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Rethinking Theory
The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason
The Psychoanalytic Movement explains how the language of psychoanalysis became the dominant way in which the middle classes of the industrialized West speak about their emotions.
Explains how the language of psychoanalysis became the dominant way for the industrialized West to speak about emotion. Argues that although psychoanalysis offers an incisive picture of human nature, it provides untestable operational definitions and makes unsubstantiated claims concerning its therapeutic efficacy. Includes new foreword by Jose Brunner that expands on the central argument of the book and argues that Gellner and Freud might be seen as kindred spirits.
Explains how the language of psychoanalysis became the dominant way for the industrialized West to speak about emotion. Argues that although psychoanalysis offers an incisive picture of human nature, it provides untestable operational definitions and makes unsubstantiated claims concerning its therapeutic efficacy. Includes new foreword by Jose Brunner that expands on the central argument of the book and argues that Gellner and Freud might be seen as kindred spirits.
252 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1990
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179 people want to read
About the author
Ernest Gellner
55 books105 followersErnest Gellner was a prominent British-Czech philosopher, social anthropologist, and writer on nationalism.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 28, 2016
It's remarkable that this book has so few reviews here on Goodreads, which might be more a testament to its relevance than anything negative, for Gellner's intention is clear: to take down one of the central pillars of our modern life, psychoanalysis.
Gellner's arguments are complex if impervious, because he keeps it pretty simple. I'll try to sum it up as best I can while trying to maintain the appeal of the work:
1) Psychoanalysis is a supreme confidence trick whose existence is predicated on the acceptance of "disorders" that psychoanalysis itself creates. Gellner does not deny the Unconscious, he just thinks psychoanalysis, in a very self-serving way, creates the very diseases it is meant to cure.
2) Psychoanalysis is a trickster religion. Authority is conferred only on a select few (Freud himself wrote on this aspect), a hierarchy of priests of analysis who know better than you do, but who do not accept any outside doubt or skepticism, much less empirical analysis of their results and methods. To do so, to doubt the efficacy of psychoanalysis, is a neurosis in itself, argue its practitioners. Why not come and get analyzed and we'll see why you're doubting us? ask the holders of privileged and holy truth.
3) Freudianism stymies cognitive growth because it puts this in the hands of an elite class of interpreters, reducing humankind to a function of base nature. It is a system that can only be judged ON ITS OWN TERMS, which is highly suspect.
4) Why was this movement so successful? This is the best part of Gellner's argument, for one must wonder, how does a fallacious, elitist doctrine (he often compares it to Marxism) become so prominent? Well, because people need help and people are easily convinced that they cannot do it themselves, they need gods to do it for them, thus further atomizing individualism.
Gellner's arguments are complex if impervious, because he keeps it pretty simple. I'll try to sum it up as best I can while trying to maintain the appeal of the work:
1) Psychoanalysis is a supreme confidence trick whose existence is predicated on the acceptance of "disorders" that psychoanalysis itself creates. Gellner does not deny the Unconscious, he just thinks psychoanalysis, in a very self-serving way, creates the very diseases it is meant to cure.
2) Psychoanalysis is a trickster religion. Authority is conferred only on a select few (Freud himself wrote on this aspect), a hierarchy of priests of analysis who know better than you do, but who do not accept any outside doubt or skepticism, much less empirical analysis of their results and methods. To do so, to doubt the efficacy of psychoanalysis, is a neurosis in itself, argue its practitioners. Why not come and get analyzed and we'll see why you're doubting us? ask the holders of privileged and holy truth.
3) Freudianism stymies cognitive growth because it puts this in the hands of an elite class of interpreters, reducing humankind to a function of base nature. It is a system that can only be judged ON ITS OWN TERMS, which is highly suspect.
4) Why was this movement so successful? This is the best part of Gellner's argument, for one must wonder, how does a fallacious, elitist doctrine (he often compares it to Marxism) become so prominent? Well, because people need help and people are easily convinced that they cannot do it themselves, they need gods to do it for them, thus further atomizing individualism.
October 11, 2016
I think Gellner is at his best when he narrows his focus. The subject matter of Plough, Sword, and Book: The Structure of Human History is really too vast to be amenable to his breezy, essayistic style. By contrast, in this book and his work on Wittgenstein, he's able to achieve great force by picking a specific target and then attacking from avariety of different angles.
