Critical of the psychoanalysis

The Psychanalyse met critics as of his birth. The theses of Freud caused the opposition of scientists, doctors, Philosophes and Psychologue S of its time. Indeed, Freud disputed the supremacy of the Conscience and the will: the philosophical and moral subject was not any more the central axis of the psychological subject, since an essential share is under the influence of the Inconscient; he proposed a comprehension of the psychological disorders out of the biological sphere and he placed in the center of the psychic development, and as of childhood, the conflicts in the development of the infantile Sexualité, it was reproached Freud for calling into question the innocence of childhood.

Setting in prospect

Criticisms of Freud and the psychoanalysis until today extremely many and were varied. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish criticisms which carry on Freud itself (its personality, its lack of rigor supposed) of those which relate to the Psychanalyse, discipline whose theoretical bases evolved/moved considerably during the century bringing to schools, theorizations, practices, extremely different from/to each other today. This done that some critical adapted to the psychoanalysis " débuts" are not it today any more. A great number of criticisms appear directed against Freud itself with the idea that to attack the founder could put at evil the building. In France, the critic of Freud is often a critic of Freud via Lacan which had an enormous influence on the intellectual and university mediums (cf for example Borch-Jacobson itself near to the lacaniens during its stay in Paris).

The debate on the psychoanalysis was radicalized since the years 1980, starting from the publication in 1984 of the lampoon of Jeffrey Masson, reality retracted (The Assault one Truth) . Freud was described there like a faker and a liar, who moreover had contributed to perpetuate female oppression while refusing to believe in the reality of the infantile sexual assaults reported by his patients, accounts that he regarded as productions of the Inconscient. The polemic intensified during the ten following years, so that one spoke about Freud Wars . The polemic was so intense that the American Congress decided in 1995 of the carryforward of a traditional exposition in Freud under the pressure of some historians and epistemologists. This hostile group with the psychoanalysis and Freud and which is often indicated under the term of Freud scholars includes/understands researchers and polemists resulting from different horizons and which apply to the psychoanalysis of virulent criticisms according to various modes of approach: history, epistemological and therapeutic.

These Freud Wars , more recently still, essaimé towards the French-speaking world in the form of the publication of a lampoon: the black Book of the psychoanalysis , which took again criticisms of the Freud scholars and French authors. Following this publication, a sharp debate began.

Criticisms of philosophers

The psychoanalysis did not always make good household with philosophy and its different and innumerable currents. Without speaking about the Marxist critics, existentialists, etc it is not possible to summarize them all the more so as they vary according to their author or the currents in question. At the time of Freud, Pierre Janet with the crossroads of philosophy and Psychologie was reticent and even corrosive. Karl Jaspers, while admiring the understanding openings of psychoanalytical research, criticized of it confusion between “explanatory psychology” and “causal psychology”. It estimated that the psychoanalysis became an adding up system which neglected the limits of what one can include/understand of the human heart. Ludwig Wittgenstein was to him also a savage contradictor of psychoanalytical works of which it did not retain anything or about. Removed from the metaphysics and completely colonized by mathematical sciences, the Logical formal, positivist, neo-positivist or “analytical”, criticisms consequently turned to the question of the scientific validity.

Criticisms of the scientific validity

In the years 1970 but still today, the psychoanalysis has a important influence in particular in France, where it is mentioned in the programs of Philosophie of the class of final. It is it also in the magazines general public, but undoubtedly with a less repercussion. This situation is deplored by those which dispute the statute of science to him owing to the fact that the psychoanalytical theory would not arise as “refutable” to the direction where heard Popper in the Logique of the scientific discovery (1934).

The psychoanalysis is besides one of the disciplines which question the Zététique, by, mainly, epistemological criticism .

Refutability

The applicability of the criterion of demarcation

The problem of the absolute psychic determinism and apriorist

The thesis of Popper

Determinism “psychic absolute”

Freud preached a absolute determinism psychic , excluding all valid Hasard and “without exception” , but also, apriorist , which is the crucial distinctive feature of the psychoanalytical determinism.

Freud writes that “We will not be astonished to note that the analytical examination reveals as being determined perfectly, not only the numbers, but any word stated under the same conditions. ”

Thus, according to this design of the determinism which does not leave any share randomly, Freud should be able, to not only interpret (like it does it in “Psychopathology of the daily life”), but also to causalement explain causalement, like predicting all the numbers and all the words, if it is well a science of the Inconscient which it claimed to found. The absolute psychic determinism thus implies the possibility of explaining and to predict any number or word made up of as many members as one will want, and this, by excluding any so tiny error it is.

