Sigmund Freud, the Never-Ending Storyteller
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RECENT BOOKS
Sigmund Freud, the Never-Ending
Storyteller
William Giraldi
W ith Sigmund Freud,
there are always
two ways to begin. Here’s
and our psyches, tragedy is
a heroic collision of the ac-
cidental and the ordained.
the first: Sigmund Freud was Freud fixed on the Oedipus
the genius of the twentieth myth because it’s a perfect
century, without whom we detective story, and what’s
would not know ourselves psychoanalysis but two
as intimately as we do. And detectives—the analyst and
here’s the second: Sigmund the analysand—attempting
Freud was a colossal fraud to solve the baffling crimes
who ruined innumerable of the unconscious?
lives. Freud long ago became Adam Phillips’s new study,
a messiah to some and a per- Becoming Freud: The Making
nicious phony to others. But of a Psychoanalyst, is an ef-
Becoming Freud: The Making of a
no matter your stance, it’s fective breviary and defense
Psychoanalyst. By Adam Phillips.
difficult to deny the insistent of Sigmund Freud, and not
Yale University Press, 2014.
reasons we’re still squab- because it dazzles with a
192 pp. HB, $25.
bling about this man, nor is tightrope act of theory, but
it easy to dismiss the reality because it simply and directly
that Freud’s ideas had a torsional influence underscores Freud’s tremendous accomplish-
on nearly every element of twentieth-century ments of comprehension. It also sugarcoats or
thought. Modernity just doesn’t seem possible ignores altogether Freud’s immense flaws and
without him. the toxic harm he caused to actual lives, but
Once you study Freud deeply, once you com- we’ll come to that. Where many write about
prehend and internalize his severe storytelling, Freud as if he were either der Übermensch or its
his literary antiscience of the mind, it’s impos- opposite, Phillips does a fine job of humaniz-
sible to see your own childhood, or your own ing this cerebral behemoth, of spotlighting the
children, the same way again. It’s because of importance of Freud’s wife and children. The
Freud that millions who’ve never read a word Freuds had six children in eight years at just
of Sophocles feel perfectly at ease telling you all about the time Freud was beginning to formu-
about Oedipus, and never mind if they usually late the catacomb credos that would become
don’t know what they’re saying, if they get the psychoanalysis. It’s unlikely that psychoanalysis
Theban King all wrong, as Freud himself seems would have come into being at all if the Freuds
to have done. Attic tragedy can’t be psychoan- hadn’t been exposed daily to the wail and tu-
alytical or Freudian because it cares nothing mult of a diapers-and-bottles domesticity.
for sexuality, because unlike our childhoods Nor would psychoanalysis have happened
199if its founder hadn’t been a self-conscious Jew We spend our lives . . . not facing the facts,
ever vigilant of the role of Jewish history in the facts of our history, in all their com-
Europe. Along with Christ, Karl Marx, and Al- plication; and above all, the facts of our
bert Einstein, Freud is one-fourth of the Jews of childhood. . . . [Freud] will show us how
literal and intellectual revolution, the quartet ingenious we are at not knowing ourselves,
who made the planet quake. Borrowing from a and how knowing ourselves—or the ways
brigade of top scholars who have examined the in which we have been taught to know our-
nexus between psychoanalysis and Freud’s con- selves, not least through the conventions of
ception of his own Jewishness—including Har- biography and autobiography—has become
old Bloom, Peter Gay, and Philip Rieff, each of the problem rather than the solution. What
whom goes unmentioned in this connection— we are suffering from, Freud will reveal, are
Phillips rightly believes that European Jewish all the ways we have of avoiding our suf-
history helped make Freud possible, because fering; and our pleasure, Freud will show
however else we’d like to describe psychoanaly- us—the pleasure we take in our sexuality,
sis, it is foremost a Jewish reading of the psyche the pleasure we take in our violence—is the
in the world, an outsider’s psycho-emotional suffering we are least able to bear.
apprehension for other outsiders. Freud was
nervous, though not unduly, about his theories If by that synopsis Freud sounds nothing like
being tagged “Jewish” because he understood a medical man and rather like a mash-up of
that the tag was normally wielded in the snaky novelist-poet-seer, well, that’s precisely what he
lisp of the anti-Semite. was. Phillips shelves Freud with Marcel Proust,
Phillips writes that “the modern individual Robert Musil, and James Joyce because “psy-
Sigmund Freud would eventually describe was choanalysis makes sense only as part of the
a person under continuous threat with little larger cultural conversation in the arts that
knowledge of what was really happening to became known as modernism.”
