Freud - Complete Works (487 page)

On The History Of The Psycho-Analytic Movement

2918

   In connection with the attempt,
which psycho-analysis has made necessary, to correlate the
fundamental principle of its theory with the mental life of
children, Adler exhibits the most serious departures from actual
observation and the most fundamental confusion in his concepts. The
biological, social and psychological meanings of
‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are here
hopelessly mixed. It is impossible, and is disproved by
observation, that a child, whether male or female, should found the
plan of its life on an original depreciation of the female sex and
take the wish to be a real man as its ‘guiding line’.
Children have, to begin with, no idea of the significance of the
distinction between the sexes; on the contrary, they start with the
assumption that the same genital organ (the male one) is possessed
by both sexes; they do not begin their sexual researches with the
problem of the distinction between the sexes, while the
social
underestimation of women is completely foreign to
them. There are women in whose neurosis the wish to be a man has
played no part. Whatever in the nature of a masculine protest can
be shown to exist is easily traceable to a disturbance in primary
narcissism due to threats of castration or to the earliest
interferences with sexual activities. All disputes about the
psychogenesis of the neuroses must eventually be decided in the
field of the neuroses of childhood. Careful dissection of a
neurosis in early childhood puts an end to all misapprehensions
about the aetiology of the neuroses and to all doubts about the
part played by the sexual instincts in them. That is why, in his
criticism of Jung’s paper ‘Conflicts in the Mind of the
Child’, Adler was obliged to resort to the imputation that
the facts of the case had been one-sidedly arranged, ‘no
doubt by the father’.

On The History Of The Psycho-Analytic Movement

2919

   I will not dwell any longer on
the biological aspect of the Adlerian theory nor discuss whether
either actual ‘organ-inferiority’ or the subjective
feeling of it - one does not know which - is really capable of
serving as the foundation of Adler’s system. I will merely
remark in passing that if it were so neurosis would appear as a
by-product of every kind of physical decrepitude, whereas
observation shows that an impressive majority of ugly, misshapen,
crippled and miserable people fail to react to their defects by
neurosis. Nor will I deal with the interesting assertion according
to which inferiority is to be traced back to the feeling of being a
child. It shows the disguise under which the factor of infantilism,
which is so strongly emphasized by psycho-analysis, re-appears in
‘Individual Psychology’. On the other hand, I must
point out how all the psychological acquisitions of psycho-analysis
have been thrown to the winds by Adler. In his book
Über
den nervösen Charakter
the unconscious is still mentioned
as a psychological peculiarity, without, however, any relation to
his system. Later, he has consistently declared that it is a matter
of indifference to him whether an idea is conscious or unconscious.
Adler has never from the first shown any understanding of
repression. In an abstract of a paper read by him at the Vienna
Society (February, 1911) he wrote that it must be pointed out that
the evidence in a particular case showed that the patient had never
repressed his libido, but had been continually
‘safeguarding’ himself against it. Soon afterwards, in
a discussion at the Vienna Society, he said: ‘If you ask
where repression comes from, you are told, "from
civilization"; but if you go on to ask where civilization
comes from, you are told "from repression". So you see it
is all simply playing with words.’ A tithe of the acuteness
and ingenuity with which Adler has unmasked the defensive devices
of the ‘nervous character’ would have been enough to
show him the way out of this pettifogging argument. What is meant
is simply that civilization is based on the repressions effected by
former generations, and that each fresh generation is required to
maintain this civilization by effecting the same repressions. I
once heard of a child who thought people were laughing at him, and
began to cry, because when he asked where eggs come from he was
told ‘from hens’, and when he went on to ask where hens
come from he was told ‘from eggs’. But they were not
playing with words; on the contrary, they were telling him the
truth.

On The History Of The Psycho-Analytic Movement

2920

   Everything that Adler has to say
about dreams, the shibboleth of psycho-analysis, is equally empty
and unmeaning. At first he regarded dreams as a turning away from
the feminine to the masculine line - which is simply a translation
of the wish-fulfilment theory of dreams into the language of the
‘masculine protest’. Later he found that the essence of
dreams lies in enabling men to accomplish unconsciously what they
are denied consciously. Adler must also be credited with priority
in confusing dreams with latent dream-thoughts - a confusion on
which the discovery of his ‘prospective tendency’
rests. Maeder followed his lead in this later. Here the fact is
readily overlooked that every interpretation of a dream which is
incomprehensible in its manifest form is based on the very method
of dream-interpretation whose premisses and conclusions are being
disputed. In regard to resistance Adler informs us that it serves
the purpose of putting into effect the patient’s opposition
to the physician. This is certainly true; it is as much as to say
that it serves the purpose of resistance. Where it comes from,
however, or how it happens that its phenomena are at the disposal
of the patient is not further enquired into, as being of no
interest to the ego. The detailed mechanism of the symptoms and
manifestations of diseases, the explanation of the manifold variety
of those diseases and their forms of expression, are disregarded
in toto
; for everything alike is pressed into the service of
the masculine protest, self-assertion and the aggrandizement of the
personality. the system is complete; to produce it has cost an
enormous amount of labour in the recasting of interpretations,
while it has not furnished a single new observation. I fancy I have
made it clear that it has nothing to do with psycho-analysis.

On The History Of The Psycho-Analytic Movement

2921

   The view of life which is
reflected in the Adlerian system is founded exclusively on the
aggressive instinct; there is no room in it for love. We might feel
surprise that such a cheerless
Weltanschauung
should have
met with any attention at all; but we must not forget that human
beings, weighed down by the burden of their sexual needs, are ready
to accept anything if only the ‘overcoming of
sexuality’ is offered them as a bait.