Psychoanalysts, such Pierre-Henri Manor house, also noticed the problems involved in the designs of Freud on the determinism. Manor house underlines, for example: “(...) the position of Freud, to be consequent, must thus interpret all the phenomena considered in general as fortuitous, like products of the psychic determinism. It is not here any more question of the dream or the witty remark, but of the list by indefinitely open definition of the failures which attest the action of a repression. ” .

Determinism “ a priori ”

This absolute psychic determinism is also a priori . This Apriorism, (which constitutes the crucial character of the determinism such as Freud conceived it), raised, in particular, by Timpanaro, is indeed necessary to be able to allow a therapeutic technique founded on the Interprétation of the associations known as '' free '', since during the analysis, according to Freud, the patient must say all that passes to him indeed by the head (, Freud written in Five lessons on the psychoanalysis: “(...) it is necessary (...) that it says all that comes to him to mind, even if he thinks that it is inaccurate, out of the question, stupid even, and especially if it is unpleasant for him that its thought stops with such an idea. If it is subjected to these rules, it will get free associations to us which will put to us on the traces of the complex driven back” ).

If it is thus well the whole of the verbal associations, nonverbal such as for example of the drawings or the works of art which the psychoanalysis proposes to explain using its strict causal laws, as these associations would be apprehended like free , then it is necessary for the psychoanalysis to have a theory based on such a determinism allowing to apprehend, a priori and without any risk of error since it excludes the chance , free plan apparently unspecified and free of all the or not verbal verbal associations which mankind can make. According to Karl Popper, and also Jacques Bouveresse (ibid, page 116), no determinism of this type, actually can, to allow the psychoanalysis or even any other doctrines to carry out the objectives which it gives itself that it is on the theoretical level, or therapeutic.

It is noticed that Freud excludes from the “psychic life” , any arbitrary possibility of (i.e., for him, of something of subjected to the control of the Free-referee, therefore of the Conscience), and of fortuitous , (i.e., chance). But by excluding in an so explicit way the chance on the level of an unconscious causality, Freud also excludes, logically, any miscalculation which the unconscious one can make, perspective invalidated by Karl Popper.

Any therapeutic attempt is a project of Prédiction, since it is predicted that by the application of certain therapeutic techniques supported by the Corroboration of some universal theories, the patient will cure his neuroses, or then will find a new positive direction with its life. Thus, and while being based on the absolute psychic determinism (and apriorist), the psychoanalysis should be able to realize, according to Popper, of the therapeutic predictions, or any other type of predictions referring to the behavior and human psychism, with any degree of accuracy stipulated in advance.

But Jacques Bouveresse advances that, by being based (in particular) on the critic of the “scientific determinism” worked out by Karl Popper, the theories freudiennes supposed to hold an explanatory value, could not actually provide the so strict causes implied by the assertion of an absolute psychic determinism and apriorist (PRIMA faciae), and, even less, give place to unspecified predictions on human psychism, since the capacity asserted by Freud to provide the causes of a phenomenon logically implies that of being able to predict them.

All in all, and by taking again the analyzes of Lévi-Strauss and of the Timpanaro Marxist, Jacques Bouveresse points out that the psychoanalysis would approach much more “concrete magic” that science, because, precisely, of its positions favorable to a strict determinism excluding the chance. This criticism, according to which the psychoanalysis would be only one “magic thought” established in the “primitive mentality”, and which would proceed by “developments scholastics”, because of its strict determinism neglecting the “second causes”, is also found at Pierre Debray-Ritzen.

Ethnography, social sciences

the universality of the Oedipus complex concept of seems invalidated by research (in particular ethnographic)

one does not find everywhere the interdict of the inceste (the Pharaons of Egypt practiced it, the myth of the brother-husband étrait there very present, and Cléopâtre itself was girl of a brother and a sister.
certain companies do not have families structured around the father.

These points question the universal validity of this psychoanalytical concept; that being, the vast majority of the human groups practice a form of exogamy well, as Lévi-Strauss will show it, while being pressed on often powerful interdicts. Thus the Oedipus complex is to be included/understood as a social concept more than biological (“does not marry your sister” meaning then “Gives your sister to another family to make alliance with it”), which sometimes Freud lets think (cf Moïse and the monotheism );

The reflections on the Civilization of Freud are established by confusing this one with the Culture. In his works Malayan in civilization , the Future of an illusion and Brace and the Monothéisme , the psychoanalyst is interested in the Sociologie and the Anthropologie. Besides he regards sociology as a Psychologie applied.

