"Freud's Neo-Augustinianism"
"In 1960, [Thomas] Szasz attempted to bring to the attention of the
public the idea that mental illness is a metaphor, and a metaphor that
he believed was degrading and obfuscating. Szasz did not explicate all
the theological implications of this metaphor. The term mental
disorder,mental illness, or psychopathology presupposes the concept of
mental order. The former is necessarily relative to the latter. When
[Sigmund] Freud claimed that his patients were suffering from mental
disorders, he must have assumed, consciously or unconsciously, the
concept of mental order -- obviously not an order ordained by God, as
Freud was an atheist.
"In medicine there is a near consensus (until recently at least) about
what is natural, what is in order. An illness is a breach of the order of
nature. As a physician, Freud assumed that there was an order of
nature -- of unquestionable authority -- governing the body. Freud
tacitly extended the sovereignty of nature's order to psychological life.
"For Freud, Nature had replaced God as the ultimate source of
authority. Although he claimed to be a scientist who eschewed value
judgments, he assumed that what was in accord with Nature had
positive value, and what was unnatural had negative value. To assert
that an individual suffers from neurosis, from psychopathology, from
mental illness, from disease, is to posit necessarily the existence of a
natural order that has been violated or breached in some manner that
its reign has been undermined or destroyed. Unlike a violation of the
order of God, a breach of the order of Nature necessarily means that
the organism has been subjected to either a disease or an injury. In
either case the inner being of the individual is transformed: either
infect with disease, or injured. The pretense that this assertion is
merely a scientific description, not an evaluation, is hollow. Since the
mind, by definition, is an immaterial entity that cannot be literally
diseased or damaged, this metaphor has an univocal meaning: There
has been a vitiation or diminution of the individual's worth.
"The only question is, to what degree? While repudiating the existence
of God, Freud arrived at a philosophical position almost identical to
Augustine's, albeit less severe. Augustine stated that human beings'
souls were dead. Freud stated that they were diseased, in most
instances irreparably so. In either case, there is something
fundamentally wrong. Man is essentially flawed. Being is deficient.
"But there is a major problem in the inner coherence of Freud's theory.
On the one hand, he tells us that human beings are mentally ill as a
result of experiencing the Oedipal complex. On the other hand, he tells
us that everyone, or almost everyone, experiences a "neurotic phase in
the course of their development" (1) arising from Oedipal conflicts.
This clearly implies that this phase -- however uncomfortable or painful
-- is natural, and therefore not "neurotic". (The idea that suffering is
ipso facto pathological is absurd, as can be easily seen when one
considers the phenomenon of pregnancy and childbirth.) Freud implies
that neurosis is both universal an inevitable. In fact, his own theories
and case histories unfold with the same quality of preordained fate that
one finds in Oedipus Rex and other tragedies. If Freud is correct, then
on what possible basis could he stake his claim that Oedipal complex
is the cause of psychopathology, i.e., of a breach in the order of nature?
"It is true that Freud paints a relatively roseate picture of the phase in
the child's life before the Oedipal stage. However, two points must be
kept in mind. In the first place, the child is destined, as it were, to
undergo the Oedipal complex -- as a developmental phase. To put this
in other terms, one could say that it is preordained, willed by Nature.
But where, then, is that beneficent, human-friendly Nature that the very
concept of psychopathology implies has been breached or violated --
and would have retained its benevolent reign over humanity had not
illness or injury occurred? In the second place, in Freud's theory, there
is no beneficent nature from the beginning since even the newborn
infant is "evil" and harbors the seeds of the depraved desires that
manifest themselves later. For Freud there is no natural state of
happiness and innocence that is breached by disease; there is merely
a state of infant bliss, whose ephemeral existence is no more natural
(or less) than its disappearance.
"Undoubtedly these reflections may strike many readers as surprising.
This is because they have identified Freudianism with what Freudianism
became -- after Freud. This is the the theory, the dogma lodged
securely in the popular imagination, that all adult problems result from
inadequate (or malicious) parenting during the first few years of a
child's life. It is this dogma that is incorporated in virtually all Freudian
theories today, and that brings Freudianism closer to Augustinianism:
The suffering of humanity is accidental, not ordained by God (or by
Nature as the Freudians put it) but results from man's own sinful
deeds. In the revised Freudian version of original sin, bad parents have
replaced bad Adam. But both accounts decree that man is responsible
for this tragic denouement - not God, not Nature". [pp. 104-107, q.v.:
ETERNAL DAY: The Christian Alternative to Secularism and Modern
Psychology. by Seth Farber, Ph.D. Salisbury, MA: Regina Orthodox
Press, 1998. Regina Orthodox Press Online Store ].
God save us all in Christ Jesus. Amen and Amen. In Erie PA USA
December 2011 AD Scott R. Harrington
Notes.
1. Cited in Reuben Fine, The History of Psychoanalysis (Northvale,
New Jersey, n.d.), p. 70.
