History of Psychoanalysis, Redefinitions Of

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Book Reviews banned psychoanalysis as a Jewish science subsequent self-analysis. In the foreword to and there was no organized psychotherapy this volume Peter Loewenberg argues that in a situation dominated by racial biology. this revelation of the subjective source of In Psychotherapy in the Third Reich, Cocks Kohut's discoveries gives them a "greater recovered the history of the German validity and conviction" (p. xii). For this institute for psychological research and reviewer, it indicates rather that psychotherapy, generally known as the dissimulation and invented narratives are no Goering Institute after its chief, the less present in contemporary psychoanalysis psychotherapist Mathias Goering, a cousin than at its inception. of the infamous Hermann Goering. He dismantled these legends, and indicated how Sonu Shamdasani, they arose in a postwar era of institutional Wellcome Institute for the History reconstruction for psychotherapy and of Medicine psychoanalysis, when practitioners were keen to claim a moral high ground and portray themselves as intrinsically allied to liberal and democratic tendencies and deny any evidence to the contrary. At the same time, he presented what remains the best John Forrester, Dispatches from the Freud documented and most judicious account of wars: psychoanalysis and its passions, C G Jung's relations with German Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard psychotherapy at this time. What Cocks University Press, 1997, pp. 309, £18.50 accomplished was the relocation of the (0-674-53960-5). history of psychoanalysis within the institutional development of psychotherapy John Forrester, Truth games: lies, money, as a whole, and of the latter in its andpsychoanalysis, Cambridge, MA, and connections with medicine and psychology London, Harvard University Press, 1997, and within the wider social and political pp. xiii, 210, £15.50 (0-674-53962-1). context of mid-twentieth-century Germany. Thus the history of psychotherapy and These two books present a series of eight psychoanalysis become critical sites for wide-ranging but interconnected essays. addressing wider questions concerning how Taken as an ensemble, they deal with the professions develop in relation to varying history of psychoanalysis, redefinitions of social and political conditions-critical, in psychoanalysis and what it means to be a Cocks' view, as by the nature of its subject Freudian, psychoanalytic readings of matter, the psychological enterprise is the contemporary cultural issues, discussions of most permeable of all disciplines to social the scientific status of psychoanalysis and and political factors. Thus the cultural and an impassioned defence of psychoanalysis. historical study of psychology, They frequently shift between these various psychoanalysis and psychotherapy may registers, and psychoanalysis appears ultimately have more generality than the interchangeably as a historical and a disciplines themselves. contemporary discourse. The essays are Finally, in a study of the emigre elegantly written, and open up a number of psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut, Cocks new perspectives on these issues, as well as demonstrates that in the essay 'Two putting forward new formulations of more analyses of Mr. Z.' that launched Kohut's familiar ones. If there is one central issue popular brand of self psychology, Mr. Z. that stands out, it is that of reading. How is was a fiction, and the analyses in question one to read Freud? How was Freud read, were Kohut's of Ruth Eissler, and his own and misread? What effects did the reading

