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The National Association of educational broadcasters presents Freud in perspective one in a series of transcribed programs dealing with some of the discoveries and errors of Sigmund Freud. A series titled Man is not a thing. First you will hear Dr. Eric from psychoanalyst and author as recorded in his study in Cuernavaca Mexico. Then you will meet Robert Nisbet dean of the College of Letters and Science University of California Riverside. Together with Floyd Ross professor of world religions of the Southern California School of Theology and Dr. Edward Reuben chief psychiatry of the California State Mental hygiene clinic in Riverside. And now here is Erich Fromm as interviewed by John harder in Cuernavaca Mexico reductive from Sigmund Freud was a product of his time. But here these years later could we ask the question why was it Freud was at the time or was it the man. Well I would say it is both. And we have to consider what relationship if any great genius has to his time.
We might see on the one hand that his great ideas are ideas which represent something new for his time. The lead the thinking or even the feeling of people beyond what they have been thinking and feeling up to them. This is the new thing every genius offers. But at the same time every genius even the greatest one is a child of his time. That is to say he himself is caught in certain premises of a philosophic nature of general views on life which are those of his time and which restrict even him and which therefore more would inform his own ideas so that they are never entirely out of his time. What were the promises of his time. I would say that one could mention two basic premises of his time. One a premise which is characteristic of which was characteristic
for all scientific thinking in the later part of the 19th century. And that premise. One might call the physiological materialism. Now what do I mean by physiological materialism. Simply the idea that everything mental was understood to be caused determined to be rooted in something physiological in something of the body and you felt you had explained satisfactorily and mental phenomena. If you had found the body route the physiological route in the organism. This was a method of the physiologist and this was the ideal of scientific thought at the time. Just as today theoretical physics form the ideal frame of reference for scientific thinking even in the social sciences. That's one premise. And then there is another premise which goes even further back which goes back to the 18th century namely the primacy of rationalism. That by our
intellect we can not only understand all that which is not intellectual that is to say the emotional forces within the individual and within society but we can also control the ideal of this kind of philosophy was the control of the irrational by the rational. Or you might put it this way the control of passion by intellect and actually this ideal was Freud's and is all set theory is an attempt essentially to control the irrational passions of men by the intellectual understanding of these passions. Well how did Freud himself depart from the premises of his time. Will he part it in one very essential way for all of the thinkers before him for all the rationalist before him that which was worthy of observation and investigation. Was only that
which was in itself rational. Or to put it differently what they felt was that the only psychic context or contents worthy of observation and study was the subject which we are aware of the great discovery of Freud was that he created so to speak a third dimension in this field that he saw that what goes on in us is not only that which we are aware of but that there is a larger Providence in our sales which motivates us which drives us which determines our action and feeling and that is this larger province is outside of our awareness that it exists within us and get it live without our awareness. And so he coined the new word of the unconscious of that which is really within ourselves and yet that which we know nothing about.
And of course this had a tremendous influence on our whole view of men. Take for instance simply the example of sincerity. Up to Freud a person was sincere. If he said that which he was aware of where the discovery of the unconscious appears this is not enough to define sincerity because he may be aware of certain things and quite honest if he says these are my motivations. And yet a great deal of what motivates him. He's not aware and sincerity in these 30 mention then means that I am not only acting according to what I know but acting according what I don't know. And the method of Freud was exactly to find out that area which I don't know. Then it's your feeling that one of his main discoveries was the discovery of the Unconscious in what area was this this discovery made. Well the area was given by Freud's professions namely the area of psychiatry and psychotherapy. He discovered first the unconscious
in the neurotic symptom. He saw and with him his teacher Broyard that the many neurotic symptoms were caused by motives in the person of which the person was not aware and that unconsciously. In the neurotic symptom the person is acting out. It is dire or a craving which consciously he is not aware of. So that the neurotic symptom is a kind of disguised form of expressing the unconscious wish but blended where those defenses against the unconscious wish which then in their combination form the scent. That was the first field in the main field in which he discovered the unconscious and he succeeded not only in stating this theoretically but curing people by finding out what was in this unconscious wish behind their symptom. The second great field and rarely perhaps the
masterwork of Freud was to uncover the Unconscious in our dreams. We all dream and yet we are remarkably unsurprised by the strangeness of our dreams. What Freud discovered in dreams was that in our dreams unconscious tendencies which are completely forgotten in the daylight appear and form the content of a dream. So that not only could he understand erotic symptom but also the absurd contents of a dream which if one understands the unconscious motivation in the dream and the peculiar way in which these unconscious tendencies are expressed make one of the stand the whole of a dream is something perfectly clear. Something which makes perfectly good sense. From then on Freud proceeded to understand other phenomena which were hardly understood before him namely the vast realm of
those productions of the human race which we call myth and fairy tales. The myth also had appeared as something perhaps childish something which was a rather useless play of the human imagination. While Freud could show just as with a dream that in the myth also tendencies ideas wishes which we are not aware of. I expressed an strangely mixed and blended with our conscious tendency and for the first time perhaps Freud showed that the myth like the dream makes sense provided we only understand the symbolic language which is employed in the unconscious ideas which find expression in the myth. You say that this was a discovery uniquely of Freud's. Was the idea of an unconscious function going on ignored or unavailable to him and was this
entirely a new idea of his time. No it certainly wasn't and I think this holds true for great new ideas. He never appeared for the first time. Now I could mention two examples where the idea of the unconscious was showed in a distorted quite clearly one is in Spinoza quite a few hundred years before Freud. Speedos are raised the question why do we all think that we are free in our decisions that we have completely free will. And his answer was because we know our desires. But we are not aware of the motivations for all it is us. This is very clearly the same concept of the unconscious which we find in Freud. Well let me quote a philosopher who lived more or less at the same time the great German philosopher Nietzsche who once said. My memory tells me that I have done this. My pride tells me I could not have done it and my memory.