Freud estimates that civilization is threatened of dislocation under the effect of two antagonistic forces:

the constraints that she exerts on the individual, and which make obstacle with its immediate desires, from where cumulative frustration with the wire of time
the culture which she creates and which reduces certainly most of these tensions, but brings on the other hand to wonder about the utility of this civilization itself

It is astonished and worried that civilization itself can be rejected. This rejection would be translated for him by an unconscious wish of destruction of what forms its Humanité, civilization. The death instinct, Thanatos would be as in the long term strong as the life instinct, Eros . The concept of Pulsion is influenced by that of will at Schopenhauer. That is to be brought closer to “We other civilizations know now that we are mortals” of Paul Valéry contemplating the final shipwreck which Europe had risked lasting the Great War

Criticisms relating to the legitimacy of the psychoanalyst

The practice of the psychoanalysis does not imply the detention of a particular university degree. To be affiliated to an association of psychoanalysts, it is imperative, that the expert itself was analyzed by the didactic Analyze, during many years what completely coherent with the writings of Freud. The access to the trades in connection with the medical care, psychiatric or not, strictly is framed in the majority of the Western countries. In France the psychoanalysis did not manage yet to obtain a regulation of psychotherapy, this one besides, still recent. Let us note that the same applies to the therapies behaviorists, last born. It is one of criticisms which are generally made to him.

Scientific impact of the psychoanalysis

According to a report/ratio of the IPA (International Psychoanalytical Association), the psychoanalysis could have less scientific impact than before. Indeed, this analysis concerning the frequency of means of quotation of the “International Newspaper off Psychoanalysis” and the Newspaper of American Psychoanalytical Association in “Social Science Quotation Index” show a decline of the quotations by other newspapers. What would mean that the psychoanalysis would develop in “being unaware of the contemporary contributions” (COp cit.).

Historical and political criticisms

Henri F. Ellenberger, analyst, and Frank J. Sulloway developed criticisms on what they invite the “legends” (see Ellenberger, in “History of discovered the unconscious one”, 1970. Henri Ellenberger, in addition often recognized by the defenders of the psychoanalysis like a critic impartial and scholar of his history, recognizing certain qualities to him, writes that it is very difficult to judge in all objectivity the influence of Freud so much his too recent history would be deformed by the legends, and that it “would be of a priceless interest to discover the starting point of the legend freudienne and to analyze the factors which allowed its development.”

Frank Sulloway, in “Freud biologist of the spirit”; J. Bénesteau, in “Lies freudiens, history of a secular misinformation”; Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and Sonu Shamdasani, in “the file Freud, investigation into the history of the psychoanalysis”; develop, following Ellenberger, (and by taking again its theses sometimes), of the arguments relating to what they estimate to be “legends” and the “lies freudiens” (Bénesteau).

The arguments, sometimes severe or polemical, of these historians were taken again with their continuation, by other intellectuals having undertaken research and publish critical work of historical nature on Freud and the psychoanalysis.

Sigmund Freud was presented in the form of a Galileo of the psychology of his time, the discoverer of unconscious and the psychoanalysis which would have become its “science private” (Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and Shamdasani).

However, Auguste Forel (defender of the Eugénisme), disputed in Freud the discovery psychoanalytical method in these terms:

“the discoverer of the psychoanalytical method “O”, as well from the point of view of its psychological significance as of its therapeutic significance, is Dr. Joseph Breuer of Vienna.”

Henri F. Ellenberger relativizes the originality of discovered the freudienne:

“the legend freudienne about completely overlooks the scientific circle and cultural in which the psychoanalysis developed, from where the topic of the absolute originality of all that it brought: one thus allots to the hero the merit contributions of his predecessors, his associates, his disciples, his rivals and his contemporaries in general.”

For psychiatry organicist, the psychoanalysis would have been, as it became again the case today, a product of the imagination of Freud and its successors. Indeed, according to work of the “Freud scholars” (historians of Freud, sometimes qualified revisionists), this last, since the beginnings until the end of its life, would never have admitted of witness independent in his cabinet (contrary to some of its more eminent first models such Charcot) nor of control extra-private clinic and reproducible of its theories, while rejecting in an explicit way, in an answer remained famous to Rosenzweig, the experimental method

Borch-Jacobsen and Sonu Shamdasani, also support that:

“the systematic ignorance of work of the other researchers and the systematic refusal to open with their criticisms are one distinctive features of psychoanalytical obedience.” .

The theory of unconscious and the Oedipus complex would be entirely the fruit of the failure recognized by Freud itself of its clean self-analysis by Introspection (proceeded already recognized like obsolete in its time, and already a long time front, by Emmanuel Kant in: " Anthropology. Various fragments relating to the reports/ratios of the physique and moral and with the trade of the spirits of one world to the autre."