him”—a Jew, in other words, as Freud himself No important critic or intellectual has ap-
admitted in The Resistances to Psychoanalysis. prehended Freud through a literary lens more
The paradoxes at the hub of Freud—the heav- often or intensely than Harold Bloom. In Ruin
ing dichotomies of life/death, sex/death, past/ the Sacred Truths, Bloom speaks of Freud in the
present, present/future, sickness/health—are same breath as William Shakespeare, William
human paradoxes, to be sure, but they are Blake, and William Wordsworth: “Our map
human paradoxes expertly manifest in He- or general theory of the mind may be Freud’s,
braic mythos. Phillips contends that “Freud’s but Freud, like all the rest of us, inherits the
work shows us . . . that nothing in our lives is representation of mind, at its most subtle and
self-evident, that not even the facts of our lives excellent, from Shakespeare.” Both Freud and
speak for themselves.” Consider how that asser- Wordsworth are, says Bloom, “responsible for
tion applies both to the Torah and to the indis- writing the Law upon our inward parts, and
pensible modern Jewish writers, from Bruno thus completing the Enlightenment’s program
Schulz and Franz Kafka to Primo Levi and Isaac of internalizing all values.” In Where Shall Wis-
Bashevis Singer, and you’ll begin to see how dom Be Found?, Bloom dubs Freud “the Mon-
psychoanalysis in general and the Freudian un- taigne of his era, a superb moral essayist rather
conscious in particular—that dark swamp of than a revolutionist who overturned our sense
our minds—was from the beginning a Jewish of humankind’s place in nature.” In The Anat-
literary enterprise. omy of Influence, Freud becomes the “Emerson
of the twentieth century,” and in The Western
Canon he is “the master of all who know.”
Here is one of Phillips’s many cogent encapsu In reference to every Freudian’s loving or
lations of Freud’s importance: bitter impulse to tackle the august founder,
200 VQR | SUMMER 2014Bloom speaks of “the burden of the writing systemized it in a storytelling we’d never be
psychoanalyst, who is tempted to a battle he able to forget.
is doomed to lose,” meaning that Freud can be “It was,” writes Phillips, “precisely the sto-
an oily, protean subject, whether approached ries we tell ourselves about our lives, and about
from the logical, biographical, or pedagogical other people’s lives, that Freud put into ques-
angle. The one angle not doomed to failure tion, that Freud taught us to read differently.”
is the one that Peter Brooks takes in Psycho- And it was the “differently” that instigated
analysis and Storytelling and that Adam Phillips the popularity of the Freudian revolution: dif-
emphasizes here (with no mention of Brooks): ferent in its lurid apprehension of our dark
Freud the storyteller. Brooks calls psychoanaly- inner spaces; different in its fantastical take
sis “not only narrative and linguistic but also on human unknowing; different in its literary
oral, a praxis of narrative construction within promise of overcoming the ghouls who howl us
a context of live storytelling.” Say what you will down at midnight. Because civilization had lost
about the psycholinguistics of Jacques Lacan, its traditional wellsprings of meaning, because
but Freud and his theory have always been the First World War cut the jugular of the past
about language, the language of the self tell- and welcomed modernity with a bloody em-
ing stories, “this new language for the heart brace, because God was simply nowhere, Freud
and soul and conscience of modern people,” as was free to probe old spiritual problems with a
Phillips phrases it. About the advent of psycho- system of psychology, and the intellectual tenor
analysis, Phillips offers this: was attractive to those who knew that the dead
gods of comprehension could never again be
We need a different way of listening to the resurrected.
stories of our lives, and a different way of The one-time Freudian Frederick Crews,
telling them. And, indeed, a different story since the early 1980s Freud-killer par excel-
about pleasure and pain; a story about . . . lence, suggests in his essay “Analysis Termina-
the individual in his society; and a story ble” that Freud’s rabid popularity has a much
with no religion in it. . . . Psychoanalysis, simpler explanation: Most people are—there’s
which started as an improvisation in no gentle way to say it—incurably stupid, and
medical treatment, became at once, if not so given to irrational fancies of every stripe.
a new language, a new story about these Phillips believes that Freud’s program must
fundamental things, and a new story about be counted as part of the multifarious history
stories. of storytelling, yes, but also as part of the his-
tory of speaking, because psychoanalysis is,
In other words, Freud’s work is a way of telling above all, not a “speaking cure” but a speak-
ourselves fresh and much-needed stories about ing exploration—an exploration of speaking
the stories we tell of ourselves. As Phillips more honestly and efficiently about those nig-
puts it: “We obscure ourselves from ourselves gling issues we have so much trouble speaking
in our life stories.” Why? Because the truth at about. This is why Freud’s emphasis would be
our core, those ghastly desires, are often too on lexicon and symbol and narrative, and why
parlous to bear; because self-deception is the the architecture of psychoanalysis looks always
human being’s default mode; because self- like mythos and never like science. Science has
preservation is our aim whether we realize it its own language, to be sure, and it certainly
or not, and ensconcing the truth from ourselves has a story to tell, but that story doesn’t neces-
is one way of preserving our frail sense of per- sarily require the agency of narrative or char-
sonhood. Freud’s real genius was not that he acter, and it isn’t contingent upon the stories
invented the conception of the human being that came before—it’s contingent only upon
as resolutely hidden from himself—literature observable facts.
got there first—but that he emphasized and “It would be in Freud’s lifetime,” writes
WILLIAM GIRALDI 201Phillips, “that the extraordinary languages of than Freud ever did, and mostly because they
socialism, of Zionism, of feminism, and of psy- weren’t mulishly wedded to the analytical point
choanalysis would first become current.” One of view.
might get more specific here and add fascism/ At only one point does Phillips see fit to
Nazism, communism/Stalinism to that mixed mention “the potential pitfalls of psycho
catalog, all of which forced us into a new glos- analysis . . . its potential for misogyny, dog-
sary of hurt, and forced us to reevaluate the matism, and proselytizing: the analyst’s
mythic foundation that feeds the stories we try temptation to speak on the patient’s behalf,
to pass off as truths. Put more pointedly: We and to know what’s best for the patient: the
rely on propaganda to help situate ourselves cultism of the analyst and patient as a couple.”
in a chaotic world, and Freud’s mission was Misogyny, dogmatism, proselytizing, cultism: let’s
to dismantle the personal propaganda we de- please agree that those are much more perni-
vise about our own histories, our childhoods cious than mere “pitfalls.” Phillips is normally
in particular. The bold lines he drew between careful to wear the mask of non-partiality, of
childhood and adulthood remain Freud’s great cool objectivity, but if you really want to know
innovation. As Phillips notes, “Childhood was how he feels about Freud’s assassins, you can
a story adults made up about themselves. It was glimpse his face in this bit: “Psychoanalysis—
to be the story that caught on. And psychoanal- though this has been easy to forget amid the
ysis would catch on as a story about why stories clamor of Freud’s perennial discrediting—was
about childhood might matter.” originally about people being freed to speak
But is the story true? Isn’t that what really for themselves.” The clamor? Would it not be
matters, why sensational memoirs are infi- more precise to say that the clamor is no such
nitely more popular than serious novels? Why thing, no noisy disruption by a resentful mob,
the misnamed “reality television” continues to but rather a careful and sustained dismantling
thrive among the sofa-sunk and brain-dead? Is of entrenched pieties, undertaken by a phalanx
Freud’s storytelling telling us the truth about of mostly commonsensical and qualified intel-
the darkness we harbor? “We take refuge in lectuals?
plausible stories, Freud tells us in his own What’s more, the sophistry of Phillips’s
partly plausible story called psychoanalysis,” contention is given away by that crucial term
and that “partly” is an indication that Phillips “originally”: Many a treacherous or phony
won’t be cubicled with zealous votaries who revolution was “originally” about something
deem Freud an infallible deity. But he also won’t benevolent and worthy. If it’s true that Freud’s
hold Freud accountable for his harum-scarum incipient intention had been to liberate people
practices, his hasty rationalizations, his dearth “to speak for themselves,” that’s certainly not
of strict method, his ruthless business tactics what happened in practice. One need only cite
and egomania, his reckless medical posturing, Freud’s infamous “Wolf Man” and “Dora” cases
or his bullying of suggestible, mostly female to demonstrate that not only did Freud not lib-
patients, all of which have been meticulously erate patients to speak for themselves, he quite
documented since at least the early 1970s. knowingly began speaking for them, and in the
Frederick Crews has pointed out that psy- most fictional, farcical, fabulist ways—ways
choanalysis can’t possibly be true because it that revealed much more about Freud and his
was predicated and contingent on the clinical own wackiness than it ever did about the poor
work carried out in Freud’s office, clinical work Wolf Man and Dora. Phillips admits as much
that wholly lacked scientific rigor and that was, when he speedily refers to “Freud’s abiding
from start to finish, an enormous failure. Sig- fascination with the making and consuming
mund Freud never “cured” anybody. His three of fictions.”
former apostles—Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Entire swaths of Freud are dicta that morph
Otto Rank—came closer to helping patients into doctrine and before long start sounding
202 VQR | SUMMER 2014a lot like dogma and then like doggerel. Take legacy of Freud and his brainchild—to carry
his two most ubiquitous fictions, the Oedipus on as if the wholesale validity of psychoanaly-
complex and his “dream-work.” Phillips quotes sis has not been subjected to devastating full-
Freud writing to the batty physician Wilhelm frontal assaults by scholars not easily duped.
