Week of January 18, 1999
Although Freud and his work have been much criticized, the extent of his influence on our culture -- perhaps even more than his impact on psychology and psychiatry--remains profound and pervasive. To begin our show, we hear Freud's own 'take' on psychoanalysis, as it was delivered to a skeptical audience at the University of Vienna in 1915. His words are read by comedian Robert Klein, currently working on his seventh HBO special.
With eloquence and showmanship, Freud appeals to his audience to put aside their doubts. "Do not be annoyed if I begin by treating you in the same way as these neurotic patients," he says. Telling his listeners that their training predisposes them against his theories, he holds out the promise of new knowledge through his methods.
Next, a fascinating history lesson about the lesser-known contemporaries of Freud. Dr. Goodwin hosts two experts on the history of neuroscience and psychotherapy. Dr. Stanley Finger is professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, editor of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, and author of several books on the history of neuroscience, including Origins of Neuroscience. Dr. Nancy McWilliams is a practicing therapist and professor of psychology at the Graduate School of Rutgers University. She is also on the faculty of the New Jersey Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.
Dr. Finger begins by describing the life and work of Jean-Martin Charcot, a pioneering French neurologist with whom Freud studied at the beginning of his career. Charcot dicovered both multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease and was able to outline important distinctions between the two. He also showed that the muscle wasting characteristic of polio had its source in a problem with the nerves. And ALS -- the condition known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease" in the United States -- is actually called "Charcot's Disease" in much of Europe.
Charcot and Freud worked together with "hysterical" patients -- both men and women -- using hypnosis in an attempt to shed light on traumatic events in those patients' pasts. Hysteria in the 19th century was the name given to conditions in which patients had physical symptoms, such as blindness or paralysis, for which no physical cause could be determined. Freud's work with hysteria and hypnosis laid the foundation for psychoanalysis.
Dr. McWilliams points out that Freud's contemporary Pierre Janet was also a student of Chacot. Janet was interested in classifying forms of hysteria and trying to understand what we would now call trauma and its effects. Janet and Freud disagreed about how the psyche dealt with traumatic events, with Freud arguing that such events, or impulses and fantasies, were repressed, or made unconsious, while Janet felt that dissociation--a separation of consciousness from ordinary reality-- was more characteristic of reactions to trauma.
The doctors discuss the history of Freud's positions on molestation and childhood sexual fantasies and feelings. Dr. McWilliams thinks that our understanding of trauma was clouded for a time partly because Janet's work was not well-known--she says therapists are better equipped to deal with patients who have experienced trauma now than they were in past decades. There is a discussion of how the reliability of memory is affected by trauma, and of some of Freud's relations -- cordial and otherwise -- with other early psychoanalytic thinkers such as Jung, Adler, Rank, and Ferenczi.
Dr. Finger mentions the work of John Hughlings Jackson, a Darwinian psychologist who believed that the brain was a mix of older structures overlaid with newer areas. Dr. Goodwin points out that this is very close to the work of contemporary biological psychology and psychiatry, and there is a discussion of how Freud's theories of id, ego, and superego may correspond with parts of the brain such as the brainstem or the limbic system, the cortex, and the frontal lobes.
Dr. Goodwin and the guests go off point a bit to discuss the science behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Dr. Finger's research shows that Shelley was attending scientific lectures and reading leading textbooks that dealt with theories about how electricity and might work with the human body. Both Mary and Percy Shelley were amateur scientists, experimenting with electricity to the point of electrocuting the family cat. There is a general comment to the effect that while looking back 100 years, it is easy to laugh at some of the scientific theories and practices of the day, undoubtedly our descendants 100 years in the future will do the same for us.
You can reach Dr. Finger through the Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, 63130, or via e-mail at sfinger@artsci.wustl.edu. Dr. McWilliams can be reached at the Graduate School of Applied Psychology, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, New Jersey, 08854.
Next -- a look behind the scenes at today's psychoanalysts. The Infinite Mind's Eva Neuberg reports from the annual meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, held in New York this past December. Learn how analysis is faring in this era of managed care and biological psychology. Much about the profession has changed in recent decades--but some things still remain the same.
For more information about the American Psychoanalytic Association, you can visit their Web site or call them at 212-752-0450.
For some comic relief, The Infinite Mind visits with Jonathan Katz, the mind behind Comedy Central Cable Network's Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. He answers some common questions about therapy, such as:
Why are sessions 45 minutes long?
Why is it important to pay for therapy?
Who is your toughest patient? Your easiest?
How has therapy changed since Freud's day?
And more...
Dr. Goodwin speaks with Psychology Today editor Annie Murphy Paul about some of the news in the February issue of the magazine. They discuss how psychology is steadily becoming a woman's profession: three-quarters of advanced psychology degrees and two-thirds of bachelor's degrees are now going to women. The number of women therapists, too, is climbing as the number of male patients in therapy increases. What might be some of the consequences? Also, a discussion of the psychology of investing and the relationship between mental illness and creativity.
Finally -- commentator John Hockenberry meditates on rage and the impulse for revenge in the light of the recent tragedy in New York's subway system.
