Abstract
‘From the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made’
Immanuel Kant
There have been, I think, eight biographies of Freud, clearly an indication of the level of interest, indeed fascination with the man, his life and his work. This latest, the ninth by my reckoning, is well written and researched, and includes an excellent discussion at the end of the book under ‘Background and Sources’ of the previous works on Freud's life. Every story that is told depends upon how the story is told, and Breger classifies the earlier biographies and other accounts of Freud's work into three categories: The idealizers (e.g. Ernest Jones and Peter Gay), the knockers (e.g. Peter Swales and Richard Webster), and the more measured, objective demythologizers (e.g. Roland Clark and Paul Roazen) and Breger would include himself among the latter. That being said, I found it difficult to see Breger having much liking or respect for Freud. It is fair to say that he gives a sympathetic and sensitive account of Freud's childhood and adolescence but for Freud the man, the weaknesses are focused on more than the strengths, and psychoanalysis has demonstrated that these two are always bound up with one another.
Louis Breger gives an account of himself as someone whose professional career has followed two parallel tracks. He writes;
I have been a practicing psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, working with a variety of patients and methods, ranging from brief therapy to lengthy, in-depth psychoanalyses. I took full training at a psychoanalytic institute, including a personal analysis, and eventually became a training and supervising analyst myself, serving on the governing committee of the institute…. I have also been an academic psychologist, engaged in teaching and a variety of scholarly and research projects almost all of which were related to Freud and psychoanalysis in one way or another.
It seems clear to me from a reading of this book that Louis Breger has good credentials to undertake such a project, but he is clearly no admirer of Freud.
The thrust of the book is essentially to portray Freud as ambitious and narcissistic, a man who saw himself as a hero and ‘conquistador’ of the mind, and identified with Hannibal and other heroic figures of history; a man who behaved as a despotic martinet, utterly intolerant of anyone who deviated in the slightest from his doctrine. We are given a portrait of a man who, despite ruthlessly exiling Jung, Adler, Stekel, Rank and Ferenczi, subsequently quietly incorporated some of their ideas into his own body of theory. In my view, while there may be some substance to this assertion, it would require a scholarly research undertaking of some magnitude to thoroughly understand and tease out the validity or otherwise of this claim. There is though, one area where Breger's account has a definite ring of conviction and that is Freud's persistent refusal to acknowledge trauma (as opposed to instinctual and emotional conflict) as playing a role in the aetiology of neurotic and, in the case of shell shock, psychotic illness. It does seem strange to say the least, that Freud could not acknowledge the possibility of conflict in unconscious phantasy, and trauma mutually augmenting one another, especially in the light of the impoverished and traumatic nature of his own childhood. It is Breger's thesis that Freud could not countenance the incorporation of meaning into the psychodynamics of force as he felt that such a move would adulterate his new science. I think this is a fair claim, but reasons can and do function as causes. Breger also questions the universality of the Oedipus complex, citing the cultural, social and economic contexts of Freud's own time as having causative bearing on the genesis of this theory. Freud's ruthless treatment of dissenters is well portrayed and discussed and there is some interesting new information from his letters and those of others I have not previously encountered. Quite a lot is made of his allegedly homosexual longings and the relative impoverishment of his sexual life with Martha. I enjoyed reading this book. It is lucid and very well written, but I was irritated by the tendentious bias it displays. There is definitely more darkness than vision. While reading Breger's account of Freud's life, I found myself questioning not so much whether Breger has the facts right about his subject, but rather, whether there is anyone at all who has come into focus in human history who would come off very well after close inquiry into all aspects of their life. In the end, the failures of the subject make the biographer feel superior and the reader is left with the impression that Breger adopts the moral high ground towards his subject. Without doubt, Freud had character flaws and he was wrong about many things, but to my mind those failings are beside the point. Great works have been accomplished by many whose motives are dubious and who were off putting as human beings. It is mean spirited I think, to not give full credit where it is due.