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Title: Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (Penguin Psychology) by H.J. Eysenck ISBN: 0-14-013685-1 Publisher: Penguin USA (P) Pub. Date: 01 March, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (5 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Freud's Fraud
Comment: If you are one of the perceptives, you have probably questioned the quackery behind Freudian psychoanalysis, but may not have taken the time to investigate precisely why it is exactly that. Eysenck has done an outstanding job in this book in showing not only how unscientific and wrong it is, but goes further to describe the great harm that his ideas have inflicted on Western society.

Psychoanalysis is two things: a theory of psychology, dealing with memory, personality and childhood development; and a method for treatment of certain types of mental illness such as neuroses and depression. As a theory of psychology, it has failed because its basic assumptions are now known to be incorrect, and because of its use of unscientific modes of establishing and analyzing factual materials. As a treatment, it has failed because of its very frequently noted propensity for making patients worse. Its sexual interpretation of physical symptoms, such as a cough being a "love song," or bedwetting being caused by masturbation, are absurdities that only perverts can believe.

Eysenck's critique is truly devastating for a modern reader to encounter, and one can only wonder why Freud's ideas have had such an impact on the popular imagination. Eysenck's lucidly expressed explanation is that the answer lies in the ancient human desire to get something for nothing. Freudian methods can obtain theories without having to laboriously obtain reliable facts. Non-scientific thinkers, including literary authors, new agers, pseudo-psychologists, social workers and pedagogues, whose hunger for explanations exceeds their common sense, mistake idle speculation for "insight," and lamentably fall all too easily for humbug.

The author's interpretation of the root causes of Freud's errors and deceptions are actually, to me, a bit on the generous side. He sees them as compounded of ignorance, an erotic mode of thinking, laziness, cocain, and a desire to be the heroic leader of a cult-like movement. Kevin MacDonald's interpretation in "Culture of Critique," goes even further to describe Freud's malevolent rejection of Western European intellectual traditions, which Freud, as a strongly self-identified Jew, hated.

Rating: 4
Summary: The Fairytales of Freud
Comment: The author successfully disputes the widespread belief that psychoanalysis is a science. He destroys many of the myths that encricle Freud, showing him as a mortal human being, which is not how Freud liked to see himself. Rather then being the hero his colleagues made him out to be, we come to see that Freud's projected his own neurosis onto his psychological 'discoveries,' and his followers who idolized him took these discoveries as truth simply because Freud said they were. Freud is guilty of Solopism, the belief that everyone is just like yourself. Much of what has been taken for fact in the past regarding psychology should be looked over with a critical eye. That author seems to adhere to behavioral psychology as the 'answer.' Right now Behavioral psychology is the only alternative. It treats the SYMPTOMS of neurosis, quite effectively I might say. I agree that behavioral psychology has much to offer, but I would caution the reader not to go to extremes and decide that no other theories as to the cause(s) of neurosis should be developed and pursued. The author points out that Freud was was comparable to Hans Christian Anderson, a spreader of fairtytales. Don't forget that Andersons' fairtales all had a bit of wisdom inside. Like Andersons', Freuds' Fairytales contain a grain of truth also, that should be reexamined. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. For example, Freud's Oedipus Complex is very well known. While there is no proof that the male child wants to do the things Freud claims, I believe there is proof that all male children who have good relationships with their mothers, love them and become very attached to them. This is not to say that they wish to have sex with them but that they become ATTACHED to them, no one would agrgue with this. I don't believe that a child of such a young age knows what sex is or has ever thought about it in relation to his mother. Now, it's also reasonable to believe that being selfish as children are, the male child DOES in fact want the mother all to himself, he wants all of her attentions and the father gets in the way of this attention, as do siblings. Then we would have the male child feeling ANIMOSITY (not wanting to kill) toward his father, and we have sibling rivalry which is already an established fact. So don't disregard Freud as a crazy lunatic with nothing to offer psychology. I don't argue that the conclusions he reached are wild, and need to be re-worked. But, I sincerely hope that psychology does not adopt behaviorism completely to the exclusion of trying to come up with any other workable theories as to the cause(s) of neurosis. One wouldn't suggest that we stop all cancer research simply because we currently have the means to effectively treat many of the symptoms.

Rating: 5
Summary: Not the last word, but essential reading
Comment: Make no mistake about it, Eysenck does not think much of Freud. At times his tone adopts a polemical flavor that I personally find distasteful. Yet the facts remain. Anyone hoping to understand Freud and psychoanalytic theory must read Eysenck, if only to be aware of the questions that must be faced.

Eysenck gives four rules about interpreting Freud. First, do not believe what Freud and others have to say about his life. Check out the facts for yourself. Eysenck claims that most biographical material about Freud is designed to promote hero worship.

Second, do not believe the claims about the effectiveness of the psychoanalytic method. Look at the evidence for yourself. For example, in the famous case of Anna O, Eysenck documents Freud's failed "cure" and continued treatment by medical doctors of her tuberculous meningitus.

Third, do not accept claims of originality in Freud's theory. Eysenck traces use of even the "unconscious" to Freud's predecessors.

Fourth, do not accept Freudian evidence for the correctness of his theories. Eysenck claims that the facts often disprove, rather than support, Freud's claims.

Eysenck is not the last word. Psychoanalysis continues today. There are proponents who have extended Freud's theories. There have been new attempts to find value in Freud's work. Nonetheless, Eysenck is essential. In a sense he started the entire controversy!