Freudian Fallacy: An Alternative View of Freudian Theory

by E.M. Thornton

This book makes the heretical claims that Freud's central postulate, the unconscious mind, does not exist; that his theories were based on pathological phenomena and that Freud himself, when formulating these theories, was under the influence of a highly toxic drug. This book fully substantiates these bold claims with the use of case histories, current medical knowledge and most important of all, letters written by Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, his closest friend during the last decade of the 19th century -- the period of time when he was formulating the ideas that are the basis of psychoanalysis.

Genres: Psychology, Psychoanalysis

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 3 out of 5]

WERE NEARLY ALL OF FREUD'S THEORIES A RESULT OF COCAINE USE?

Elizabeth M. Thornton wrote in the Introduction to this 1983 book. "this book makes the heretical claim that [Freud's] central postulate, the 'unconscious mind,' does not exist, that his theories were baseless and aberrational, and, greatest impiety of all, that Freud himself, when he formulated them, was under the influence of a toxic drug with specific effects on the brain... This book presents evidence that Freud resumed his use of cocaine in the latter half of 1892, the year coinciding with the emergence of his revolutionary new theories, and asserts that these theories were the direct outcome of this usage. None of this is to be found in the definitive biography by Ernest Jones [The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud], yet all the clues are there, unnoticed in the thirty years since its publication." (Pg. ix)

She adds, "Jones's dramatic picture of a tormented genius wrestling with the demons of his unconscious mind actually tells the story of a cocaine addiction following an almost classic course. Freud's rapid mood swings... his episodes of clouded consciousness and periods of hyperactivity... are actually cocaine effects, as are the mysterious heart symptoms that appeared at about the same time. Freud's bitter complaints of ostracism and victimization... were the paranoid delusions of persecution peculiar to the later stages of cocaine addiction; his suspicions and bitter denunciations of his disciples arose from the same cause. The unaccountable lapses in memory... were also cocaine effects." (Pg. x-xi)

She suggests about Freud's 1884 paper, 'Über Coca' [reprinted in 'The Cocaine Papers'], "much of Freud's enthusiasm for cocaine arose from the euphoria engendered by the drug itself." (Pg. 22) Although Freud wrote another paper in 1895 which claimed cocaine was not habit-forming, "Freud was to regret this paper two years later when reports of addiction and its frightful consequences had begun to flow in... and he was having to defend himself against the accusations ... that he had unleashed on the world the third scourge of humanity, the first two being alcohol and morphine." (Pg. 27)

She observes, "in due course both men [Freud and colleague/friend Wilhelm Fliess] developed considerable REAL nasal pathology. Such pathology is concomitant with chronic regular use of cocaine... Infection of the ulcerated tissues leads to severe sinus infections, from which... Freud suffered badly in the second half of the decade... That it occurred to neither man to wonder if the drug was not [the cause]... [was] probably due to the fact that both men had begun to suffer from the effects of cocaine on the brain. Hence the progressively bizarre quality of the theories of both men as the decade progressed." (Pg. 126)

She asserts, "Freud's abrupt conversion to the sexual hypothesis was not caused by any chance remark of Charcot or any other such influence. It was caused by cocaine. It was cocaine too that induced the early cessation of sexual activity in both Freud and Fliess they called the 'male menopause.'" (Pg. 143) Later, she adds, "Freud's unusually vivid dreams, which he had no difficulty in remembering, are explained by the peculiar properties of cocaine, when he was then using so freely." (Pg. 210)

This is obviously a highly controversial book, but it is one which anyone seriously studying Freud's life and ideas needs to deal with. (For my part, I found her documentation of his continued use of cocaine---particularly with the encouragement of Fliess---beyond his traditional "quitting" date of 1896 convincing; but I was much less persuaded that almost EVERY aspect of Freud's life and ideas were due to cocaine.)

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

ILL

Freud was seriously addicted to cocain most of his life as an author. Furthermore he addicted several of his friends and colleagues and ruined one of them completely.


see review Posted by John Marsden at 22:39 Tuesday, 23 August 2011
http://marsdentherapy.blogspot.com/20...

"My beliefs about Sigmund Freud have been severely challenged by reading E. M. Thornton’s blistering attack on the founder of psychoanalysis.
...Thornton is claiming that just at the time Freud developed his most contentious theories, such as the Oedipus Complex, he was misusing and suffering the symptoms of cocaine addiction. How else, she argues can we explain Freud's belief in the sexual origins of the neuroses. My understanding is that Freud had come to the seduction theory because that is what his patients had been telling him and that Freud's reading and research in the late 1880s at La Salpetriere, which pointed to high levels of sexual abuse in French society, had made more believable the disclosures made by his patients.
....."
see also
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/boo...

see also an account of Freud, Jung and the woman Sabina Spielrein, brilliant, who becomes a psychiatrist and who is involved in different ways with each of them, in this movie which is based on a book.
http://www.sonyclassics.com/adangerou...



and don't forget this part of Freud
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3DPVDDO...
By Craig Chalquist, PhD, author of TERRAPSYCHOLOGY and DEEP CALIFORNIAThis review is from: A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein (Hardcover)
Isn't it strange that although this well-researched and readable book has been out ten years now, not a single analyst, Jungian or Freudian, has reviewed it here?
During my training as a depth psychologist I heard and read a lot about the Freud-Jung relationship, about its shattering on the rocks of politicking and father complexes, and a bit about the unfortunate Sabina Spielrein, one-time patient of Jung. At this point nobody in the field is shocked to hear about the Founding Fathers having sex with their patients, however inappropriate or damaging it may have been (Freud seems to have been a rare exception to this kind of acting out).

What's troubling to read in this book is not so much Jung's having an affair with Spielrein--harmful enough all by itself--but the casual brutality in how he handled it: the resumption of it after she had attacked him and asked Freud for help, Jung's lame excuses for dropping her (even telling her at one point that he'd displaced an attraction to Freud's daughter onto Sabina--how nice), the coldness of his self-justification to Sabina's mother when she found out via letter from Emma Jung (basically: no fee was charged, so it wasn't really that bad--but if you wish to discuss it, that'll be ten francs an hour).... The shocking, manipulative sadism of Jung's repeated betrayals of Spielrein might make difficult reading for those who revere him, even granting that they took place before Jung's "confrontation with the unconscious....... But the submergence of the gifted if borderline-prone Spielrein is the real tragedy in this unamusing comedy of errors." much more here


A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud & Sabina Spielrein

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the book.