Yes there again you have the same idea. But as it happens all of the Great is a Freud was that he did not just make a remark about this but he saw the full importance of this discovery for the whole understanding of human life of normal life and of pathological life and devoted a life time to elaborate this very idea which in itself some other great people had discovered before. You have heard Dr Eric Fromm psychoanalyst and author as recorded in his study and record of aka Mexico. Now to continue our discussion of Freud in perspective we'll switch to the studios at San Bernardino Valley College where we're joined by Robert Nisbet of the University of California Riverside. Professor Floyd Ross of the Southern California School of Theology and Dr. Edward Rutan chief psychiatry east of the riverside state mental hygiene clinic Dana's But is our moderator. Well gentleman if like me you been
provoked at times stimulated at times by Erich Fromm and remarks I'm sure you will also have reactions to what I certainly do but I'd like to hear first from Dr Roden who being a psychiatrist is in a sense most in line to be the first respondent here Ed. Well I think that Dr from has proved that he belongs in the ranks of the genius and self by having made very explicit in these few moments what has perhaps been implicit for all of us. Certainly I would have some questions about the oversimplifications which are involved in any kind of making explicit but I would certainly agree wholeheartedly that if one needs to single out a single contribution of Freud's that the contribution of an awareness of the unconscious processes of man in the development of a system to explain these unconscious processes is really the major
contribution of this genius. I wonder though as a professor of religions what you would think about this Professor Ross. Well I would agree with Dr. from very definitely when he uses that nice phrase a third dimension to describe something of the contribution that Freud made in understanding man and his behavior. I think that the important thing that Dr. from has pointed out here is that Freud wanted people to become more aware of those areas of their unconscious life which got him into all kinds of difficulties. Now I would agree also that there were various weaknesses in Freud's approach and particularly in some of the area of his theorizing. Perhaps you would like to comment on that however. Well the reaction that I referred to a moment ago is
one of a kind of historian of ideas especially of this period. What continually impresses me about Freud is the remarkable relevance of his central ideas today in light of the obsolete even false nature of so many of the anthropological and sociological underpinnings of what he gave us. Like so many of the anthropologists all his own time he attempted to take a present phenomenon and to relate it to some supposed absolute origin in the development of mankind. Now none of this anthropology today is recognized by professional anthropologists as being valid anthropology. We're a little more modest today are we not in our attempts to work on these anthropological problems whereas the people in the continent of Europe in the 19th century were
quite willing to make a broad generalization regarding the conditions of the human race in the beginning. That's very true Professor Alston also anthropologist today are simply asking different kinds of questions. But Dean is but. Sigmund Freud was not an anthropologist or a sociologist and he was an examiner of individuals. He was primarily an investigator. He began his work by operating in a biology laboratory and he continued to operate in a kind of biology laboratory for the rest of his days although he got out of the sterility of the laboratory into perhaps a different kind of sterility of the couch in the office. He continued though to investigate and continue to listen to people. He continued to work with patients and as he developed a clinical approach he continued to be able to check and recheck concepts that he was developing
continue to test out his hypotheses against what patients were saying and telling him. And it seems to me that this may have something to do then with the fact that despite the faults of the sociological anthropologic. Premises that lay behind some of his formulations that the basic concepts of the symbolism of the unconscious mind the basic concepts of the motivations of the human being that these were being checked against patients and consequently continued to be valid today. Well doctor and I think you put your finger on the point of my question. I would infer from what you say that whereas in the clinic Freud was on the whole they exacting and careful scientist where we would find him at fault today is where he chose to ornament George to provide underpinnings in areas outside of his own competence. And these are areas outside his competence
are not really although Freud himself of the time may have thought they were central. They are not really central to the support of his there. Well isn't it true that even after the end of his life he was still willing to revise some of these earlier theories. The very fact that he had kept close to the clinical situation was a kind of corrective. I honor him for being willing to stretch his imagination and make some rather broad leaps in times for I think to many clinical workers are unwilling to try to generalize on the other hand in his Moses and monotheism book. He certainly went overboard in a way that no historical critic would follow him and his tone and then to boo. I think he went a ways without any supporting evidence. But he was teachable. Clear to the end and I think this perhaps is one aspect of his greatness in addition to those mentioned by Dr Frum wouldn't you agree Dr. Wright would agree.