“It is a thing worthy of reflection, a thing useful and necessary for logic and metaphysics, to observe in oneself the various acts of representative faculty, when they are caused. But to want épiloguer, to claim to know the way in which these acts emerge from themselves in the heart without being caused (...), it is an inversion of the order natural in faculty to know (...) it is already or a disease of the spirit (...), or a routing with the madness.”

According to most recent work of the “Freud scholars” (Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and Sonu Shamdasani), Freud would not have, by working recluse in his cabinet and by systematically excommunicating the critics, frame that “its science private”, as well as legends around its character and of its doctrines in order to better impose the objectivity of its studies and its results on the one hand, and rigor and honesty of its methods on the other hand. Freud would have dissimulated its inspirations of biologist (considered to be obsolete, by Ernst Kris, one of its burning defenders), in the design of its theories, in order to better give the impression of a radical scientific rupture with the psychology of its time, to affirm itself, in “pure psychologist” like new “Galileo” of psychology. It is thus this work of dissimulation of its inspirations obsolete biologists which Freud would have operated, which justifies the qualifier of “cryptobiologist of the spirit” , used by Frank Sulloway in its study. However, this point of view is criticized, by Borch-Jacobsen and Sonu-Shamdasani.

The “Freud scholars” seem unanimous on the fact that Freud was the only pilot one privileged creation of its theories and their confirmation, and treatment of the great judicious cases being representative of the effectiveness of its therapeutic method as of the validity of the theories which under tighten them.

Work of Freud scholars is sometimes described “of insulting” or “defamatory”, by defenders of the psychoanalysis. Does the argument of the plot, and the “conspiracy”, also return in a recurring way in the speeches and the writings of the defenders of the psychoanalysis, who see in criticisms a “hatred” against Freud and the psychoanalysis, therefore of irrational which cannot be treated on the face of the rational and critical speech but on that of the symptom (cf for example the book of Elisabeth Roudinesco “ Pourquoi so much of hatred? - anatomy of the black book of the psychoanalysis ”).

Critical by the Nazi regime

There exists another criticism completely different from the preceding one, which is that of the mode Nazi. Indeed, this last severely criticized the psychoanalysis, considered as a “Jewish science”. From 1933, the works of Freud were burned in public place in Germany, the institutes of psychoanalyzed closed, and many ransacked places of care. That because the escape of the first German, Austrian psychoanalysts and Hungarian towards London, New York, the Latin America. Practice of the psychoanalysis with however completely not disappeared under the Nazi regime. Certain nonJewish psychoanalysts continued to work within the Institut Göring directed by the psychiatrist Matthias Göring, at the price of a rupture with international psychoanalytical associations (API. One can thus say that a controlled practice of the psychoanalysis by " non-juifs" was tolerated provided that it remains discrete, but the project of Matthias Göring was to develop rather a German psychotherapy patriotic and respectful of the religious values based on concepts adlériens than freudiens.

Marxist criticisms

The Marxist , besides some exceptions notable like Trotsky, regarded the psychoanalysis as a middle-class science, they prohibited the practice in the USSR of it. However, a intellectual current indicated under the name of Freudo-Marxism whose principal representatives were the psychoanalysts of the left freudienne : of Otto Fenichel with Wilhelm Reich, like Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse. But it is in France, that with the most richness the junction between the communist ideal and the idea of a subversion freudienne was carried out, with the surrealist movement and the double project of revolution of the language and reality. Freud always expressed a hostility, if not with the Marxism, at least with Communism and especially with the freudo-Marxists and the surrealist ones. Louis Althusser, in 1964, inaugurated a recasting of the Marxism, starting from a reading largely inspired of the theses freudiennes.

Ethical and religious criticisms

The charge of subjectivism, and lie

The charge of subjectivism seems supported well by the proper remarks of Freud. He writes, in Introduction to the psychoanalysis, first part, the parapraxes (Edition Small Payot library, page 8): “the conversation which constitutes the analytical treatment does not support listeners; it does not lend itself to the demonstration (...) You will not be able to thus attend as listeners a psychoanalytical treatment. You can only intend some to speak and, with the most rigorous direction of the word, you will be able to know the psychoanalysis only by hearsay. (...) Whole depends, mainly, of the degree of confidence which that inspires to you which informs you. ”

The proper assertions of Freud, appear to agree with criticisms of Borch-Jacobsen and Shamdasani in “the Freud file inquires into the history of the psychoanalysis”, page 334 - 335, where, after having described the “lies” , the “assertions misleading” , the “ambiguities stylistics” and the “silences interested” , the authors support that: “(...) Freud is not any more one reliable witness. Or rather, he is only one witness among others, particularly doubtful and partial being given the multiple benefit theoretical, practical, economic and institutional that he withdraws his testimonys” , and especially that he would have built only a “science private” and “legendary” , apart from any independent control, therefore according to a step diametrically opposed to the true science.

