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Killing Freud: Twentieth Century Culture and the Death of Psychoanalysis
Killing Freud takes the reader on a journey through the 20th century, tracing the work and influence of one of its greatest icons, Sigmund Freud.
A devastating critique, Killing Freud ranges across the strange case of Anna O, the hysteria of Josef Breuer, the love of dogs, the Freud industry, the role of gossip and fiction, bad manners, pop psychology and French philosophy, figure skating on thin ice, and contemporary therapy culture. A map to the Freudian minefield and a masterful negotiation of high theory and low culture, Killing Freud is a witty and fearless revaluation of psychoanalysis and its real place in 20th century history. It will appeal to anyone curious about the life of the mind after the death of Freud.
A devastating critique, Killing Freud ranges across the strange case of Anna O, the hysteria of Josef Breuer, the love of dogs, the Freud industry, the role of gossip and fiction, bad manners, pop psychology and French philosophy, figure skating on thin ice, and contemporary therapy culture. A map to the Freudian minefield and a masterful negotiation of high theory and low culture, Killing Freud is a witty and fearless revaluation of psychoanalysis and its real place in 20th century history. It will appeal to anyone curious about the life of the mind after the death of Freud.
- GenresPsychologyPsychoanalysis
224 pages, Paperback
First published December 13, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 13, 2008
An unbalanced look at Freud and psychoanalysis, the thesis of which is that psychoanalysis is dead and Freud was dishonest and almost always wrong. The book is poorly written, being full of long, intellectually pretentious passages and opaque sentences. Mostly, the author seems bitter and jealous, and the book is an impassioned and emotional rant rather than a reasoned analysis. While a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may indeed see farther than the giant, it is also true that a blind dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant doesn't see at all.
August 11, 2016
My love-hate relationship with Freud. Wrong about so many things, but still one of my intellectual heroes. Can't quite get myself to kill him off. This book wasn't so good. I've read better critiques of the master.
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August 23, 2024A PHILOSOPHER PROCLAIMS A "CELEBRATION" OF THE DEATH
Todd Dufresne is chair of the Philosophy Department at Lakehead University, and is also the author of books such as 'Against Freud: Critics Talk Back,' 'Returns of the "French Freud:" Freud, Lacan, and Beyond,' 'Tales from the Freudian Crypt: The Death Drive in Text and Context,' etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 2003 book, "I try in 'Killing Freud' not to shrink from being as blunt or cruel as the truth demands... this means something simple and, I assume, uncontroversial: first, I recount those basic facts that analytic historians of psychoanalysis have chosen to forget or ignore, and draw out their implications; second, I critically explore the connection not only between revised and official histories, but between history, theory, gossip and institutional politics; and third, I follow psychoanalysis into the margins of everyday life... This work is ultimately intended as a joyous, Nietzschean-inspired CELEBRATION of the death of psychoanalysis as a viable methodology for intellectuals and therapists..." (Pg. x-xi)
He argues: "First of all, the unconscious: there is no reason to hang onto a theory inherited from the dubious baggage of mesmerism and hypnotism... it makes people 'dig deep' until they find a dual consciousness that doesn't exist except as an outmoded theory of spirit possession. Or it encourages the recall of memories that are patently false... Second, the talking cure: if there really is nothing in the unconscious but the discourses we have already swallowed... there is no point in engaging in a cathartic talking cure... And third, repression: since there is no PLACE that the repressed actually goes... repression is just another myth of psychoanalysis." (Pg. 23-25)
He observes, "Nonetheless, psychoanalysis is a business and, as such, has always demanded a steady stream of customers with which to float its ventures... By the 1920s, Freud was at the centre of a multinational concern, having himself become what he calls 'a mere money acquisition machine.' His own reputation had become a commodity... with which he and his followers could earn some much-needed interest." (Pg. 94-95) He asserts, "Frankly, in very few fields [compared to psychoanalysis] is the level of scholarship so slipshod. The blame for this problem can be traced to the fact that Freud and his close followers established psychoanalysis outside the university system by creating their own training institutes. For the goal of these institutes was less research and intellectual activity than the protection and transmission of doctrine..." (Pg. 150)
He admits, "It is to Freud's credit as an artist that he was such a great writer and a clever polemicist on behalf of his beliefs... Clearly Freud's admirable passion and wit was not always supported by rigorous argumentation. On the contrary, he was a romantic thinker who used reason to rationalize his mistaken, sometimes laughably mistaken, beliefs... [including] his psychoanalytic portraits of historical figures." (Pg. 154-155) He concludes, "For not even the most cunning spin doctors of psychoanalysis can save this patient. Nor can even the most vicious, truculent critic shock psychoanalysis back to life... People just don't care about psychoanalysis like they used to, and consequently have less at stake in its future." (Pg. 173)
Not the most detailed or "analytical" of critiques, this book will nevertheless be of interest to those looking with pleasure at the modern decline of psychoanalysis.
