Freud for Historians

by Peter Gay

Is psychoanalysis a legitimate tool for helping us understand the past? Many traditional historians have answered with an emphatic no, greeting the introduction of Freud into historical study with reponses ranging from condescending skepticism to outrage. Now Peter Gay, one of America's leading historians, builds an eloquent case for "history informed by psychoanalysis" & offers an impressive rebuttal to the charges of the profession's anti-Freudians. This book takes on the opposition's arguments, defending psychoanalysis as a discipline that can enhance social, economic & literary studies. No mere polemic, Freud for Historians is a thoughtful & detailed contribution to a major intellectual debate.

Genres: History, Psychology, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 1985

About the author

Peter Joachim Gay was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers (1997–2003). He received the American Historical Association's (AHA) Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. He authored over 25 books, including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, a two-volume award winner; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968); and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988).
Gay was born in Berlin in 1923, left Germany in 1939 and emigrated, via Cuba, to the United States in 1941. From 1948 to 1955 he was a political science professor at Columbia University, and then a history professor from 1955 to 1969. He left Columbia in 1969 to join Yale University's History Department as Professor of Comparative and Intellectual European History and was named Sterling Professor of History in 1984.
Gay was the interim editor of The American Scholar after the death of Hiram Haydn in 1973 and served on that magazine's editorial board for many years. Sander L. Gilman, a literary historian at Emory University, called Gay "one of the major American historians of European thought, period".

Reviews

[John David · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Freud for Historians” is the third book of a trilogy that began with “Style in History” (1974) and “Art and Act” (1976). In the earlier books, Gay used some unchallenged assumptions of his field, and therefore used the third book in order to explain the basis for his historical methodology. Gay is a psychohistorian – that is, a historian whose work is consciously influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud, specifically psychoanalysis. He has quite rightly perceived Freud to be under attack from many corners, not least from academic historians, and uses this book to explain how Freud can shed some light on the historical experience and human psychological understanding when used intelligently.

Gay notes that historians have had a curious aversion toward psychohistory. He makes a strong case that, besides just a simple recounting of events, historians also need a way of discussing the motivations, passions, desires, and needs of historical actors. Where to look for a model? While historians have been reluctant to appropriate Freud, this, he argues is far from their only problem: even some of the most accomplished historians have also misunderstood, deliberately distorted, or even lied about him in their academic work.

“What psychoanalysis can bring to the assessment of past experiences is a set of discoveries and a method – fallible, incompletely tested, difficult to apply yet, I am persuaded, the best we now have to register the broken surfaces and sound the unplumbed depths of human nature” (p. 77). Gay concedes that much of the problems might be Freud’s reputation as a monolithic, reductive determinist (“biology is destiny”) who leaves no room for the complexities of class, culture, or other variables in individual lives. But he makes a tight and compelling case that a sophisticated reading of Freud mitigates against these assumptions; furthermore, psychoanalysis was never meant to be handed down by the Founding Father as a set of unassailable dictates. Instead, while Freudian drives are seen by critics as being the sole factors of influence, all historians import a psychology into their work to describe “persistent human wishes, gratifications, and frustrations.” While Freud can be used as a valuable heuristic, this by no means lessens the capacity for culture and other environmental factors to affect human agency.

Gay might be best known for his five-volume history called “The Bourgeois Experience: From Victoria to Freud,” one volume of which (“The Cultivation of Hatred”) I read several years ago. I remember thinking it was an odd project, and certainly a kind of history with which I was completely unfamiliar; the Freudianism seemed out of place, and I felt a little embarrassed for Gay for importing such stuff into his work. However, reading this, the arc of his life’s work makes much more sense. If someone were to ask me what I think of Freud, my response may very well be a function of the time of day and my mood instead of my objective knowledge of his work. However, the capaciousness of Gay’s intellect and his refusal to grow complacent within his chosen tradition had me constantly rooting him on while reading this. His is a model for cultural and intellectual work, and this is a fine apologia for those interested in opening up new historical byways.

[Törő László Dávid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Gay történészként jól ismeri Freud munkásságát és a pszichoanalízis módszereit, ebben a könyvben pedig szkeptikus, vagy egyenesen Freud-ellenes kollégáit szeretné meggyőzni arról, hogy ̶F̶r̶e̶u̶d̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶e̶,̶ ̶F̶r̶e̶u̶d̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶ érdemes ezzel a gyakran történetellenességgel vádolt diszciplínával foglalkozni – mert hogy szerinte nem annyira történetellenes ám, mint amennyire hírlik.