For a few years, especially since the Freud exposure to the USA, one has witnessed a rise of criticisms in moral matter based on the person of Freud (he would have been a “liar”, a “charlatan”, a cocaine addict) and on what that implies in terms of scientific validity: it would have made up the real results of its experiments or would have interpreted them in an exaggeratedly optimistic way.

Historians like Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and Sonu Shamdasani in “the Freud file. Inquire into the history of the psychoanalysis”, thus show that all the psychoanalysis is only the “science private” of Freud, and that it cannot, so to be regarded as a science. Following this report, the historians show that while destroying, by the historical analysis, the protective and untrue legends which would be intended to protect Freud and the psychoanalysis from the awakening of their real history entirely dependant on the lies freudiens, one would carry a fatal blow to the credibility of the one and other. Neither Freud, nor “its” psychoanalysis would resist “the police force of last” the (Borch-Jacobsen). It are to be stressed that although other scientists could, they also to lie or somewhat cheat on their results, the extent and the consequences of the “lies freudiens” (Bénesteau) would be such, (according to the historians), that they would make of Freud a completely single and exemplary case in the history of the ideas (Voir Borch-Jacobsen, Crews, Cioffi, Van Rillaer, etc).

A movement sometimes qualified of “sectarian”

As one will note it in the light of the quotations which follow, the judgment according to which the movement freudien was especially organized as a sectarian movement neither is isolated nor marginal in the history from criticism from this movement.

Since the beginning of the voices rose which brought closer the psychoanalysis to a sect. It was the case of Alfred Hoche, German Psychiatre, burning defender of the Eugénisme, one of the very first critics of the psychoanalysis, which wrote in 1910: “In an astonishing way, a great number of disciples, partly straightforwardly fanatic, joined now in Freud and follow it where that it carries out them. To speak on this subject about a school freudienne would actually completely be moved, insofar as it is not issue of fact scientifically probable or demonstrable, but about articlees of faith; in truth, if I exclude some more balanced heads of them, it is about a community of believers, of a kind of sect (eine Art von Sekte) with all the characteristics which are referred to it. The movement freudien is in fact the return, in a modern form, of Medicina magica, a kind of secret teaching (Geheimlehre) which can be practiced only by qualified soothsayers.”

Others critical famous of the psychoanalysis, such Henri Ellenberger, give the same opinion on the psychoanalysis (See for example, the organization of a “secret Committee” by Freud, and distribution of a ring to faithful, members of this Committee). Henri Ellenberger written:

“is the psychoanalysis a science? She does not answer the criteria (unified science, field and definite methodology). She answers the features of a Secte philosophical (closed organization, highly personal initiation, doctrines changing but defined by her official adoption, Culte and Légende of the founder.” “And still this: what Freud introduced: return to the system ancient “sect”: initiation of character more than close friend, sacrifices of considerable money, common doctrines, worship of the Founder” . (In: “Uncertainties of the psychoanalysis”, notes typed, Center Henri Ellenberger, hospital Saint-Anne, Paris).

However, it would be to introduce Henri Ellenberger wrongfully by forgetting that it had also a point of view where it recognized the practical value of certain concepts resulting from the psychoanalysis, since he was psychoanalyst.

Letter of Eugen Bleuler in Sigmund Freud, 1° January 1912 (In: Mikkel Borch-Jacbosen and Sonu Shamdasani, ibid, page 125): But it is the type of association which is harmful. Rather than to endeavor to have many contact points with the remainder science and other scientists, Association was isolated from the outside world with barbed wires, which wounds the friends as well as the enemies. The psychoanalysts themselves justified the malicious remarks of Notch on sectarianism, which at the time were unjustified.”

The problem of the reports/ratios to the money

The need for paying the meetings in liquid is regarded by certain critics of the psychoanalysis as an index of the venality of the psychoanalysts. Let us specify however that this rule applies only to the psychoanalytical Cure standard, and that it does not relate to the psychoanalytical psychotherapies much more frequently practiced.

For the psychoanalysts, this rule obeys a precise theorization: the concrete aspect of cash enables him to be closely connected to many unconscious reasons that the cure aims at making conscious so that they can be elaborate there. The meeting being paid, at once, analyzing it is free to come or not to return to the following meeting. According to the psychoanalytical Company of Paris:

“the direct payment of analyzing with the analyst, without interposed third, constitutes the optimal situation for the dynamics of the process. The payment in cash belongs to the analytical tradition, and aims at making more concrete and has this dimension of the exchange. The general evolution of the methods of payment (accounts - checks, credit card), which can all the more justify this clause, has tendency in addition, and in a sometimes cumbersome way, to bind it to the idea of tax evasion”.

