Goodbye Sigmund Freud: The case for exorcising the ghost of Freud from the field of psychology

ABSTRACT

The argument put forth in this paper is that Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories were pseudoscientific and philosophical rather than empirical. Several examples are given to support this conclusion. It is further argued that Freud and his theories should be completely expurgated from the field and not taught in universities.

KEYWORDS:

• Freud
• psychoanalysis
• pseudoscience
• psychology
• education
• therapy

Declaration of interest

There is no conflict of interest, nor of funding by any institution. The question of ethical treatment of persons or animals is irrelevant in this mss.

Notes

1. This paper is frankly polemical in nature, an “accusation” that has been labeled as such by various readers. But this criticism, or if you will “accusation,” of Freud is hardly the first, see Crews (1999) for a compilation of exceedingly harsh critics of Freud, psychoanalysis, and the cult of sycophants that Freud created.

2. I must admit to having experienced these self-doubts, in direct proportion to the self-confidence of the various narrators, many decades ago during my graduate school days. Trying to follow the train of logic in Freud’s writings, which were devoid of crucial details, and abounded in non sequiturs was extremely perplexing. I could not understand how he could have come to the conclusions that he did; the hard data was not presented and the evidence that was presented was ambiguous at best. And what was the goal of psychoanalysis? Simply to have the patient admit to the Oedipus Complex? Ultimately, I decided that the crucial information, the basis, the key, must lie somewhere else, known only to the experts and I simply had not encountered it and had not had sufficient training. After all, Freud was considered a giant in the field of science; many books said so; many professors said so; many clinicians said so; many films said so. But in the end I realized that he was just a charlatan.

3. As Freud was referred to by some of his Jewish sycophants – and there were many; Freud insisted on groveling subservience from his followers inside the cult (cf. MacDonald (1996), Bair (2003)).

4. Indeed, the present author remembers instructors who, forced to teach Freud, attempted to attenuate the doctrines of The Master by appealing to his zeitgeist, to his ethnic subculture, to his personal life history, to his addiction to cocaine, to the small sample of clients, to his thirst for fame, and even to his attractive appearance in supposedly sparking off sexual fantasies in his female patients.

5. One editor wrote to me: “Many undergraduates taking psychology classes are disappointed to not be learning more about Freud; those we send over to the English department to revel in (gak!) Freudian analyses of literature.”

6. It is also important to remember that Freud not only was a cocaine addict, and was a promoter of cocaine addiction, but he tended to urinate in his trousers while in public, and fainted anytime that Jung said something that he particularly objected to (Bair, 2003). Quite the standard bearer for normality!.

7. At this point, I must interrupt the flow of the narrative to seemingly contradict myself, but in fairness it must be pointed out: Lastly, and very importantly, Sigmund Freud is one of those very rare individuals in the history of scientific thought who, although a charlatan, paradoxically did contribute something to science. This may appear confusing and to completely contradict the thesis of this paper, but one must remember Mesmer’s contribution to hypnosis and Lamarck’s other contributions to biology. Likewise, in the 19th century, a paleontologist by the name of Albert Koch created hoaxes, even though he also made legitimate paleontological discoveries (Mayor, 2012). Freud did contribute two original, demonstrable and innovative concepts to psychology, that of the various “defense mechanisms” and the so-called “Freudian slips,” as put forth in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (Freud, 1970). Arguably, his essay on humor (Freud, 1971) could also be considered innovative. And here, again, lies yet another reason for the ambivalence of many psychologists toward Freud, since if one part is true and evident, it is natural to think that the whole must be true.