Amikor a történetírás a 19. sz. végén, 20. sz. elején professzionalizálódott, a történészek úgy tekintettek a pszichoanalízisre (különösen annak a múlt vizsgálatához való felhasználására), mint a véres rongyra. Bizonyítsd forrásokkal ezt a hókuszpókuszt, vagy GTFO – mondták a rankeiánusok a levéltárak sáncai mögül. A tértől és időtől független emberi természet elmélete sem tette vonzóvá a tudományt az egyedire és a változóra koncentráló historizmus számára. További – amúgy erős – ellenvetés, hogy egy halottat nem lehet pszichoanalízis alá vetni. Klió csak fekszik ott a díványon és nem csinál semmit, ami alapján a történész az álmait vagy a fantáziáit elemezhetné.

Gay szerint a Freud munkásságával kapcsolatos vádak nem igazak és felületes olvasás, illetve előítélet eredményei. Freud éppúgy fontosnak tartotta a kultúrát és az egyedit, mint a történészek – ennek bizonyítására elég sok nyomdafestéket elhasznál, majdnem a könyv fele a pszichoanalízis “rehabilitálásából” áll, ezt a terjedelmet viszont egy kicsit túlzásnak tartottam. A könyv célját tekintve sokkal érdekesebb az utolsó fejezet, ahol a szerző olyan történészi műveket elemez, ahol a pszichológia és a történelem sikerrel találkoztak, mert írójuk mindkét tudományban jártas volt. És hát az eredmény meggyőző: tényleg érdemes, és ami nem kevésbé lényeges, lehetséges a kettőt együtt művelni. Irracionális és racionális egyaránt fontos részei a világunknak, az emlékezet pedig kulcsproblémája történetírásnak és pszichológiának is. Nem meglepő, hogy azóta főleg naplóelemzéseknél vált be ez a módszerkeresztezés.

Gay törekvése abszolút üdvözlendő, mert bár minden történész pszichologizál bizonyos szinten, kevés veszi annyira komolyan a dolgot, hogy beleássa magát egy másik tudományág alapműveibe és komolyabban foglalkozzon elméleteivel. Ha pl. elfogadjuk Gyáni Gábor ítéletét, a hazai szakmában amúgy is sikk, raj, yolo az elméletek figyelmen kívül hagyása.

De azért. Nem tudom, más műveivel mi a helyzet, de ez a könyv lényegében nem reagál a posztmodern kihívásra – a jó öreg Foucault-t és a többieket itt hiába keressük, tehát a narrativitás problémája vagy a Freud-kritikájuk nem kerül elő. Emiatt sokszor az volt az érzésem, hogy Freudnál már meg is állt a pszichológia tudományának alakulása és utána nem is következett senki, még ha a szerző ennek ellenkezőjét olykor lábjegyzetben le is szögezi és utal a pszichoanalitikus iskolák sokféleségére. Inkább az Annales totális történelme felé veszi az irányt a szerző, Marc Bloch és társai követőinek mutatkozik, és az emberi tapasztalat “totalitásának” megragadására törekszik.

[C. B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book did not convince me that psychoanalysis is of pressing concern to historians. It did convince me, however, that historians often oversimplify and caricature Freud (or at least they did until the time Gay was writing in the mid-1980s). At the same time, they often unwittingly deploy Freudian concepts in their work. Certainly, if one’s historical arguments rest on psychological causes, it would seem short sighted to not engage with Freudian ideas to some degree. Gay argues that all sorts of historians could benefit from this, and, in so doing, may begin to create a new history that engages critically with the insights of psychoanalysis (for which Gay is quite unashamed in his admiration). Gay makes an impassioned plea for the ability of history to explore — alongside psychoanalysis — the ‘totality of human experience’ (p. 212).

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Gay, already established as a social historian, went on to become trained as a psychoanalyst. This book is a defense of the judicious use of psychoanalytic theory as applied to biography and history.

Personally, I think Gay's arguments sound on whole as regards psychology in general and depth psychologies, such as psychoanalysis, in particular. Gay seems, however, just a bit parochial in his study of the field, his sense of depth psychology seeming to be limited to Freud and his epigones. Much as I've problems with Jung and the Jungians, historians of religion and of culture have found his treatment of symbol formation and function fruitful in their own fields. So, too, might the work of Adler and the Adlerians find purchase in historical work.