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Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 02 Oct 2021 at 06:03:41, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300066874 Book Reviews of Freud have on the constitution of the helped constitute the psychoanalytic psychoanalytic movement? movement. Whilst there have been many Dispatches from the Freud wars studies of Freud as a writer, this is the first commences with an essay on 'Justice, envy which links an analysis of Freud's writings and psychoanalysis'. This takes up issues with its micro-social context, or rather, with concerning the transformation wrought in the manner in which it produced the social conventional understandings of the relation context of the psychoanalytic movement. between politics, the individual, morality This leads Forrester to argue that what and the emotions by psychoanalysis. It differentiates psychoanalysis from other focuses on the role of envy in politics, and comparable movements is that one becomes articulates the effect that psychoanalysis a Freudian through reading. Consequently, may have on political theory. 'Casualties of he claims that the presence of truth' takes up a reading of Freud's most psychoanalysis in humanities departments is extensive and significant correspondence, entirely appropriate, as it is Freud's readers, with Sandor Ferenczi. It focuses on rather than the institutions which police his Ferenczi's intertwined incestuous analyses legacy, who are the true Freudians. and affairs with Gizella Palos and her 'A whole climate of opinion' narrates the daughter, Elma Palos. Forrester traces historiography of psychoanalysis, and Freud's intimate involvement with this indicates the manner in which histories of scenario, through his analysis of Elma Palos psychoanalysis, such as those by Ernest and discussions with Ferenczi. This leads Jones and Henri Ellenberger, have been him to characterize Freud and Ferenczi's bound up with conceptions of what respective valuations of love and truth. psychoanalysis is and should be. Forrester Forrester concludes that the distinctiveness argues for the need for a history of of psychoanalysis lies in its unconcern for psychoanalytic cultures and further research ethical principles. into the relation between psychoanalysis 'Collector, naturalist, surrealist' takes up and medical institutions and practices at the the significance of Freud's activity as a turn of the century. These are collector not only of antiquities, but of recommendations which can be heartily objects in the wider sense of the word, such endorsed. as dreams, slips and other so-called 'Dispatches from the Freud wars' products of the unconscious, and the contends with a selection of contemporary manner in which this was constitutive of critiques of psychoanalysis, Stanley Fish, psychoanalysis. It is in Freud's activity as a Adolf Gruinbaum, Frederick Crews, and collector that Forrester locates Freud's Frank Sulloway. Forrester critiques their connections to the tradition of Vlctorian outmoded conceptions of science, and the scientific naturalism. applicability of these conceptions to 'Dream readers' takes up the question of psychoanalysis. He correctly indicates the how Freud created a science out of a self- sterility of contemporary debates concerning analysis, and traces the effects of the the scientific status of psychoanalysis, and autobiographical nature of The appropriately suggests that a more fruitful interpretation of dreams on its readers. issue is adequately characterizing the Forrester argues that the significance of its discipline of psychoanalysis. Forrester's autobiographical content was that it redefinition of psychoanalysis through the cultivated an identification with Freud and course of these books is critical to the task served the pedagogical and analytic purpose at hand. Robert Wallerstein recommended a of making readers into Freudians. In decade ago that the plethora of versions of Forrester's reading, The interpretation of psychoanalysis should lead one to speak of dreams is a "transferential machine" that psychoanalyses in the plural, rather than

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Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 02 Oct 2021 at 06:03:41, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300066874 Book Reviews psychoanalysis in the singular. The version likely to find this either amusing or bizarre, of psychoanalysis here defended is that according to their tastes. which is articulated in the course of these Truth games commences with an essay of essays. Taking up philosophical discussions the same name which presents a history of of Freud, Forrester argues that lying, or rather, traces discussions of lying psychoanalysis is continuous with ordinary, and its significance in philosophy, science, everyday explanations of behaviour. A medicine (under the guise of the placebo question not raised is whether this effect) and the social sciences. The value of continuity is simply an effect of the this approach is that it opens the way to "transferential machine" of psychoanalytic situating the rise of such disciplines within writing and the manner in which it has the history of ethics. This is then used to inflected vernacular speech. In answer to situate the specificity of psychoanalysis, Freud's rhetorical question as to what else which according to Forrester is "the only psychoanalysis could be except science, science that does not find the prospect that Forrester answers, popular culture. the 'object' of its inquiry may intentionally However, this raises the question of deceive the scientific investigator subversive whether, through its very spread and of its pretensions to truth" (p. 69). One absorption, psychoanalysis simply loses all would have hoped for more comparative determinate identity, through what Edward discussion in support of such a statement. Sapir would have called linguistic drift. This background is utilized to trace the At the beginning of the century, Freud place of truth and lying in the creation of and his followers claimed that critics who psychoanalysis, and the manner in which had not practised psychoanalysis were Freud conceived of their relation in a way discounted from passing any comment on that was distinct both from traditional it. In a new twist to this, Forrester proposes morality and the epistemology of the that before one can criticize psychoanalysis, natural sciences. Certain questions may be one has to "lie down on the couch". This posed here. In his reading of Freud's recommendation is problematic in many discussion of transference, Forrester argues respects, not least because, in that in 1895 Freud had already in some psychoanalysis, the patient's testimony is measure arrived at the view that there "are deprived of any epistemological status. If no indications of reality in the experiencing psychoanalysis is the necessary unconscious", a formulation which is qualification for commenting on it, should generally seen to arise in the aftermath of it not equally hold for other mind-affecting the collapse of the seduction theory in 1897, practices, such as past-life regression which is discussed at more length in Freud's therapy, ECT or Prozac? As the history of women (Forrester and Lisa Appignanesi, psychoanalysis has shown, self-experience London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992). If and testimony have simply led to a plethora Forrester's argument holds, it raises the of contradictory accounts, with no criteria question of how the seduction theory of to judge their relative validity. Furthermore, 1896 was even possible. if psychoanalysis wishes to transform and Truth games closes with an essay on 'Gift, colonize other disciplines, should it not also money and debt', which discusses the be held accountable in terms of their own linkages between money and speech, criteria of validity? metaphors of circulation, exchange, Dispatches from the Freud wars ends with indebtedness and trust, through a reading of a fictional interview between Forrester and Freud's case of the Rat Man and Lacan's Freud, in which the latter deals with the reading of Freud. Here, Forrester argues posthumous criticisms of his work which that trust "organises any reading of Freud have arisen after his death. Readers are which will do justice to his work ... One

