The Freudian Revolution

THE most revolutionary changes are changes in man’s basic beliefs about himself. Three such revolutions have occurred in Western thought in the past five hundred years — the Copernican, the Darwinian, and the Freudian — and they have successively dealt shattering blows to man’s pride. Copernicus dethroned man from the center of the universe. Darwin challenged his sense of divinity by tracing his descent to the animal kingdom. And Sigmund Freud, the first cartographer of the unconscious, punctured his conviction that the conscious mind was master of man’s fate. “I belonged,” Freud justly said, quoting the poet Hebbel, “to those who have profoundly troubled the sleep of mankind .”

Freud’s discoveries are the original source of most of the developments and issues discussed in this special supplement of the Atlantic. Psychoanalysis, which is roughly the same age as the twentieth century, has several aspects. On the practical side, it is a specialized diagnostic and therapeutic technique within the domain of psychiatry, the branch of medicine that concerns itself with mental illness. In the United States today, psychoanalysts, with some exceptions, are M.D.’s who have completed a year’s general internship, two years’ psychiatric residence, and a course of study at an accredited psychoanalytic institute, where they must themselves undergo analysis. (Their analytic training alone costs around $20,000.)

Psychoanalysis is also a system of psychology, an organized body of theories about human behavior; and, in spite of Freud’s denials that it was committed to any particular Weltanschauung, it has become, in the hands of his interpreters, a doctrine with its own philosophy. All of these aspects of psychoanalysis — along with popular misconceptions, and with heresies and innovations, some of which may represent progress — have contributed to the cultural revolution which one is forced to call Freudian, even though there is much in it for which Freud himself was not responsible, much that would horrify him.

The impact of this revolution has been incalculably great in the United States. To an extent not paralleled elsewhere, psychoanalysis and psychiatry in general have influenced medicine, the arts and criticism, popular entertainment, advertising, the rearing of children, sociology, anthropology, legal thought and practice, humor, manners and mores, even organized religion.

Several of our contributors observe that psychoanalysis, by force of circumstances, has in effect become a secular religion. This approach places many of the distressing aspects of the Freudian Revolution in their proper perspective. The awful movies depicting quasi-miraculous psychoanalytic cures; the slick novels and dramas in which bad Daddy and possessive Mummy are the source of all evil; the cocktail party sages who have translated gossip into solemn psychoanalytic jargon — these and many other unattractive phenomena of our psychology-conscious age have their counterparts in the vulgarizations and corruptions to which religion has been subjected.

It would seem, indeed, that psychoanalysis is to some extent the victim of its own success. A good many of the complaints voiced against it betray excessive demands or expectations. People point to acquaintances not benefited by analysis as proof that its claims are not substantiated; but no responsible analyst has asserted that worth-while results are achieved in more than 50 to 60 per cent of the cases. One hears, too, gibes about the conduct and competence of analysis which seem to be based on the assumption that the profession should be immune to human fallibility; it is inevitable that there should be a certain number of defective analysts, just as there are mediocre surgeons, bad doctors, and errant priests.

Of course, there is much in the theory, practice, and cultural repercussions of modern psychiatry that invites debate or criticism. Our hope is that this supplement will help to illuminate certain segments of this large and controversial subject. Two principles have guided the editing: breadth of coverage and diversity of opinion. Several schools of thought are represented, and there is a vigorous and varied body of criticism.

It is surely beyond doubt today that modern psychiatry is able to help people who could not previously be helped; anyone who has seen the transformation it can bring about in a painfully disordered child is apt to be impatient with the chronic scoffers. It has emphasized the role of love in normal development and has produced a new awareness of the importance of childhood, a greater generosity of spirit toward the needs of the child. It has provided man with ways and means of deepening his understanding of himself and of his basic problems as a culture-building animal. In sum, it represents, perhaps, a crucial break-through in man’s pursuit of self-knowledge and self-realization.