It's possible to debunk Freud and the movement he founded from an Enlightenment perspective. While today there is no non-controversial definition of what constitutes a science, nonetheless it's still true that psychoanalysis was never a serious candidate. Gellner relishes the chance to expose its absurdities; its heads-I-win-tails-you-lose epistemology, its cult-like organizational structure, its failure to cure patients, or even coherently define what a cure would look like.
All of which is fairly old hat at this point. In many respects Freud is a far easier adversary than Wittgenstein. These days hardly anyone takes Freud's claims seriously as he oringinally intended them. The real value of Gellner's book lies in his attempt to explain why they ever gained such wide influence in our culture.
As with many cultural and sociological phenomena, a proper understanding must begin with an evaluation of our Enlightenment heritage. Here Gellner is most insightful and provocative. An extremely fruitful tension runs throughout his work. While he himself is a liberal, proud of the intellectual accomplishments of science and the social amelioration of technology, nonetheless he's far from offering an uncritical celebration. The vision of human nature bequeathed by such thinkers as David Hume and Adam Smith is not only false but wholly bloodless and uninspiring. We simply do not go through life as judicious accountants balancing out pleasant and unpleasant sensations. Everyone already knows this intuitively, and so for many Freud's darker vision strikes a sympathetic chord.
Moreover, while it greatly improved the material conditions of humankind, modern post-scarcity society also brought along an enormous void in meaning. Rather than simply go away, anxiety became overwhelmingly social and cultural instead of physical. Neither classic liberalism nor Marxism had been able to anticipate the dimensions of this spiritual crisis. As modernity had largely discredited or marginalized religion, the old clergy were of little solace. Thus the way was paved for Freud and his new secular priesthood.
I find Gellner's account largely convincing. His book leaves me wondering to what extent his critique can be broadened to apply to our current cultural moment. Freud has largely been left behind, yet I for one am not at all convinced he has been supersede by something more scientific. It's easy to laugh at the fact that psychoanalysis was never able to outperform spontaneous remission as a cure for neurosis. But what of the fact that independent research has shown anti-psychotic medication actually decreases the schizophrenic's chances for recovery? (See this extremely valuable book for details Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill) Our culture would seem to have a deep-seated need for a well-established science and medicine of mental health. The fact that this desire has persisted through one failure after another ought to tell us something about ourselves.
It's possible to debunk Freud and the movement he founded from an Enlightenment perspective. While today there is no non-controversial definition of what constitutes a science, nonetheless it's still true that psychoanalysis was never a serious candidate. Gellner relishes the chance to expose its absurdities; its heads-I-win-tails-you-lose epistemology, its cult-like organizational structure, its failure to cure patients, or even coherently define what a cure would look like.
All of which is fairly old hat at this point. In many respects Freud is a far easier adversary than Wittgenstein. These days hardly anyone takes Freud's claims seriously as he oringinally intended them. The real value of Gellner's book lies in his attempt to explain why they ever gained such wide influence in our culture.
As with many cultural and sociological phenomena, a proper understanding must begin with an evaluation of our Enlightenment heritage. Here Gellner is most insightful and provocative. An extremely fruitful tension runs throughout his work. While he himself is a liberal, proud of the intellectual accomplishments of science and the social amelioration of technology, nonetheless he's far from offering an uncritical celebration. The vision of human nature bequeathed by such thinkers as David Hume and Adam Smith is not only false but wholly bloodless and uninspiring. We simply do not go through life as judicious accountants balancing out pleasant and unpleasant sensations. Everyone already knows this intuitively, and so for many Freud's darker vision strikes a sympathetic chord.
Moreover, while it greatly improved the material conditions of humankind, modern post-scarcity society also brought along an enormous void in meaning. Rather than simply go away, anxiety became overwhelmingly social and cultural instead of physical. Neither classic liberalism nor Marxism had been able to anticipate the dimensions of this spiritual crisis. As modernity had largely discredited or marginalized religion, the old clergy were of little solace. Thus the way was paved for Freud and his new secular priesthood.
I find Gellner's account largely convincing. His book leaves me wondering to what extent his critique can be broadened to apply to our current cultural moment. Freud has largely been left behind, yet I for one am not at all convinced he has been supersede by something more scientific. It's easy to laugh at the fact that psychoanalysis was never able to outperform spontaneous remission as a cure for neurosis. But what of the fact that independent research has shown anti-psychotic medication actually decreases the schizophrenic's chances for recovery? (See this extremely valuable book for details Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill) Our culture would seem to have a deep-seated need for a well-established science and medicine of mental health. The fact that this desire has persisted through one failure after another ought to tell us something about ourselves.