Criticisms of religious nature

Criticisms of monk rest either on reasons morals or on an ideal vision of human which cannot integrate the dualistic vision of Freud. The Catholic church shows the psychoanalysis to justify the Fornication and to claim that all the psychological problems would have their source in a driven back sexuality. The priest franciscain Agostino Gemelli writes in Psicoanalisi E Cattolicismo (1950) that the theories of Freud are unacceptable for the Catholic church.

Psychological criticisms

In the years 1920, a more scientific criticism - even scientistic - emerged, in particular at Lev Vygotski (1896-1934). Its criticisms, which do not call into question the existence of the Inconscient, nor the infantile Sexualité, relate to three principal points:

the psychoanalysis gives a too exclusive place to the unconscious one: not to take into account the conscious elements in the lived experiment involves to neglect the social activity;
the psychoanalysis gives too much explanatory importance to the structure of the conflicts of childhood: not to take into account the later events in the biography of the person prevents from including/understanding the articulation, possible, of the current conflicts and their sources with the conflicts which proceeded in childhood;
the psychoanalysis reduces too all the psychic demonstrations to sexuality.

Vygotski concludes its criticism by:

“ Ainsi the psychoanalytical method still awaits its true practical application, and one can only say that this application must concretize in the reality and in practice the immense theoretical contributions of value which this theory contains. ” (COp C. p.123)

Criticisms of the Métapsychologie

Others critical, like those of Ian Hacking, relate to “ the brittleness of the concept of mémoire ”, fruit of a long historical construction, and thus by extension, of the concept of unconscious. These criticisms show besides at which point, work of Freud, contrary to an generally accepted idea, fell under the thought of its time, very attentive with the problems of memory and sexuality.

Criticisms of the French school of clinic psychology

Pierre Janet in conflict of priority with Freud, representative of this school, is one of first French to criticize the Psychanalyse, as it would not bring any true new concept, and its only innovation would be the too strong weight which it gives to sexuality (see higher the judgment than carried Jung on the attitude of Freud concerning the role of sexuality).

Janet would be precursory in Freud on many ideas on the psychological Hystérie or treatments. It reproached in particular Freud its use of symbolism:

“What characterizes this method, it is the symbolism, a mental event always can, when that is useful for the theory, being considered as the symbol of another. The transformation of the facts, thanks to all the methods of condensation, displacement, secondary revision, dramatization can be enormous, and it results from it that an unspecified fact can mean all that one will want. It is a consequence of the confidence of the authors in a general principle posed at the beginning like indisputable, which it is not a question to show by the facts but to apply to the facts.”

Michel Cariou, author contemporary of this school, specialist in Walloon Henri, raises the paradox of the psychoanalysis. For him, the psychoanalysis brings its innovation on the basis of the observation which human sexuality passed from only one goal of reproduction has that of pleasure, and thus is soutendue by the concept of impulse rather than by that of instinct. It is from this point of view that the psychoanalysis is for him astonishing. Indeed, “it is probably the paradox of the psychoanalysis which to have granted as well place to this lived conscious”, knowing as “we know well that the conscience does not have as a function to inform us of the processes by which organizes our operation”. This same author also denounces “the Anthropomorphisme” of number of theory in psychology, which, at Freud, took the form of a theorization based on concepts such as the Jouissance and the sexuality, which are in fact of the “obviousnesses of adults” reflected on child (ibid p.111).

Critics cognitivist, of the neurosciences, etc

the Behaviourism, concept of American origin, born from John Broadus Watson, was always opposed savagely to the Psychanalyse and it now found force with the supplement of the Cognitivisme. The Neurosciences currently progress thanks to the new means which the researchers have on the technical plan: cerebral Imagerie, Tomodensitométrie, etc This mobility either question overall the psychoanalysis or tries to show the bases of them by visualizing cerebral activities which would resemble so that Freud described. This current, like the Psychiatry, found preferable, with the beginning of the year 1980, to refer for the diagnosis with unifying descriptive classifications, also being able to be used as a basis for scientific work which they describe as quality. Thus the concept of Névrose was replaced by other diagnostic categories, like those of the turbid anxious and the disorders of the adaptation in last international classifications (CIM-10 and DSM-IV).