Todd Dufresne is chair of the Philosophy Department at Lakehead University, and is also the author of books such as 'Against Freud: Critics Talk Back,' 'Returns of the "French Freud:" Freud, Lacan, and Beyond,' 'Tales from the Freudian Crypt: The Death Drive in Text and Context,' etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 2003 book, "I try in 'Killing Freud' not to shrink from being as blunt or cruel as the truth demands... this means something simple and, I assume, uncontroversial: first, I recount those basic facts that analytic historians of psychoanalysis have chosen to forget or ignore, and draw out their implications; second, I critically explore the connection not only between revised and official histories, but between history, theory, gossip and institutional politics; and third, I follow psychoanalysis into the margins of everyday life... This work is ultimately intended as a joyous, Nietzschean-inspired CELEBRATION of the death of psychoanalysis as a viable methodology for intellectuals and therapists..." (Pg. x-xi)
He argues: "First of all, the unconscious: there is no reason to hang onto a theory inherited from the dubious baggage of mesmerism and hypnotism... it makes people 'dig deep' until they find a dual consciousness that doesn't exist except as an outmoded theory of spirit possession. Or it encourages the recall of memories that are patently false... Second, the talking cure: if there really is nothing in the unconscious but the discourses we have already swallowed... there is no point in engaging in a cathartic talking cure... And third, repression: since there is no PLACE that the repressed actually goes... repression is just another myth of psychoanalysis." (Pg. 23-25)
He observes, "Nonetheless, psychoanalysis is a business and, as such, has always demanded a steady stream of customers with which to float its ventures... By the 1920s, Freud was at the centre of a multinational concern, having himself become what he calls 'a mere money acquisition machine.' His own reputation had become a commodity... with which he and his followers could earn some much-needed interest." (Pg. 94-95) He asserts, "Frankly, in very few fields [compared to psychoanalysis] is the level of scholarship so slipshod. The blame for this problem can be traced to the fact that Freud and his close followers established psychoanalysis outside the university system by creating their own training institutes. For the goal of these institutes was less research and intellectual activity than the protection and transmission of doctrine..." (Pg. 150)
He admits, "It is to Freud's credit as an artist that he was such a great writer and a clever polemicist on behalf of his beliefs... Clearly Freud's admirable passion and wit was not always supported by rigorous argumentation. On the contrary, he was a romantic thinker who used reason to rationalize his mistaken, sometimes laughably mistaken, beliefs... [including] his psychoanalytic portraits of historical figures." (Pg. 154-155) He concludes, "For not even the most cunning spin doctors of psychoanalysis can save this patient. Nor can even the most vicious, truculent critic shock psychoanalysis back to life... People just don't care about psychoanalysis like they used to, and consequently have less at stake in its future." (Pg. 173)
Not the most detailed or "analytical" of critiques, this book will nevertheless be of interest to those looking with pleasure at the modern decline of psychoanalysis.
February 25, 2011
I approached this book armed with a long-nagging suspicion that Freud was the greatest fraud of the 20th century and hoped this would be a book that clearly laid out the complete case for "Freud the fraud" that a layperson could understand.
Unfortunately, it wasn't, as the book appears to me to be aimed at an academic audience. It's largely comprised of pieces previously published in academic journals on discreet topics - as opposed to giving an A-Z, point-by-point examination of theories A through Z and how they may have been wrong.
The author does have a very good sense of humor and seems amply armed with enough ammunition to write that book. If he wrote it, I'd definitely buy it.
Nevertheless, several of the essays are very entertaining, in particular the case of Anna O., an essay on Freud's love of dogs, and an essay on the bizarre infatuation with figure skating of Freud's biographer Ernest Jones. Overall, Freud himself comes off as a paranoid narcissist, a skilled and practiced liar, a man whose driving ambition demolished any sense of ethics, an individual too infatuated with himself to bother with anything approaching the scientific method, and a generally repugnant character bordering on the delusional. In short, what I suspected going in.
Unfortunately, it wasn't, as the book appears to me to be aimed at an academic audience. It's largely comprised of pieces previously published in academic journals on discreet topics - as opposed to giving an A-Z, point-by-point examination of theories A through Z and how they may have been wrong.
The author does have a very good sense of humor and seems amply armed with enough ammunition to write that book. If he wrote it, I'd definitely buy it.
Nevertheless, several of the essays are very entertaining, in particular the case of Anna O., an essay on Freud's love of dogs, and an essay on the bizarre infatuation with figure skating of Freud's biographer Ernest Jones. Overall, Freud himself comes off as a paranoid narcissist, a skilled and practiced liar, a man whose driving ambition demolished any sense of ethics, an individual too infatuated with himself to bother with anything approaching the scientific method, and a generally repugnant character bordering on the delusional. In short, what I suspected going in.
February 17, 2009
Good analysis (sorry) of Freud's theories, the embellished "successes" (how does being in therapy for 60 years count as a win)and the seldom written about failures (the appalling case of Frink's suicide). Does suffer a bit from pretentious intellectuo-babble but no worse than Lacan or any of the others who have incorporated such ultimately preposterous concepts into their ideologies.
July 10, 2013
I like this guy, Todd Dufresne. I like him.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews