Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis [Paperback]

This is a brilliant demolition job on the theories of Freud and the psychoanalytic movement. Webster writes superbly and though closely argued and subtle as well as being long, I found the book as unputdownable as any gripping novel. Fiction, however it is not; nor is this book written in the sensationalist and over-weeningly triumphalist way that many "exposes" are. From an immensely detailed and masterly knowledge of the literature, including the correspondence and notes of Freud, it argues that Freud's theoretical constructs are based on misdiagnosis and fundamental mistakes about neurology. Freud is shown to have rendered his theories beyond the reach of falsifiability and set about creating a quasi-religious movement in which the only ultimate authority was himself. The book identifies Freud's motivation as a powerful messianic drive for intellectual greatness implanted in him by his parents' expectations. Psychoanalysis is described as a substitute religion firmly yet invisibly rooted in the Judaeo-Christian theology of human nature which permeates virtually the whole Western intellectual culture even today. Perhaps Freud's biggest error according to this book is that he promulgated psychoanalysis as if it were a science when it is a religion or a faith. He was successful in this because of the modern Western need for secular substitutes for orthodox Christian faith dressed up as science. The book also shows how psychoanalysis creates and meets psychological needs similar to the church penitential practices of confession and absolution. There is a fascinating chapter on the relationship between Christian doctrines of original sin and Freud's theories. The appendix on "recovered memory" is a useful summary of this hot topic for the uninitiated. The book is provocative not only for psychoanalysts. It is in fact an essay of cultural analysis. The invention and history of psychoanalysis illustrates the book's thesis that the Western cultural tradition is in thrall to a rationalism based on the mind-body or angel-beast dualism in theories of human nature which ultimately derive from the Judaeo-Christian religious teachings. The book implies this intense rationalism is intrinsic to Christianity and all faith in a Creator God or an ineluctable outgrowth from it; though students of non-Western forms of Christianity would find scope for debate here. The book appeals for a wider, more imaginative, understanding and explanation of the human condition rooted in Darwininian evolutionary theories which will breach the mind-body and flesh-soul split and pay more attention to the empirically-observeable character of the whole range of human life; including religion. This book will provoke Christians in its apparent atheism and occasional flashes of scorn for Christianity. The book appears to reject all belief in God as self-evidently irrational. It stands for that stream of empirical philosophy which has always critiqued rational thought for its willingness to postulate concepts as real and its tendency to value ideas over materials. But this book is rarely dogmatic in tone and the implied atheism is nuanced enough to stimulate those of faith to examine their own theories of human nature and enter debate - which is what this book wants people to do. I loved it - even though I disagree with it on the God-question - because it is the treatise which finally convinces me that I can ignore all arcane and obscure attempts to persuade me of the value of Freudian analysis.