The Perennial Freud: Method versus Myth and the Mischief of Freud Bashers

Lothane, Zvi

doi:10.1080/080370699300056130

Cited by 13 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Freud did not say Verfahren , or Prozedur (procedure): why not stick to Freud’s own term, ‘method’? This translation reflects Strachey’s disregard of method and is in keeping with his life‐long ambition to make Freud ‘scientific’[11]. The latter ambition is deployed with a vengeance by the current crop of Freud bashers, such as Grünbaum [4], Macmillan [5] and Storr [12].…”

Section: A Timeless Classic Revisitedmentioning

confidence: 75%

Book reconsidered

Little¹,

Lothane²

2000

Aust N Z J Psychiatry

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: A Timeless Classic Revisitedmentioning

confidence: 75%

Book reconsidered

Little¹,

Lothane²

2000

Aust N Z J Psychiatry

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…1. I have studied your writings closely and respectfully argued ad rem but you did not pay any heed to what I said about Freud in my articles (Lothane, 1999(Lothane, , 2001(Lothane, , 2006a and have reacted mainly ad hominem to what I say about your theses on page 298 and earlier. Your fiery rhetoric is admirable when it spices up your prose but not when you overdo it.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Such are neither philosophical nor probative arguments, rather political propaganda. Like Frederick Crews and other bashers (Lothane, 1996(Lothane, , 1999(Lothane, , 2007) you deserve to be given a taste of your own medicine (not placebo!) for firing such flamboyant and flatulent epithets.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

"The reception of my Freud-critique in the psychoanalytic literature": Response to Professor Adolf Grünbaum.

Lothane¹

2007

Psychoanalytic Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present is a response to Adolf Gru ¨nbaum's outrage (2007) at my article and others. Gru ¨nbaum challenged my articles with a mixture of ad hominem and ad rem arguments claiming that I misrepresented his ideas about Freud and psychoanalysis. In this response, I propose to disentangle these two classes of arguments and point out factual, textual, methodological, and theoretical errors in Gru ¨nbaum's various arguments. I review a number of Freud's passages from his seminal contributions to psychoanalytic method: Studies on Hysteria and The Interpretation of Dreams, and other writings to show that Freud himself did not make explicit another cardinal distinction: that between what he operationally formulated as the psychoanalytic method, procedure, or technique versus the various etiological theories of psychological, that is, emotional disorders. Neither was this distinction honored by Gru ¨nbaum, and that is his cardinal error.

show abstract

“…To begin with, this breakdown in critical inquiry is not limited to Freud's theory of repression but instead extends to other areas of his work (e.g., symbolism; see Petocz, 1999), which suggests that the issue may be part of a larger problem rather than simply about repression theory per se. Furthermore, as others note (e.g., Lothane, 1999; Weinberger & Westen, 2001), ad hominem attacks against Freud's theory are prevalent, along with a tendency to sweepingly dismiss the entirety of Freud's work, which adds weight to the suggestion that personal attitudes toward Freud may be influencing the scientific assessment of the Freudian account. In fact, McNally's commentary also notes the acrimonious nature of the recovered memory debate, which could also be taken as an indication of an emotional dimension impacting on the situation.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathological Science and the Myth of Recovered Memories: Reply to McNally

Boag

2007

Review of General Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Richard McNally's thoughtful commentary points to a noncontroversial source of the fixation with Freud's early theory of repression. At the same time, however, McNally's account does not directly address the critical issue at the heart of my original article, namely that Freud's later theory of repression is persistently misconceptualized and accompanied by a breakdown in critical inquiry. Although the account proposed by McNally does not necessarily contradict this proposal, other potential sources of bias should also be considered. In particular, the acrimony provoked by the recovered memory dispute and the prevalence of ad hominem attacks against Freud suggest that emotional factors may also be obscuring rigorous debate. Issues surrounding the scientific inquiry of Freud's theory of repression are further discussed.

show abstract

The Perennial Freud: Method versus Myth and the Mischief of Freud Bashers

Cited by 13 publications

References 13 publications

Book reconsidered

Book reconsidered

"The reception of my Freud-critique in the psychoanalytic literature": Response to Professor Adolf Grünbaum.

Pathological Science and the Myth of Recovered Memories: Reply to McNally

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About