PROFESSOR ROSS I think that we must recognize that first I was startled by what he was discovering as any of the people were who heard him report his discoveries very much later we know this because there was such a time lag between the period when he was making his investigations and the time of his first publications of what he was discovering. He was quite startled by what he had discovered. And it seems to me that some of these writings in the para psychiatric or para psychological literature on Para psychological subjects were a part of his trying to work through for himself the uniqueness of what he himself had found. Freud never pretended to be a student of sociology or of anthropology and in many places cites his lack of information really in these areas. And yet he somehow found it necessary to branch into these fields and certainly his own imagination.
Certainly his own interest in human beings would lead him in this direction but I think also that he was led in this direction because he was so overwhelmed by what he had discovered that he had to incorporate this into a sort of a stronger system. And then it is certainly true that when he went back to his patients and listen to them further and listen to the reports of some of his colleagues Using his techniques with patients that he had this wonderful capacity to give up some of his concepts to revise some of his concepts to keep moving with the new discoveries that he was making. Oh yes I certainly have the highest respect for that flexible quality of Freud's mind that seemed to remain flexible to the very end and when I referred while ago to what I feel is his bad anthropology or his bad sociology I may make one thing clear. I'm not suggesting that Freud himself was a bad anthropologist. In the late 19th century among good anthropologists or sociologist far from it he was giving on the whole a
very accurate rendering of what was regarded as the good anthropology and sociology of that time. Every student of the family of the state of marriage of religion always felt it necessary to take his subject back if it could. Do they primordial beginnings of human society. Every worker in the areas of sociology and anthropology took it for granted at that time that the living primitive races could be regarded as examples of European man's own cultural beginnings. Almost every psychologist I think of G Stanley Hall in this country and others in Europe took it for granted that there is a suggestive analogy between childhood in our society and the primitive man. These are errors by our advanced knowledge in anthropology today. But Freud was a part of his own time and we can hardly blame him for accepting what the best anthropologists of the day presented through.
Ross didn't he share also a presupposition that was pretty common in the intellectual circles of his day. Namely that the patriarchal family was the normal type of family. Didn't some of his theorizing assume an original patriarchy. You're dead and there is another aspect of Freud's emphasis upon the father. We can perhaps discuss that although there is a little bit more usefully later but the age in which Freud was living at the end of the 19th century Of course I realize that he came well down into the 20th or the age in which he began his thinking was an age of very sharp social change. So far as the kinship structure of the European family was concerned this was an age in which under the impact of the Industrial Revolution democracy and some of the ideas of equalitarian isn't that were beginning to pervade Eastern Europe an age in which the patriarchal structure of the family was under very sharp challenge.