   Adler’s secession took
place before the Weimar Congress in 1911; after that date the Swiss
began theirs. The first signs of it, curiously enough, were a few
remarks of Riklin’s in some popular articles appearing in
Swiss publications, so that the general public learned earlier than
those most intimately concerned in the subject that psycho-analysis
had got the better of some regrettable errors which had previously
discredited it. In 1912 Jung boasted, in a letter from America,
that his modifications of psycho-analysis had overcome the
resistances of many people who had hitherto refused to have
anything to do with it. I replied that that was nothing to boast
of, and that the more he sacrificed of the hard-won truths of
psycho-analysis the more would he see resistances vanishing. This
modification which the Swiss were so proud of introducing was again
nothing else but a pushing into the background of the sexual factor
in psycho-analytic theory. I confess that from the beginning I
regarded this ‘advance’ as too far-reaching an
adjustment to the demands of actuality.

   These two retrograde movements
away from psycho-analysis, which I must now compare with each
other, show another point in common: for they both court a
favourable opinion by putting forward certain lofty ideas, which
view things, as it were,
sub specie aeternitatis
. With
Adler, this part is played by the relativity of all knowledge and
the right of the personality to put an artificial construction on
the data of knowledge according to individual taste; with Jung, the
appeal is made to the historic right of youth to throw off the
fetters in which tyrannical age with its hidebound views seeks to
bind it. A few words must be devoted to exposing the fallacy of
these ideas.

On The History Of The Psycho-Analytic Movement

2922

   The relativity of our knowledge
is a consideration which may be advanced against every other
science just as well as against psycho-analysis. It is derived from
familiar reactionary currents of present-day feeling which are
hostile to science, and it lays claim to an appearance of
superiority to which no one is entitled. None of us can guess what
the ultimate judgement of mankind about our theoretical efforts
will be. There are instances in which rejection by the first three
generations has been corrected by the succeeding one and changed
into recognition. After a man has listened carefully to the voice
of criticism in himself and has paid some attention to the
criticisms of his opponents, there is nothing for him to do but
with all his strength to maintain his own convictions which are
based of experience. One should be content to conduct one’s
case honestly, and should not assume the office of judge, which is
reserved for the remote future. The stress on arbitrary personal
views in scientific matters is bad; it is clearly an attempt to
dispute the right of psycho-analysis to be valued as a science -
after that value, incidentally, has already been depreciated by
what has been said before. Anyone who sets a high value on
scientific thought will rather seek every possible means and method
of circumscribing the factor of fanciful personal predilections as
far as possible wherever it still plays too great a part. Moreover,
it is opportune to recall that any zeal in defending ourselves is
out of place. These arguments of Adler’s are not intended
seriously. They are only meant for use against his opponents; they
do not touch his own theories. Nor have they prevented his
followers from hailing him as the Messiah, for whose appearance
expectant humanity has been prepared by a number of forerunners.
The Messiah is certainly no relative phenomenon.

   Jung’s argument
ad
captandam benevolentiam
¹ rests on the too optimistic
assumption that the progress of the human race, of civilization and
knowledge, has always pursued an unbroken one; as if there had been
no periods of decadence, no reactions and restorations after every
revolution, no generations who have taken a backward step and
abandoned the gains of their predecessors. His approach to the
standpoint of the masses, his abandonment of an innovation which
proved unwelcome, make it
a priori
improbable that
Jung’s corrected version of psycho-analysis can justly claim
to be a youthful act of liberation. After all, it is not the age of
the doer that decides this but the character of the deed.

  
¹
[‘For the purpose of gaining
good-will.’]

On The History Of The Psycho-Analytic Movement

2923

   Of the two movements under
discussion Adler’s is indubitably the more important; while
radically false, it is marked by consistency and coherence. It is,
moreover, in spite of everything, founded upon a theory of the
instincts. Jung’s modification, on the other hand, loosens
the connection of the phenomena with instinctual life; and further,
as its critics (e.g. Abraham, Ferenczi and Jones) have pointed out,
it is so obscure, unintelligible and confused as to make it
difficult to take up any position upon it. Wherever one lays hold
of anything, one must be prepared to hear that one has
misunderstood it, and one cannot see how to arrive at a correct
understanding of it. It is put forward in a peculiarly vacillating
manner, one moment as ‘quite a mild deviation, which does not
justify the outcry that has been raised about it’ (Jung), and
the next moment as a new message of salvation which is to begin a
new epoch for psycho-analysis, and, indeed, a new
Weltanschauung
for everyone.

   When one thinks of the
inconsistencies displayed in the various public and private
pronouncements made by the Jungian movement, one is bound to ask
oneself how much of this is due to lack of clearness and how much
to lack of sincerity. It must be admitted, however, that the
exponents of the new theory find themselves in a difficult
position. They are now disputing things which they themselves
formerly upheld, and they are doing so, moreover, not on the ground
of fresh observations which might have taught them something
further, but in consequence of fresh interpretations which make the
things they see look different to them now from what they did
before. For this reason they are unwilling to give up their
connection with psycho-analysis, as whose representatives they
became known to the world, and prefer to give it out that
psycho-analysis has changed. At the Munich Congress I found it
necessary to clear up this confusion, and I did so by declaring
that I did not recognize the innovations of the Swiss as legitimate
continuations and further developments of the psycho-analysis that
originated with me. Outside critics (like Furtmüller) had
already seen how things were, and Abraham is right in saying that
Jung is in full retreat from psycho-analysis. I am of course
perfectly ready to allow that everyone has a right to think and to
write what he pleases; but he has no right to put it forward as
something other than what it really is.