"In 1960, [Thomas] Szasz attempted to bring to the attention of the
public the idea that mental illness is a metaphor, and a metaphor that
he believed was degrading and obfuscating. Szasz did not explicate all
the theological implications of this metaphor. The term mental
disorder,mental illness, or psychopathology presupposes the concept of
mental order. The former is necessarily relative to the latter. When
[Sigmund] Freud claimed that his patients were suffering from mental
disorders, he must have assumed, consciously or unconsciously, the
concept of mental order -- obviously not an order ordained by God, as
Freud was an atheist.
"In medicine there is a near consensus (until recently at least) about
what is natural, what is in order. An illness is a breach of the order of
nature. As a physician, Freud assumed that there was an order of
nature -- of unquestionable authority -- governing the body. Freud
tacitly extended the sovereignty of nature's order to psychological life.
"For Freud, Nature had replaced God as the ultimate source of
authority. Although he claimed to be a scientist who eschewed value
judgments, he assumed that what was in accord with Nature had
positive value, and what was unnatural had negative value. To assert
that an individual suffers from neurosis, from psychopathology, from
mental illness, from disease, is to posit necessarily the existence of a
natural order that has been violated or breached in some manner that
its reign has been undermined or destroyed. Unlike a violation of the
order of God, a breach of the order of Nature necessarily means that
the organism has been subjected to either a disease or an injury. In
either case the inner being of the individual is transformed: either
infect with disease, or injured. The pretense that this assertion is
merely a scientific description, not an evaluation, is hollow. Since the
mind, by definition, is an immaterial entity that cannot be literally
diseased or damaged, this metaphor has an univocal meaning: There
has been a vitiation or diminution of the individual's worth.
"The only question is, to what degree? While repudiating the existence
of God, Freud arrived at a philosophical position almost identical to
Augustine's, albeit less severe. Augustine stated that human beings'
souls were dead. Freud stated that they were diseased, in most
instances irreparably so. In either case, there is something
fundamentally wrong. Man is essentially flawed. Being is deficient.
"But there is a major problem in the inner coherence of Freud's theory.
On the one hand, he tells us that human beings are mentally ill as a
result of experiencing the Oedipal complex. On the other hand, he tells
us that everyone, or almost everyone, experiences a "neurotic phase in
the course of their development" (1) arising from Oedipal conflicts.
This clearly implies that this phase -- however uncomfortable or painful
-- is natural, and therefore not "neurotic". (The idea that suffering is
ipso facto pathological is absurd, as can be easily seen when one
considers the phenomenon of pregnancy and childbirth.) Freud implies
that neurosis is both universal an inevitable. In fact, his own theories
and case histories unfold with the same quality of preordained fate that
one finds in Oedipus Rex and other tragedies. If Freud is correct, then
on what possible basis could he stake his claim that Oedipal complex
is the cause of psychopathology, i.e., of a breach in the order of nature?
"It is true that Freud paints a relatively roseate picture of the phase in
the child's life before the Oedipal stage. However, two points must be
kept in mind. In the first place, the child is destined, as it were, to
undergo the Oedipal complex -- as a developmental phase. To put this
in other terms, one could say that it is preordained, willed by Nature.
But where, then, is that beneficent, human-friendly Nature that the very
concept of psychopathology implies has been breached or violated --
and would have retained its benevolent reign over humanity had not
illness or injury occurred? In the second place, in Freud's theory, there
is no beneficent nature from the beginning since even the newborn
infant is "evil" and harbors the seeds of the depraved desires that
manifest themselves later. For Freud there is no natural state of
happiness and innocence that is breached by disease; there is merely
a state of infant bliss, whose ephemeral existence is no more natural
(or less) than its disappearance.
"Undoubtedly these reflections may strike many readers as surprising.
This is because they have identified Freudianism with what Freudianism
became -- after Freud. This is the the theory, the dogma lodged
securely in the popular imagination, that all adult problems result from
inadequate (or malicious) parenting during the first few years of a
child's life. It is this dogma that is incorporated in virtually all Freudian
theories today, and that brings Freudianism closer to Augustinianism:
The suffering of humanity is accidental, not ordained by God (or by
Nature as the Freudians put it) but results from man's own sinful
deeds. In the revised Freudian version of original sin, bad parents have
replaced bad Adam. But both accounts decree that man is responsible
for this tragic denouement - not God, not Nature". [pp. 104-107, q.v.:
ETERNAL DAY: The Christian Alternative to Secularism and Modern
Psychology. by Seth Farber, Ph.D. Salisbury, MA: Regina Orthodox
Press, 1998. Regina Orthodox Press Online Store ].
God save us all in Christ Jesus. Amen and Amen. In Erie PA USA
December 2011 AD Scott R. Harrington
Notes.
1. Cited in Reuben Fine, The History of Psychoanalysis (Northvale,
New Jersey, n.d.), p. 70.