Peter Gay, the editor of the Freud Reader and a respected Freud biographer, explains that Freud's abandonment of the "Seduction Theory" of neuroses did not in any way weaken his commitment to the central importance of sexuality. In fact, the abandonment of the seduction theory led to an intensification of Freud's commitment to sexuality, as he now saw it as determining not just neurotic symptoms through occasional childhood abuse, but all of human thought and action through its omnipresence in the unconscious and fantasy.
The first pillar of psychoanalysis is The Interpretation of Dreams, which makes Freud's case that he had discovered the "Royal Road to the unconscious" and that psychology was essentially an "Interpretive Art". The second pillar is his next book, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, which describes the complicated details of the role of sexuality in human life. It is this second pillar that has always scandalized Freud's readers (for both obvious and subtle reasons). Long excerpts from the Three Essays are provided in The Freud Reader (pp. 239-293) and they make for stimulating reading. However for our purposes we will be satisfied with Freud's brief summary in his Autobiographical Study.
Freud's theory of sexuality, while scandalous enough when properly understood, has since the beginning been distorted by both Freud's enemies and would-be friends alike. In his charming essay on "wild" psychoanalysis, Freud uses his excellent writing skills, urbanity, and wit to identify some of these key distortions and explode them.
Come to class having read pp. 21-24 and pp. 351-356 in the Freud Reader. Be prepared to discuss the following questions.
An Autobiographical Study (FR: pp. 21-24)
1. List and describe Freud's 5 stages of psychosexual development.
What does Freud mean by "libido" and "fixation" and "object"?
2. Explain what Freud means by the "diphasic" onset of human sexuality.
3. What is the first of what Freud calls his "extensions" of sexuality? Why might some (particularly your instructor) see this as the real "scandal" of psychoanalysis?
4. Freud states that "psychoanalysis has no concern whatever with ... judgments of value". Is this true, and what it be desirable is it were true? Discuss the role of values in psychoanalysis in light of Freud's comments on homosexuality.
"Wild" Psycho-Analysis (pp. 351-356)
5. Describe Freud's patient, her symptoms, and the prescription
she had been given by a young physician familiar (superficially) with psychoanalysis.
6. What "scientific" errors did the young physician make in this case?
7. What technical errors did the physician make? How does Freud's response illustrate his attitude toward "Pop" psychology? What are the two fundamental conditions of psychoanalytic therapy?