Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science, and Psychoanalysis.

Dr. Torrey is a research psychiatrist in Washington, D.C., and the author of Freudian Fraud: The Malignant Effects of Freud's Theory on American Thought and Culture.

DO WE really need another book about Sigmund Freud and his ideas? In the case of Richard Webster's scholarly and substantive new biography, the answer is clearly yes. Besides being an important contribution to the analysis and criticism of Freud's theories, Webster's book provides a pleasant change from the usual corpus Sigmundium, being neither a fawning hagiography along the lines of Peter Gay's Freud: A Life for Our Time, nor a vengeful attack by a disaffected disciple like Jeffrey Masson's The Assault on Truth. Webster says that his book "is not intended simply as another stinging rebuke to Freudians" but rather as a constructive critique of Freud's mistaken theory "partly because I think it is mistaken in a particularly interesting way, and partly in order to establish the need for an alternative theory of human sexuality and human nature."

The author's central thesis is that psychoanalysis "is quintessentially a religion and should be treated as such." "Freud's achievement cannot be understood if we treat him simply as a scientist, a psychologist, or even as the creator of a biological pseudo-science; it can be understood, finally, only if we regard him in the way in which, deep within his own heart, he saw himself -- as a messiah and as the founder of a new religion." Freud's preoccupation with the messianic tradition and his belief that he was a new Moses have been noted by many Freudian scholars, though Webster diverges from other biographers in emphasizing the Christian roots of Freud's ideas, whereas previous scholars have emphasized their Jewish roots. Webster appears well suited to his task, having previously written on theology and English literature and having a broad knowledge of the history of science.

Webster claims that "the theory of infantile sexuality was in effect adopted as the creed of the Freudian church" and that Freud placed "a confessional ritual at the very heart of the psychoanalytic movement." The historical and scientific origins of Freud's theories about infantile sexuality, masturbation, the Oedipus complex, the unconscious, and the meaning of dreams are explored in detail, with the author concluding that Freud's "essentially religious frame of mind . . . always led him to prefer speculating about the invisible to observing the visible."

Although Webster eschews direct attacks on Freud's character, unpleasant traits emerge in the telling of the story. For example: "there is a great deal of evidence, most of it in Freud's own frank and astonishing words, that he went out of his way to persuade, encourage, cajole, and sometimes bully his female patients to reproduce scenes of child sexual abuse which he himself had reconstructed from their symptoms or their associations." Elsewhere he alludes to Freud's "sometimes less than scrupulous attitude toward truth" which, in the context of this book, is certainly an understatement. Freud's apparent misdiagnosis of many of his famous patients is also discussed in detail, including the case of Anna O., who probably had temporal-lobe epilepsy or another organic brain disorder rather than hysteria. Indeed the entire psychoanalytic edifice appears to have been constructed on the sands of misdiagnosis.

The most egregious flaw in Freud's character, which Webster discusses in detail, was Freud's "evident failure to understand the human implications of his own decision to take his daughter [Anna] into analysis." What is one to say about a man who taught that a child's sexual attraction to the parent of the opposite sex is crucial for development, but who then had his 26-year-old daughter describe her sexual fantasies to him? Would you buy a used theory from this man?

One of the most interesting sections of the book is an Afterword entitled "Freud's False Memories: Psychoanalysis and the Recovered-Memory Movement." Webster became aware of the freshet of false memories in America as he was completing his book and decided that "no attempt to estimate the influence of Freud upon our century would be complete if it did not offer some account of this movement." He quotes Frederick Crews as estimating conservatively "that a million people have been helped by their psychotherapists to recover putative 'memories' of child sexual abuse since 1988 alone. Tens of thousands of families have been torn apart by allegations of incest springing from these 'recovered memories."' Webster does not deny that sexual abuse does occur in childhood, and that psychoanalytic theory has caused damage by assuming that memories of such abuse were fantasies. Damage equally great, however, has been caused by psychotherapists in a latter-day psychoanalytic tradition who assume that memories of childhood sexual abuse -- including memories that have been suggested by the therapists themselves -- are all true. As the author notes: "the notion that Freud based his seduction theory on real instances of sexual abuse has become the foundation myth of the entire recovered-memory movement."

The section on the recovered-memory movement is the author's only attempt to assess the influence of Freudian theories on contemporary culture, and this is a shortcoming of the book. There is nothing here about the Freudian roots of the don't-blame-me-I'm-not-responsible-because-I-had-a-dysfunctional-family movement, and very little about Freud's misogynistic teachings (e.g., he called girls "the little creature without a penis") and their effects on the women's movement.

Perhaps the most surprising omission in Webster's biography is his minimization of Freud's well-known use of cocaine from 1884 to 1886 and his enthusiastic promotion of what he referred to as "this magical substance" before its addictive properties had become evident. Webster makes no mention of Freud's use of cocaine after 1886, despite including in his bibliography E. M. Thornton's Freud and Cocaine, Robert Byck's Cocaine Papers by Sigmund Freud, and Jeffrey Masson's The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess. What these books make clear is that Freud continued using cocaine at least intermittently until 1895 even though it was known to be addictive. For example, on June 12, 1895, Freud wrote to Fliess that "I need lots of cocaine."

Between 1895 and 1899 Freud continued to complain of irregular heart-beat, headaches, nasal stuffiness, and other symptoms that are commonly found in cocaine abusers. E. M. Thornton concluded in her 1983 book that Freud almost certainly continued to abuse cocaine until 1899. Her conclusion has been subsequently corroborated by Freud scholar Peter Swales, who unearthed a letter written by Ernest Jones saying: "I don't think he [Freud] gave up interest in cocaine and I guess he took it himself off and on for 15 years." Since Freud's initial use of cocaine is clearly established as being in 1884, this would place his use of it as continuing until approximately 1899.

By that time Freud had developed and published virtually all his theories including those of infant sexuality, the Oedipal complex, and the interpretation of dreams (the last being dated 1900 but actually published in 1899). Therefore, given Freud's known abuse of cocaine, scholars looking for the origins of his theories must seriously consider their roots as extending into the white powder as well as into theological hermeneutics, mythological traditions, and literary exegesis.