An example of Gay's apparent enchantment with psychoanalytic theory is his apparently uncritical and unqualified acceptance of Freud's formulation of the Oedipal Complex in terms of a parental dyad. The breast-feeding mother and the father competing for her attentions may have some archetypal provenance, even in a Jungian sense, but they don't correspond to everyone's experience. Attachment to the nipples or to the nurturer(s) is apparently hardwired, but nipples aren't always available and nurturers are often not mothers. If a psychoanalytic trope seems culture/class-bound, an argument Gay attacks at length, this, the Oedipus Complex serves, along with 'penis envy', as a likely candidate.

[Eric Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Both history and psychoanalysis are sciences of memory, both are professionally committed to skepticism, both trace causes in the past, both seek to penetrate behind pioues professions and subtle evasions.” So concludes historian Peter Gay in this powerful argument for why historians must apply psychoanalysis in their work.

He acknowledges the pitfalls. There have been several embarrassing works of psychohistory, including one about U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to which Freud lent his name and authority. But there have also been cases where historians learned things through psychoanalysis that could not have been learned any other way.

In my own work as a historian, I too am finding that there are things for which there is no alternative than psychology. Peter Gay’s book is a good introduction to the field and the case he makes is compelling.

[Kin · Rating 4 out of 5]

อ่านข้าม ๆ บทกลาง ๆ ไปนะ แต่บทแรกกับบทท้ายเข้าท่าอยู่ ดีเฟนด์ให้ psychohistory ได้ดีเหมือนกัน ประเด็นใหญ่ ๆ คือพยายามชี้ว่า แม้นักประวัติศาสตร์จะไม่ค่อยชอบจิตวิเคราะห์ หรือใช้งานจิตวิเคราะห์โดยเฉพาะฟรอยด์อย่างไม่ค่อยเต็มปากเต็มคำ เนื่องจากข้อจำกัดหลายอย่าง โดยเฉพาะที่ว่าจิตวิเคราะห์มันไม่เป็นวิทยาศาสตร์ ไม่เป็นประวัติศาสตร์ และออกจะอาศัยการตีความที่พิสูจน์เชิงหลักฐานไม่ได้ แต่เอาเข้าจริง ๆ นักประวัติศาสตร์กลับต้องการ/พยายามหาคำอธิบายในแนวทางที่เกี่ยวข้องกับจิตวิเคราะห์กันอยู่แล้วไม่ว่ารู้ตัวหรือไม่

Gay ยอมรับข้อเสียหลายอย่างของทฤษฎีของฟรอยด์ แต่ก็พยายามชี้ให้เห็นประโยชน์ว่าการพยายาทำความเข้าใจประสบการณ์ของคนในอดีตผ่านเครื่องมือต่าง ๆ โดยเฉพาะการวิเคราะห์จิตไร้สำนึกของมนุษย์ ซึ่งจริง ๆ ก็เป็นสิ่งที่นักประวัติศาสตร์หลายรุ่นทำกันมาอยู่ตลอด อย่างพวก Annales school ที่ศึกษาความรู้สึกนึกคิดของคนในอดีตนี่ก็ชัดมาก ไม่ว่าจะเป็น Febvre Bloch หรือยุคหลัง ๆ อย่าง Darnton อ่านไปอ่านมาแล้วเหมือนงานของ Burke ที่ดีเฟนด์ให้กับ History & Sociology อะไรแบบนั้นเลย

ตอนท้ายสรุปน่าสนใจว่า จิตวิเคราะห์มันประยุกต์ใช้กับประวัติศาสตร์ได้ด้วยการมองว่า อะไรที่ดูไม่สมเหตุสมผลในประวัติศาสตร์คือประสบการณ์ที่มนุษย์แต่ละคนประสบจริง ๆ และอธิบายมันผ่านการวิเคราะห์ถึงการเก็บกดปิดกั้นความปรารถนา อะไรแบบนั้น

ถึงกระนั้น กลาง ๆ ก็น่าเบื่อไปหน่อย เพราะเราไม่เคยอ่านฟรอยด์ด้วยแหละ ถึงอ่านเล่มนี้จบก็ยังไม่อินอยู่ดี ไม่เก็ทจริง ๆ ว่าพวกที่ใช้งานจิตวิเคราะห์แบบเพ���ยว ๆ แบบไม่สนใจประวัติศาสตร์ ไม่ดูบริบทเลย จะนำเราไปสู่อะไรกันนะ .. แต่ก็นั่นแหละ พูดในฐานะคนไม่อิน ไม่เคยอ่านด้วยแหละ