The Discovery of the Unconscious

Summary

The Discovery of the Unconscious is a study of the history of dynamic psychiatry that covers the early history of psychology and the work of Freud, Jung, Adler, and Janet. Ellenberger's chapter on Adler uses unpublished materials, including "Kindheit und Jugend Alfred Adlers bis zum Kontakt mit Sigmund Freud", a manuscript by the Adler researcher Hans Beckh-Widmanstetter. Ellenberger shows that Freud was dependent on earlier writers, especially Janet. He describes psychoanalysis and analytical psychology as forms of hermeneutics (the art or science of interpretation), comparing both disciplines to the philosophical schools of Graeco-Roman antiquity.

Freud, according to Ellenberger, was heir to the Protestant Seelsorge or "Cure of Souls", a practice that arose after Protestant reformers abolished the ritual of confession. During the 19th century, the idea of unburdening oneself by confessing a shameful secret was gradually transferred from religion to medicine, influencing Mesmer's animal magnetism, and eventually Freud.

Ellenberger argues that evaluating Freud's contributions to psychiatry is made difficult by a legend involving two main features that developed around Freud: the first being, "the theme of the solitary hero struggling against a host of enemies, suffering the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' but triumphing in the end", and the second, "the blotting out of the greatest part of the scientific and cultural context in which psychoanalysis developed". The first aspect rested on exaggeration of the anti-Semitism Freud encountered, as well as overstatement of the hostility of the academic world and the Victorian prejudices that hampered psychoanalysis. The second aspect led to Freud being credited with the achievements of others.

Influence and reception

Psychoanalyst Joel Kovel wrote that The Discovery of the Unconscious "contains an elaborate survey of the history of psychoanalytic schools through the first half of the century", but while he saw Ellenberger's book as "useful because of its encyclopaedic nature", he concluded that it has "little critical value or real historical analysis." Frank Sulloway's Freud, Biologist of the Mind (1979) was partly inspired by The Discovery of the Unconscious. Psychologist Hans Eysenck, writing in Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (1985), called The Discovery of the Unconscious a "classic" and an "excellent book which unveils many of the myths which have accumulated around Freud".

Critic Frederick Crews considers the The Discovery of the Unconscious part of a body of research demonstrating that Freud "was misled by his drive toward heroic fame." Crews wrote that the Ellenberger reveals "the derivative and curiously atavistic position of psychoanalysis in nineteenth century psychiatry", adding that "No one who ponders the entirety of Ellenberger's subtly ironic narrative can fail to come away with a sense that psychoanalysis was a high-handed improvisation on Freud's part." Crews has also credited Ellenberger with demolishing the myth of Freud's originality and encouraging subsequent scholars to question the scientific validity of psychoanalysis.

Historian Peter Gay described The Discovery of the Unconscious as useful despite Ellenberger's lack of sympathy for Freud. Writing in Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988), Gay called the book "a rather swollen but thoroughly researched nine-hundred-page volume, with long chapters on the early history of psychology, and on Jung, Adler, and Freud." Gay added that, "Though far from elegant, though opinionated and not always reliable in its quick judgments (such as its verdict that Freud was the quintessential Viennese), it is a rich source of information." Gay commented that Ellenberger's book is far more comprehensive than Lancelot Law Whyte's The Unconscious Before Freud (1960).

Psychiatrist Anthony Stevens made use of Ellenberger's concept of "creative illness", a rare condition whose onset usually occurs after a long period of intense intellectual work, in his account of Jung. Historian Paul Robinson described Ellenberger's chapter on Freud as "irreverent", writing that Ellenberger's book paved the way for much of the criticism of Freud that followed in the 1980s. Historian of science Roger Smith called The Discovery of the Unconscious "a magisterial - and readable - historical study". Psychologist Louis Breger wrote that The Discovery of the Unconscious is "extremely valuable", and that Ellenberger places Freud's work in context as well as providing illuminating discussions of Adler, Jung, and Janet. Philosopher Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and psychologist Sonu Shamdasani called Ellenberger's book a "monumental work".