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Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 02 Oct 2021 at 06:03:41, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300066874 Book Reviews must give Freud the benefit of the successive explanation for and treatment of doubt-and extend this seemingly Tourette syndrome has been as much a study temporary charitable act indefinitely" of the power of beliefs of a professional (p. 112). One may well ask whether such faction as it has been a vindication ofeither charity is to be considered the hallmark of rigorous scientific testing or carefully any good reading, or, if not, why it is only analyzed clinical results" (p. 219). Freud to whom it is due, as often appears The syndrome under discussion first came to be the case. to public medical attention in Paris in 1825 In conclusion, anyone interested in the with the publication by Jean Marc Gaspard history of psychoanalysis and the cultural Itard ofthe case of the Marquise de location of psychoanalysis today is likely to Dampierre who would suddenly erupt in a find these essays stimulating, engaging and startling fit of obscene shouts and curses. inviting of dialogue. Then, in 1885, the Parisian neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette used this case as Sonu Shamdasani, his first and prototypical example in Weilcome Institute for the History describing the illness that he termed "maladie of Medicine des tics". And today Tourette's syndrome is the common name for a set of behaviours that includes recurrent ticcing and involuntary shouting (sometimes cursing) as well as obsessive-compulsive actions. Howard I Kushner, A cursing brain? The Beginning in the nineteenth century, this histories of Tourette syndrome, Cambridge, ailment was claimed by the psychogenic MA, and London, Harvard University explainers as surely an excellent example of Press, 1999, pp. xiii, 303, illus., £18.50 their convictions, with the psychoanalysts (0-674-180224). taking a central role for several decades after 1920. The somatogenic explainers were To come right to the point, Howard never absent from the scene, from early Kushner has written a masterful history of theories that such disorders were post- the disorder known as Tourette syndrome. infection sequelae (strengthened following It is a fine contribution to the history of the 1919 influenza epidemic) to a family of medicine, a cautionary tale for anyone theories derived from modem neuroscience. embarking on the history of a syndrome or Throughout these years of argumentation, a disease, and a very good read. And it is a therapeutic interventions came and went. book about far more than just the history Psychological treatments were vigorously of Tourette syndrome. espoused, though, on balance, without At the roots of this study is yet another much in the way of favourable results. A version of the time-honoured tensions and wide variety of somatic treatments did not conflicts between those who favour the fare much better, despite recurrent somatic explanatory tradition and those who favourable reports, until haloperidol was favour the psychological explanatory shown to be an effective intervention for tradition. As has all too often been the case, controlling the tics. Soon, though, it was each of these explanatory traditions can being claimed that these results proved an deteriorate into convictions and dogmatic organic etiology for the syndrome-once assertions that either organic etiology or again, a priori beliefs took precedence over psychological etiology has been proven, evidence. But more sober-minded without definitive evidence in either case. investigators claimed only that "dopamine Both such outcomes are to be found in this antagonists [such as haloperidol] ... could, one story. "The rise and fall ofeach in many cases, control symptoms, albeit

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