And Freud I can't help thinking as the clinician as the scientist was reacting in many ways to pressures of the change going on in the society about him wasn't this change in the society though also a change which led people to be curious about what made things work this very intimately related to the Industrial Revolution so that the concept of the unconscious mind which was not new as has been pointed out here was not a new concept or one that was uniquely Freud's. This concept though could be explored now because people were taking machinery apart and assuming the machinery of the human mind was another machine that needed to be taken apart. Wasn't this what enabled Freud to not be satisfied with just saying there are unconscious processes but that these unconscious processes work in a kind of system that there are parts to it that there is a method even in the
irrational unconscious of human beings. That's right he apparently assumed that these irrational process these took place according to certain dependable laws of structure and this fitted into the general character of the time. He was not assuming that the irrational was completely irrational that one could not understand. No and he was not assuming that it was so completely irrational as to be untouchable by the rational parts of ourselves too. Quite right he always had the ideal of the rationalist. There is this difference though I think between Freud and some of the other rationalist of the age man like Herbert Spencer for example are perfectly aware of the irrationality is in the society around them but in their progressive in the zeal I should say of their own philosophy of progress they were quite convinced that mankind was quickly evolving to a point where all evil would be eradicated as man's adjustment to his environment became ever more perfect. I think
Freud for all of his rationalism delivered a great blow to complacency in Western Europe the easy comfortable optimism of the Victorian age must have been hit awfully hard by the implications of Freud's argument. Yes these people were in a position where they did not want to recognise that some of the things Freud was saying might be true. Those of us who live after two world wars in the 20th century. You cannot appreciate something of what Freud was beginning to unlock when he made his clinical investigations in terms of disturbed persons. I believe that one of the reasons that Freud may have had this kind of different approach to rationalism was his contact with patients. The fact that he could not be complacent as long as he was working with neurotically disturbed people he could not assume a certain millennium as long as he was working with the problems of
individuals and as long as he was able to understand the symbolism that they were bringing him. True but don't you feel that Dr. Rhoden that there was more than contact with disturbed patients. There was also his fundamental conviction that the nature of man given its long evolutionary past will never become wholly benefices and and entirely adapted to the demands that society impresses upon all of us. We know from Freud's later writings that this is the way he felt whether he felt this way when he first began to work. I really don't know. Later in the 30s his his books his monograph certainly present a quite pessimistic picture of the culture and of the society. And again I don't know. Just how pessimistic he was earlier in his work. He seemed to be fairly confident that there could be a kind of re educational process undertaken. And it seems to me that this is one area where he really
did give as a good teacher to later teachers a bundle of keys to open up new avenues of exploration. For example a doctor from referred to one of them. The new approach to myth. We're just beginning to explore in this area it's going to throw a lot of light into some of these semi darkened areas of the study of religions including the study of Judaism and Christianity. I didn't go into this into great detail in some of the things that he said in his initial writings we have since seen to be rather wide of the mark but he's opened up an avenue that may help us come to grips with some of these submerged processes. He produced an instrument he produced a device which he himself inferred to as the microscope in understanding human nature which can then be used by others to make further discoveries. That's right. Well gentlemen I think we've probably reached a point where we might summarize in a few seconds if I have understood a discussion here at the
table and keeping in mind Dr. from his earlier remarks we might say that Freud's great contributions contributions which are relevant today as they were yesterday are the first places emphasis upon the latent The unconscious and the irrational aspects of human behavior. And the second place is exhaustive analyses of the influence of early childhood upon the development of the human being. And finally his calling of attention to the whole area of myth fantasy and dream which when properly interpreted throw so much light not only upon the individual himself but the history of the human race. Would you on the whole agree with my summary of Freud's contribution in his larger outlines. If so I think we can conclude And our thanks to you Dr. Ed Rhoden chief psychiatrist of the riverside state mental hygiene clinic. Again to you Doctor Floyd Ross professor of world religions in the Southern California School of Theology in Claremont.
You have been listening to Freud in perspective. One in a series of transcribed programs concerned with the discoveries and errors of Sigmund Freud. A series titled Man is not a thing. First you heard Dr. Eric from psychoanalyst and author as interviewed in his study in Cuernavaca Mexico then to Studio C at San Bernardino Valley College where we heard from Robert Nisbet dean of the College of Letters and Science University of California Riverside. Together with Floyd Ross professor of world religions the Southern California School of Theology and Dr. Edward Rutan Jeev psychiatry east of the California State Mental hygiene clinic in perverse side. These programs were produced and edited by John harder for the community education division of San Bernardino Valley College and were developed under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end E.B. Radio Network.
Series
Man is not a thing
Episode
Freud in perspective
Producing Organization
San Bernardino Valley College
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-p26q3p56
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Description
Episode Description
This program presents a selection of psychology experts putting "Freud in Perspective."
Series Description
This series presents a discussion of the discoveries and errors of Sigmund Freud and his impact on the American family, politics and religion.
Broadcast Date
1958-01-01
Topics
Psychology
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:19
Embed Code
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Credits
Editor: Harding, Bob
Interviewer: Walker, Fred
Producer: Harter, John
Producing Organization: San Bernardino Valley College
Speaker: Fromm, Erich, 1900-1980
Speaker: Nisbet, Robert A.
Speaker: Ross, Floyd Hiatt
Speaker: Rudin, Edward
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 58-22-1 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:05
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Citations
Chicago: “Man is not a thing; Freud in perspective,” 1958-01-01, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-p26q3p56.
MLA: “Man is not a thing; Freud in perspective.” 1958-01-01. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-p26q3p56>.
APA: Man is not a thing; Freud in perspective. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-p26q3p56