Table Of ContentPsychology and Freudian Theory
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PAUL KLINE
Psychology
and
Freudian
Theory
An introduction
RRoutledge
Taylor &. Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published in 1984 by British Library Cataloguing in
Methuen & Co. Ltd Publication Data
Kline, Paul
Reprinted in 1990
Psychology and Freudian
by Routledge
theory: an introduction
27 Church Road, Hove,
1. Freud, Sigmund
East Sussex, BN3 2FA
2. Psychoanalysis
I. Title
Simultaneously published in the
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Transferred to Digital Printing 2009
© 1984 Paul Kline
Library of Congress Cataloging in
Routledge is an imprint of the Publication Data
Taylor & Francis Group, an
Kline, Paul.
informa business
Psychology and Freudian
theory.
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Scarborough Typesetting Services
Includes index
1. Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939.
All rights reserved. No part of
2. Psychoanalysis.
this book may be reprinted or
3. Personality.
reproduced or utilized in any
4. Child psychology.
form or by any electronic,
I. Title.
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some imperfections in the
original may be apparent.
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
ONE The nature of psychoanalysis 1
TWO An outline of psychoanalytic theory 9
THREE Point counterpoint: some objections to Freudian
theory and some solutions 44
FOUR Psychoanalytic theories of child development 52
FIVE Oedipus and castration complexes 65
SIX Dreaming 76
SEVEN The nature of the unconscious 97
EIGHT Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy 117
NINE The implications of the theory 133
TEN Conclusions and postscript 155
References 159
Name index 169
Subject index 172
Acknowledgements
This book was written while I was on sabbatical leave from the
University of Exeter as Visiting Scholar in the L. L. Thurstone
Psychometric Laboratory, in the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill. I would like to thank Professor J. Carroll for
organizing the visit and making available the facilities of the
laboratory. I would also like to express my gratitude to the
University of Exeter for their travel and research grants which
made the visit possible.
0 The nature of psychoanalysis
N
E
Before psychoanalysis can be understood, it is necessary first
to define it, as far as that is possible, and to distinguish it from
two allied disciplines with which it is often confused.
Psychoanalysis refers to the theoretical description of the
human mind and its associated system of psychotherapy
developed by Sigmund Freud in Vienna. It is sometimes also
used to describe similar systems which originated in Freudian
psychoanalysis but which have diverged and become dis
tinctly different. Of these the most famous is that of Carl Jung.
In this book, however, I shall be largely concerned with the
original classical Freudian theory, since this has been one of
the major influences of twentieth-century thought. Psycho
analysis is then essentially the invention of Freud.
Psychiatry is that branch of medicine concerned with
mental illness. Thus, inasmuch as psychoanalysis claims to
2 Psychology and Freudian Theory
alleviate such disorders and to lay bare their determinants,
psychoanalysis could be a part of psychiatry. Psychiatry is,
however, a general term and, in cultures where psycho
analysis finds no favour, psychiatry might well not include it.
Psychology, at least as used in this book, refers to the science
of behaviour. If psychology were a fully developed science,
which alas it is not, it would provide the theoretical under
pinning for psychiatry. In many countries psychologists have
attempted to apply their theoretical knowledge to the treatment
of mental disturbance. Such clinical psychology is essentially
psychiatry. Indeed in Great Britain the distinction between
clinical psychologist and psychiatrist is one of training, the psy
chiatrist being medically trained first, followed by psychiatry,
the clinical psychologist being totally trained in psychology.
These definitions make it possible to see how artificial such
distinctions are. Clearly psychoanalysis, in its theoretical
aspect, is no different from psychology. Psychology, however,
as taught in most universities does not include psychoanalysis,
which is regarded either as incorrect and unscientific, as por
trayed by Eysenck for example in Uses and Abuses of Psychology
(Eysenck 1953), or as essentially a type of hermeneutics cut off
from the mainstream of science and philosophy, and this by a
philosopher, Farrell (1981) who is sympathetic to Freud's
work. Equally there should, for reasons mentioned, be no real
distinction between psychiatry and psychology, the former
being medical or clinical psychology.
However, artificial or not, these three terms are separate:
psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis. One of the
purposes in writing this book is both to understand the reasons
for this isolation of psychoanalysis from psychological theory
and medical practice and to attempt to integrate them. For the
burden of this book is that psychoanalytic theory does contain
great insights into human behaviour - insights that have
escaped most psychological theories - and that these must be
accommodated into an adequate scientific psychology. Such
integration can only occur when psychoanalysis is not thus
separated off but subjected to the rigorous scrutiny of the
scientific method.
The nature of psychoanalysis 3
This is a book concerned with ideas, their evidential basis
and their implications. Consequently I do not intend to say
much about Freud himself. There is a mistaken notion, per
vasive in many modern texts, that somehow descriptions of
individuals and their lives will aid insight and understanding
of the truth of the ideas and concepts which they propounded.
This is largely nonsense since the truth or falsity of an idea
depends not upon its provenance but upon its evidence. The
fact that Freud was Jewish, for example, and raised in a culture
noted for its emphasis on guilt and for dominating mothers (see
Roth's novel Portnoy's Complaint, for example) has no bearing
on whether or not the Oedipus complex is a useful scientific
concept, although it is probable that such influences played a
part in its original conceptualization.
Such arguments are not to deny that ideas are influenced by
the Zeitgeist. Freud, as is the case with all scientists and
philosophers, was affected by what he learned within his
cultural milieu and, more specifically, at university.
In this book, because the emphasis is on the scientific
validity of Freud's theories rather than on the ideas themselves
regardless of their status when objectively examined, I shall
only briefly set out the historical context of psychoanalysis.
I do not want to seem arrogant in being so brief because the
fact is that the historical and intellectual matrix of so vast an
output as that of Freud and one that did indeed revolutionize
the way in which men saw their world (as Auden neatly put it)
is colossal. There are learned and massive texts devoted to
precisely this aspect of psychoanalysis and for a proper treat
ment readers must be referred there. Two recent and illumi
nating books are those of Ellenberger (1970) who is somewhat
hostile to psychoanalysis, denigrating its originality, and
Sulloway (1979).
My aim, therefore, in setting Freud in his historical context
is to enable readers to appreciate what in many ways seems a
typical example of creative genius, namely that current ideas
are used and transformed into something new. In music,
Beethoven did just this with most forms he touched. However,
in science creative genius is not enough. Aristotle was
