"Sigmund Freud is often linked with Darwin and Marx as being one of the three original thinkers who have most altered man's view of himself in the twentieth century." [Anthony Storr. page 120]
"Freud marked history and changed scientific thinking when he dealt with the question of how necessary sex is." [Irene Kassorla]
"Darwin had shaken man's self-esteem by demonstrating his kinship with other animals. Freud shattered it further by asserting that man was far less a master of his own mental house than he had supposed. The voice of the intellect might be persistent as well as soft, but men were far more governed by emotion and irrationality than they commonly realized." [Anthony Storr]
But before anything, the primary pre-requisite to attaining healing self-knowledge is the courage to confront with an almost excruciating self-honesty the truth hidden within one's heart of hearts. As Dr. Kassorla encourages her patients, approval seeking is something that must, very often, be shed. [Page 81]
Every great thinker had at least one blind spot. Freud's was woman. [
Robert Jay Lifton]
Erich Fromm says the fundamental discovery of Freud is his concept of the unconscious. None of us is aware of more than a small sector of our mental personality (the conscious) while the bulk of what goes on within us evades our awareness, is unconscious, repressed. We are like an iceberg, only a small part is visible, while the predominant portion is below the surface, out of view. Fromm compares the importance of this discovery on a par with Copernicus' achievement in our understanding of the physical universe.
Jung, whom Fromm calls perhaps the greatest of Freud's inner circle of disciples, was similarly appreciative, in awe of Freud's profound contribution. First we must "drain the miasmal swamp," is how Jung described Freud's insight.
Fromm tries to demonstrate or illustrate this principle of the unconscious.
Two simple examples may help to clarify the point. A man who is constantly bragging, boasting, belittling others is perhaps aware of himself as a masterful, superior person. What he is not aware of is that in reality all those feelings of power and superiority are only compensations for the very opposite. Deep down he feels weak, helpless, childish, and at the very moment when he tells us "look here what a great guy I am," he is really praying "do not let them find out that I feel like a helpless child."
If we are to investigate further, we might find that this man feels like a helpless child because he has never overcome a deep fixation to his mother, a passive attachment which, normal for a child, is weakening for the man and should long ago have been severed. His aim is probably still to be nursed, cared for, and admired by his mother, and just because of his attachment, he feels like a child and hence weak and inferior.
In the other example of unconscious motivation a young student, brilliant, intelligent, conscientious, gets so frightened before an examination that he is almost paralyzed and jeopardizes his whole career. He is particularly frightened when the examiner is a teacher whom he does not like. Otherwise, the young man shows no signs of fear, has no feeling of inferiority, and is always poised and sure of himself in his relationship to older people or contemporaries. If one seeks the reasons of his examination fear, one finds at first an intense rage against the examiners, and especially the ones whom he does not like. Behind the rage is a feeling that it is an unbearable humiliation that he should be forced to submit to authorities who can decide about his career.
Without going into the history of this rebelliousness against authority, it may be said that his anxiety, of which he was conscious, replaced and covered up what he was not aware of -- a deadly rage which he had to repress because to show and express it would have made his position untenable.
Freud believed therapeutic help was available, and of the many tools and concepts he evolved, one special word, from the classical Greek, may be particularly helpful. That word is catharsis -- essentially an emotional cleansing -- which word was first used by Aristotle.
For us today, it is a challenge to give a definitive verdict on Freud. Feminist critics have excoriated Freud for his sexism, his Victorian disdain for the unmanliness of womanhood. Indeed, scholars note that much of nineteenth century Europe was obsessed with a back-to-nature infatuation with strength, and a corresponding disdain for the weakness or effeminacy of civilization, of Christian religion, and of women themselves. Freud was certainly caught up in this zeitgeist, and his thought reflects it.
On the other hand, it seems to me that in sheer daring, Freud's simple honesty and insight have shed unprecedented light on a realm previously shrouded in darkness and ignorance.
Instead of ever-fearing and ever-fleeing from the pain of this "cross" we bear, there is hope for resolution, there is the promise of joy ahead. To borrow from Stanley Keleman, there is an authenticity in facing this suffering which gives our experience an intensity, an immediacy, a seriousness and an innocence that we have never known, or (if known) have long since forgotten. For me, the intensity and the vividness of the perception which is my life has scared me. But as Keleman points out, most of the great mystics and saints talk about the exquisiteness of their experiencing (their suffering) and of their discovery, as Blake said, of the world in a grain of sand.
Suffering - self-experiencing - "again returns us to this lingering of our senses, our emotions and events in appreciation of the life we are in. Imagination cannot take us there; it can only prepare us for the event."
"When we step out of our social roles, when we disengage ourselves from our programmed fears, when we immerse ourselves in the river of self-experiencing, we are bathed, merged in the non-verbal, non-conceptual, non-visual,, non-idealistic world. We are indeed in the sea of creation. We are the sea from which we create our own lives. When you find your own answers, it is you."
The phenomenon of "Projection"
An example of projection might be something like this. What we in the states call "hot dogs" were known in Europe by other (semi-derogatory) names. No one wanted to claim responsibility for them. This type of food was regarded as low-class, something only the poor would eat. The two likeliest origins were the cities of Vienna (in Austria) and Frankfort (Germany). But neither city wanted to claim the dubious honor of having originated the lowly food. Viennese blamed it on Frankfurters. And the Frankfurt-boosters blamed it on the Viennese (weiners).
Similarly, in American politics, each faction imputes to the other side the base motives of self-interest, perhaps a hidden (pernicious) agenda, and often manipulative tactics in order to sway the voters. To their own team, each party is often blind to any flaws. Love covers a multitude of sins. When you already are fond of a particular "hero," you easily overlook his foibles and failings.
The classic case of "projection" in American history must surely be the racist stereotypes underlying black-white racism --- with devestating consequences for the victims. The black people were seen as possessing the "animalistic" (generally sexual) traits that the upper classes (whites) dared not see in themselves. Polite society had to be "protected" from this untamed threat. The bitter hypocrisy underlying the self-delusion was the dishonesty involved in denying those animal (or sexual) impulses on the part the very ones doing all the "protecting."
"Sigmund Freud is often linked with Darwin and Marx as being one of the three original thinkers who have most altered man's view of himself in the twentieth century." [Anthony Storr. page 120]