The Nobel Prize of medicine, Eric Kandel, which initially accepted a training of psychoanalyst to come to the neurosciences considers that “ If she wants to provide an important contribution to our future comprehension of the human spirit, the psychoanalysis must re-examine and restructure the intellectual context in which its work is undertaken, and develop a more critical approach in the training of the psychoanalysts of tomorrow. ”; “ Thus, contrary to varied forms of cognitive therapies and other psychotherapies, for which objective and irrefutable evidence exists now - at the same time as isolated therapies or as additions with the pharmacological treatment - it there not of irrefutable proof, with share of the subjective impressions, which the psychoanalysis is better than the nonanalytical therapy or the placebo ””

The model freudien of the Rêve S is not accepted any more by the various scientific currents since 1916 when Carl Gustav Jung published his research on the dreams. Freud however attached a completely central importance to the dream and its interpretation, so much for the justification of the theory of unconscious repression (the “keystone” of the psychoanalysis, according to Freud), and of the psychoanalysis as a whole, that for the training of the analysts, like it specifies it in “Five lessons on the psychoanalysis”

At the present time, of the neuroscientific specialists in criticisms of the psychoanalysis such Joelle Proust, affirm that the neurobiologic criticism of the model freudien of the dream would occupy from now on but one marginal place nothing any more and that it would have nothing any more but one historical interest. Always according to Joelle Proust, “the neurosciences do not take again any the concepts of the psychoanalysis in their analysis of the anatomy and physiology of the brain, not more than experimental psychology or the child psychology, not either than the cognitive neuropsychology. ”

For the details on different the positions concerning the dream and its interpretation to see

Concerning the theory of repression freudien, another stone of key of all the building, and considered by Freud, like the “keystone” of all the psychoanalysis. The memories hidden in our memory are not solidified memories, thing absolutely necessary for the base of the theory of repression freudien and to its unconscious: “The brain is not a passive body which does nothing but record stimuli and to compare them with already stored information. The spirit is the consequence of the dynamic interactions between the brain, the body and the environment. (...) The brain does not take photographs. On the contrary, it manufactures them. The brain, (...) participle actively with the manufacture of the visual images, according to its own rules and its personal programs. (...) The dogma according to which the brain cannot produce new neurons at the adulthood is likely to be strongly called in question by recent discovered: new neurons are born apparently in crucial surfaces for the training and the memory. The theory of the fixed memories was based on the biological dogma according to which no new neuron is produced after the birth.” .

Psychoanalytical criticisms

Criticisms of former disciples of Freud

Of the time of Freud, Carl Gustav Jung criticized the dualism pansexualist of the psychoanalysis, it preferred to him a vision monist with the idea of a single life instinct. Alfred Adler highlighted to him the phallic claim that it estimated with the center of psychopathologies, thus eluding the Oedipus complex . Otto Rank on its side estimated that, more important than the Oedipus complex , there was the traumatism of the birth. Sandor Ferenczi preached a more cordial relation implying the psychoanalyst more. Wilhelm Reich thought that " the société" was too restrictive from the point of view of the sexuality and which was thus needed the " libérer" as well as possible to achieve what it called the function of the orgasm. All these criticisms give each one the direction which psychotherapies took thereafter. The stress laid on such or such aspect at the detriment of the central role of the Oedipus complex and the ¨ infantile Sexualité gave rise to practices which we find today under other names: Bioénergie, and others Psychotherapy S resting on the Suggestion.

The position of Lacan

Jacques Lacan in an effort to return to the letter of the text of Freud (some of the concepts were badly translated from German in the first times and introduced regrettable confusions, cf Trieb translates by “instinct” instead of “impulse” or badly included/understood because too new) defended a position where he considered that the psychoanalysis was not a therapy (“it does not look after anything”) since he rather regarded it as a Herméneutique. This position was supplemented by a refusal to consider that the psychoanalysis has something to say on what must be the man (refusal of morals, of the speech of the Master). These reflections led it to call in question the statute of the psychoanalyst as “a doctor of the heart” or which spiritual guide and it applied to itself this radical criticism:

“Our practice is a swindle. Bluffer, to make to ciller people, to dazzle them with words which are chewed, it is nevertheless what is called usually chewed… From the ethical point of view, it is intolerable, our profession… It is a question of knowing if Freud is yes or not an historical event. I believe that it missed its blow. It is like me, in very little time, everyone will foutra psychoanalysis of it.”

“Freud did not have anything transcendent, it was a small doctor who did what it could for what is called curing, which does not go far - the man, therefore, hardly draws any, of this business of knowing.” .

In the review Ornicar (1979, 19: 5s), the President of the School freudienne of Paris (Jacques Lacan) declared:

“the psychoanalysis is to be taken with the serious one, although it is not a science. As showed it abundantly one named Karl Popper, it is not a science of the whole, because it is irrefutable. It is a practice, a practice which will last what it will last”.

