Criticisms of Freud and His Works

Criticisms of Freud and His Works

By Emma Davie

When the words “psychology,” “psychoanalysis,” or “dream interpretation” are uttered, most people’s minds immediately turn to Sigmund Freud. Freud was a trained neurologist, who pioneered a new brand of science called “psychoanalysis.” He is one of the most well known great thinkers of the early twentieth century and is often associated with others such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzche. However, he is one of the most harshly criticized. His theory on the Oedipus Complex and his introduction and abandonment of the seduction theory still remain extremely controversial among critics and readers.

In 1896, in The Aetiology of Hysteria, Freud proposed a theory on the nature of the hysterical. He called this the “seduction theory,” and claimed that hysteria was the long term effect of sexual assaults on the subject during childhood. Freud never explicitly stated his data in proof of the seduction theory, but it was assumed that Freud had simply noticed the trend among his patients. However, in an 1897 letter to his confidant Wilhelm Fliess, he abandoned his theory. He cited an absence of complete success and said that the conclusion would have to be made that all fathers of hysterical patients would be perverse and abusive, and he didn’t believe that adult perversion could be so widespread. Lastly, he encountered a problem with the concept of suggestion, meaning he was worried that he was causing his patients to fabricate memories of abuse that never occurred. In the end, Freud claimed that most of the childhood sexual scenes he unearthed were, in fact, fantasies. The abandonment of the seduction theory led to Freud’s later, and possibly just as controversial, theories on infantile sexuality and psychosexual development.

Not only was the public outraged at the premise of the seduction theory when it was published, people today continue to criticize it. Not only did various readers castigate the...