm of scientific medicine.

Characterological view: Historical explanation is too exculpatory: it ignores the nature of the patient's own present role in maintaining the past.

Historical explanation therefore ignores the more realistic and therapeutic aim: to acquaint the patient with the nature of his own subjective experience, the part of his own personality from which he is "estranged."