Lacan thus refuses the psychoanalysis like therapy, admitting all the same a cure, in addition . The charlatanism would thus come from the presentation of the psychoanalysis like Psychothérapie, where it is a question of hearing what has to say the Sujet unconscious, cure or not. To speak does not make a good, contrary to the generally accepted idea: the word of the analytical scene returns rather in the worst case, that is to say confrontation even with what the subject always sought to flee. Maria Pierrakos, psychoanalyst lacanienne written:

“One can say indeed that it is a question of releasing the subject of the bonds which prevent it from living. But the result of certain analyzes is not it, at the end of many years, to see these bonds replaced by a cobweb of words which little by little lose their direction first to have a double of it, triple, a multitude; and the subject which was in a coherent world of suffering finds in a universe burst where the whole and nothing are equivalent, not to say the whole and anything.”

Unconscious individual and collective

The contribution of Freud on the Inconscient is undeniable, even if this concept were already present for example in work Leibnitz at the 17th century. It is the setting in theory of this discovery which makes the originality and the force of it.

One reproaches Freud for being oneself confined with unconscious individual, regarding the prone individual as , and granting of this fact perhaps too much importance to sexuality. Some claim that the collective dimension of unconscious was not approached by Freud. However, he speaks in Moïse and the monotheism , Malaise in the culture and Mass psychology and analyzes about it to ego (1920), while speaking in particular about the identification to the leader, taking as a starting point Gustave the Good.

Psychotherapy method

The partisans of the psychoanalysis object that the statute of the cure, in psychoanalysis, is not that of an main objective, a too fast cure being able to hide an aggravation of the state of the patient. Already in the studies on hysteria , Sigmund Freud noted that the persistence of a hysterical Symptôme was to retain the interest of the analyst, like being able to reveal a series of associations, and finally a complex whole of problematic representations at the patient. To illustrate the statute which the cure in psychoanalysis occupies, one can quote Alfred Erbs, science doctor human and psychoanalyst, it writes: “the original intention of the psychoanalysis is not to cure. “To cure” is not a psychoanalytical but medical term”.

Jacques Lacan expressed this vision of therapeutic analytical by the famous expression the cure, in addition : it is not a question there of the original intention, which would be rather to make occur the truth of a subject of the stating of the desire.

“ the psychoanalytical investigation again did not bring anything in terms of real knowledge on nature humaine ” : this criticism is based on a design biologisante of the man and the human person. A real knowledge can be only measurable, expérimentable, but precisely in the field of the social sciences where the history (thus time) plays an important role it is not possible, simply, to repeat an experiment because any exchange, the experimenter, experienced are not any more in “the initial state”. The place of infantile sexuality in the development of the child, the unconscious one in psychic operation or the transfer in any relation of care are real knowledge which upset the comprehension of the person and her psychology

as Alain Caillé in his criticism of utilitarianism notices it, in the psychoanalysis, “ the dynamics of psychism is founded on very debatable and very difficult utilitarian principles with invalider ”. Indeed, the psychoanalysis freudienne reduces the psychic activity to a set of psychic forces more or less copied on an economic model: maximization of the pleasure (benefit) and reduction of the suffering (costs). Inconsistencies being explained then by the presence of several authorities which follow contradictory purposes. This economic vision of the psychic forces (profit, loss) did not find at present validation empirical rigorous, and it is not obvious that it can find of it a one day, being given the universality of the diagram cost/benefit which makes it possible to include various phenomena and thus to validate contradictory assumptions.

Others critical

The text of Freud a memory of childhood of Léonard de Vinci , though always seriously studied in Esthetic and Visual arts, is based on a mistranslation, like showed it a historian of art as of 1923. Léonard de Vinci speaks owing to the fact that a Milan (the bird) had been posed on its cradle, Freud, which had only one erroneous German translation of a Russian novel evoking the words of Léonard, makes a long development on the maternal figure and the Vautour (in Russian, the word korshun describes indifferently a vulture or Milan) and there finds the explanation of the homosexuality of Vinci. For some, this example shows the little of case that Freud made facts. For the defenders of this text, the error does not call into question the interpretation, because as say Italian, not E vero, E ben' trovato (if it is not true, it is well found).

The misogyny of Freud is often criticized as a base even of its theories: “Freud designed the woman like a sad copy of the man, unrelentingly obnubilated by the castration complex ” Haro on Freud and its followers , Nouvel Observateur, 9/1/2005). This thesis amongst other things is also disputed by the psychoanalyst Monique Schneider in her writings, amongst other things " The paradigm féminin" , Flammarion, 2006, ISBN 2080801570

Contexts and stakes of criticisms

The discussions in connection with the psychoanalysis (theoretical and practical) rest on the possibility, recognized or not, to be able to establish a science of the singular: Aristote had excluded it, while wondering which conditions it would be possible, but the psychoanalysis and the psychology of the personality call necessarily a science of the singular. The debate is thus still open.

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