August 22, 2016
In the 1950s psychoanalysis was popularized with the Anglo-American public through a series of bestsellers like Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilization (1955), Philip Reiff's Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1959), and Norman O. Brown's Life Against Death (1959). From then until the early 1980s, it was relatively easy to defend psychoanalysis from its detractors, mostly because the best known criticisms were either belligerent (Karl Jaspers), incompetent (Sartre), or overly simplistic (Karl Popper). Even Paul Roazan's Freud and His Followers (1975) could be dismissed by Freudians for its misleading quotations and falsified scholarship. This is what the British psychologist Harry Guntrip meant when he wrote, "The work of Freud will never be safer than when it evokes hostility." Then, in the 80s, came Frank Cioffi, Adolf Grünbaum, and Ernest Gellner, who all offered measured, rational arguments against the philosophical foundation of psychoanalysis.
Gellner is far away the most eloquent and passionate. Having made his name offering a scathing take-down of Wittgenstein (Words and Things), Gellner is hardly as abusive towards Freud. Here he is mostly concerned with scaling back talk of Freud's achievements, which he believes are minimal at best and even then a mixed bag. Gellner is a major 20th century intellectual in his own right, and my interest in this book is more for him than psychoanalysis (to state my prejudices plainly).
This is easily one of Gellner's best books. It suffers at times from his usual eccentricities: the book is filled with invented terminology introduced without definition, like the "Pirandello effect" or the "bourgeois dionysiac" [!]. As with Words and Things, where Gellner fails to distinguish between Wittgenstein and "Wittgensteinism", here he fails to differentiate between Freudian analysis and its offshoots in Adler and Jung. Gellner is at least upfront about this and writes, "In a sense, the present book is more interested in our Zeitgeist than psychoanalysis." So this is really only a critique of psychoanalysis in general, its practical implications (as therapy), and the basic philosophical presumptions that undergird its theory.
Gellner is far away the most eloquent and passionate. Having made his name offering a scathing take-down of Wittgenstein (Words and Things), Gellner is hardly as abusive towards Freud. Here he is mostly concerned with scaling back talk of Freud's achievements, which he believes are minimal at best and even then a mixed bag. Gellner is a major 20th century intellectual in his own right, and my interest in this book is more for him than psychoanalysis (to state my prejudices plainly).
This is easily one of Gellner's best books. It suffers at times from his usual eccentricities: the book is filled with invented terminology introduced without definition, like the "Pirandello effect" or the "bourgeois dionysiac" [!]. As with Words and Things, where Gellner fails to distinguish between Wittgenstein and "Wittgensteinism", here he fails to differentiate between Freudian analysis and its offshoots in Adler and Jung. Gellner is at least upfront about this and writes, "In a sense, the present book is more interested in our Zeitgeist than psychoanalysis." So this is really only a critique of psychoanalysis in general, its practical implications (as therapy), and the basic philosophical presumptions that undergird its theory.
November 6, 2013
The Psychoanalytic Movement tries to answer the question: how did Freudianism come to achieve such a solid foothold in the intellectual life of the West, especially in light of the fact that Freudianism has such little scientific basis?
Gellner is sarcastically dismissive of the claims of psychoanalysis, but backs up his claims with a wealth of insight and argument. His premise is that no movement should be studied strictly on its own terms, that a movement’s claims should be verifiable against external societal criteria. Given this premise, it is not surprising that psychoanalysis appears an untenable theory; any religious system would also fail testability tests—but this is precisely Gellner’s point about psychoanalysis. Its conceptual system betrays many of the same strategies as religions for gaining and retaining adherents.
See more at http://www.thesatirist.com/books/psyc...
Gellner is sarcastically dismissive of the claims of psychoanalysis, but backs up his claims with a wealth of insight and argument. His premise is that no movement should be studied strictly on its own terms, that a movement’s claims should be verifiable against external societal criteria. Given this premise, it is not surprising that psychoanalysis appears an untenable theory; any religious system would also fail testability tests—but this is precisely Gellner’s point about psychoanalysis. Its conceptual system betrays many of the same strategies as religions for gaining and retaining adherents.
See more at http://www.thesatirist.com/books/psyc...
July 6, 2019
Best commentary I've read on psychoanalysis. This book views the phenomenon from a historical/sociological perspective. And its funny.
July 13, 2025
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews