Unauthorized Freud

Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend is a 1998 book about Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, edited by the critic Frederick Crews. The book received both positive reviews, crediting Crews with having assembled a coherent case against Freud's theories and therapeutic techniques, and more mixed evaluations, which criticized Crews for lacking objectivity.

Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend
Cover of the first edition
EditorFrederick Crews
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectSigmund Freud
PublisherViking Penguin
Publication date
1998
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages352
ISBN978-0670872213

Summary

Unauthorized Freud is a collection of critical articles about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. In addition to Crews, the contributors include the critic Stanley Fish, the historians David Stannard and Peter Swales, the philologist Sebastiano Timpanaro, the philosophers Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Frank Cioffi, Barbara Von Eckardt, Ernest Gellner, and Adolf Grünbaum, the psychiatrist Joseph Wolpe, the psychoanalyst Rosemarie Sand, and the psychologists Malcolm Macmillan, Stanley Rachman, and Frank Sulloway. The remaining contributors are Allen Esterson, François Roustang, John Farrell, and Lavinia Edmunds. In his preface, Crews states that the book's purpose is to reevaluate Freud and examine psychoanalysis as a science and that it was composed primarily for "the general reader". Though writing that it shows psychoanalysis "to have been a mistake that grew into an imposture", he observes that it represents a range of different views, some more critical of Freud and psychoanalysis than others. Crews also writes that all of the features of recovered-memory therapy were pioneered by Freud, and that it is an example of the harmful influence of psychoanalysis.[1]

Sulloway's contributions are an extract from Freud, Biologist of the Mind (1979) and a subsequent article on Freud's case histories.[2][3] The contribution from Grünbaum is an extract from The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984),[4] while that of Macmillan is an extract from Freud Evaluated (1991).[5]

Publication history

Unauthorized Freud was first published in 1998 by Viking Penguin. In 1999, it was published by Penguin Books.[6]

Reception

Unauthorized Freud received positive reviews from Thomas T. Lewis in Magill Book Reviews and Edward T. Oakes in First Things,[7][8] as well as from Publishers Weekly.[9] The book received mixed reviews from Adam Bresnick in The Times Literary Supplement,[10] Edward V. Stein in Pastoral Psychology,[11] and Kurt Jacobsen in Psychoanalytic Studies.[12] The book was also reviewed by Mary Carroll in Booklist,[13] the English professor Mark Bauerlein in Skeptical Inquirer,[14] the critic Carol Iannone in Telos,[15] and the psychiatrist David Healy in The BMJ.[16]

Lewis described the selections included in the book as "impressive". He considered the most interesting contributions to be the "critical evaluations of Freud's case studies". He concluded that while some contributions were "unnecessarily polemical", they "add up to a devastating indictment of Freud's theories and therapeutic methods."[7] Oakes credited Crews with presenting a detailed case against Freud, writing that it "would convince all but the most doctrinaire Freudian", and with showing the links between psychoanalysis and the recovered memory movement. He believed that the contributions it contained made effective criticisms of Freud's use of "evidence gained in hypnosis and free association", his "rewriting of the history of the psychoanalytic movement", and "his lazy neurological assumption that infants have brains developed enough to sustain the emotional trauma he attributes to them". He described the work as "engrossing" and "absorbing and consistently well-argued".[8]

Publishers Weekly wrote that the essays included in the book presented a "formidable critique" of both Freudian theory and practice and Freud's major cases, and credited its contributors with presenting "compelling evidence that Freud habitually and greatly exaggerated his therapeutic successes" and with casting serious doubt on "confidence in free association as a curative tool to decipher the meaning of dreams or to reconstruct events from a patient's distant past." While it wrote that the book overstated the case against Freud, it praised the work Crews did in editing it, concluding that he had shaped the selections into a "cohesive whole" and "put psychoanalysis squarely on the defensive."[9]

Bresnick was unconvinced by the book's case against Freud, but nevertheless believed it had redeeming value. He praised the contribution by Swales.[10] Stein described the book as a "devastatingly critical assault" on Freud and psychoanalysis and predicted that it would have a lasting impact. He credited its contributors with showing "the fragility of the classical case studies, the circularity of much of Freud's logic and the degree of Freud's identification with favorable outcomes." However, he wrote that it was also malicious, lacking in objectivity, uneven in quality, and showed a lack of appreciation for the opposition Freud had to face and insensitivity toward Freud's inner conflicts. He also observed that only a minority of the contributors had a professional background in psychology of therapy.[11] Jacobsen believed that some of the essays made legitimate criticisms of psychoanalysis. However, he criticized Crews for lacking objectivity and fair-mindedness and rejected his claim that Freud was responsible for the "repressed memory movement."[12]

See also

References
  1. Crews 1999, pp. ix–xvi.
  2. Sulloway 1999a, pp. 54–68.
  3. Sulloway 1999b, pp. 174–185.
  4. Grünbaum 1999, pp. 76–84.
  5. Macmillan 1999, pp. 129–140.
  6. Crews 1999, p. vi.
  7. Lewis 1999.
  8. Oakes 1999, pp. 38–42.
  9. Publishers Weekly 1998, p. 76.
  10. Bresnick 1998, pp. 11–12.
  11. Stein 1999, pp. 317–318.
  12. Jacobsen 2000, pp. 403–404.
  13. Carroll 1998, p. 1833.
  14. Bauerlein 1999, pp. 51–52.
  15. Iannone 1999, pp. 164–168.
  16. Healy 1999, p. 949.

Bibliography
Books
  • Crews, Frederick (1999). "Introduction". In Crews, Frederick (ed.). Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-028017-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Grünbaum, Adolf (1999). "Made-to-Order Evidence". In Crews, Frederick (ed.). Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-028017-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Macmillan, Malcolm (1999). "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?". In Crews, Frederick (ed.). Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-028017-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Sulloway, Frank (1999a). "The Rhythm Method". In Crews, Frederick (ed.). Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-028017-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Sulloway, Frank (1999b). "Exemplary Botches". In Crews, Frederick (ed.). Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-028017-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Journals
  • Bauerlein, Mark (1999). "The Freud Controversy at Century's End". Skeptical Inquirer. 23 (5).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Bresnick, Adam (1998). "The originality of listening". The Times Literary Supplement (4987).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Carroll, Mary (1998). "Adult books: Nonfiction". Booklist. 94 (21–22).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Healy, David (1999). "Reviews". The BMJ. 318 (7188).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Iannone, Carol (1999). "Reconsidering Freud". Telos (116).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Jacobsen, Kurt (2000). "Reviews". Psychoanalytic Studies. 2 (4). doi:10.1080/14608950020005749.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Lewis, Thomas T. (1999). "Unauthorized Freud: Doubters confront a Legend". Magill Book Reviews (August 1 1999).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Oakes, Edward T. (1999). "The Man Behind the Curtain". First Things (89).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Stein, Edward V. (1999). "Book Reviews". Pastoral Psychology. 47 (4).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • "Forecasts: Nonfiction". Publishers Weekly. 245 (25). 1998.  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
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