Fliess that he had discovered in himself “the Phillips might respond that this introduction
phenomena of being in love with my mother to Freud—based on a series of lectures he de-
and jealous of my father, and I now consider livered at Trinity College, which might account
it a universal event in early childhood,” which for this book’s epic punctuation problems and
is a rather willful confusion of the state of his slapdash confection, so unlike his other work—
own stomach with the digestive health of hu- is not the proper locus for a promulgating or
mankind, and one of the comical flaws that his rehashing of the Freud Wars. And he might be
critics love to spotlight: the grand extrapolating right about that, except that as the most visible,
and generalizing. Does any half-serious person respected, and sober apologist for psychoanaly-
really believe that little boys unconsciously sis he should shoulder the responsibility of a
yearn to destroy their fathers and copulate with semi-even presentation.
their mothers? It might hold some appeal as
psycho-erotic literary criticism if you were con-
sidering, say, the work of Sade, but it has zero It’s clear from Phillips’s other work that he’s
application to actual human lives. Even if it did, become bored with all the chatter debating
how would you determine or begin to address whether or not psychoanalysis is a science,
that application? and if that’s the case, he should stop adding
About Freud’s “dream-work”: I’m sorry, but to the chatter by the frivolous employment of
there’s nothing more tedious and downright the term. Psychoanalysis, Phillips writes in Be-
uninteresting than someone else’s dreams. If coming Freud, “is neither a science in the usual
you want to bore your date to eye rolling, begin sense, nor a religion in the traditional sense.”
by telling her about your dream from last night, So if it’s not a science in the usual sense, it must
that non-narrative smorgasbord of images that be a science in the unusual sense, and there the
can mean anything you want and so neces- term “unusual” must do the work for “pseudo”
sarily means nothing at all. Not incidentally, or “fraudulent.” It is indeed about time we
the use of dreams in a novel or short story to stop having this discussion: Psychoanalysis is
disclose some vital component of a character not, nor has it ever been, a science. But like
is an absolutely fatal calculation, and one that many Freudians, Phillips can’t seem to make
is also an unfailing sign of a neophyte. Ac- up his mind about the definition of “science.”
cording to Freud, our dreams are puzzles that A scholar of his deep learning is surely not con-
are supposed to be replete with essential data flicted over the fact that science must adhere
about our true selves, but do you really know to empirical, testable criteria, so why is he not
any thinking, employable, unsentimental per- adverse to mobilizing the term in reference to
son who takes his dreams very seriously at all? Freud? For instance: “[Freud’s] most important
“Dream-work” for Freud was just one more principle of scientific explanation was the idea
way he skirted the obvious for the arcane. He of overdetermination: that nothing psychically
preferred puzzles, not people. He didn’t care ever has only one cause.” How, pray tell, does
much about actual suffering lives, but only for speculation about what might or might not
excavating the clandestine—or, let’s be honest, have molested one’s psychic health amount to
the mostly imaginary—trauma of those lives. “scientific explanation”? How is such specula-
So it’s negligent at best and duplicitous at tion testable? It is not.
worst, even in a brief study such as Phillips’s, Freud’s combat to keep psychoanalysis sci-
to carry on as if for the past forty years seismic entifically viable faced certain defeat from mo-
upheavals have not been occurring inside the ment one, as he seems to have known. Phillips
WILLIAM GIRALDI 203quotes Freud in Studies on Hysteria: “It still is not showing us merely that we are unaccept-
strikes me as strange that the case-histories I able to ourselves, but that we are more compli-
write should read like short stories and that, cated than we want to be. And more wishful.
as one might say, they lack the serious stamp And more frustrated. And more or less divided
of science.” The melancholy and pessimism of against ourselves than we may need to be.” As
his later years had an array of causes, and one well-adjusted as you may be, those statements
of them was his realization that the supposedly apply to you as much as they apply to all those
scientific center of his work would not hold. blitzed by psychological unrest.
There would be less wrangling over Freud if Saul Bellow’s narrator in More Die of Heart-
his texts remained only a way of reading lit- break has a punchy take on this issue: “I trust
erature and ourselves instead of attempting to psychology less and less. I see it as one of the
be a scientific avenue to curing ourselves and lower by-products of the restlessness or oscil-
others of a humanness that can never be ex- lation of modern consciousness, a terrible agi-
punged. He was a literary man, but you can’t tation which we prize as ‘insight.’ ” Agitation
apply literature clinically or use it as a correc- is not insight, no, but Freud would have told
tive for broken lives. Literature is many benefi- Bellow that such restlessness and oscillation
cent things, but it isn’t medicine. It’s true, as must be reckoned with, must be parsed if we
Phillips writes, that “Freud would become the are to have any hope of knowing ourselves. Ten
most literary of psychoanalysts,” just as Fried- years ago, in Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?,
rich Nietzsche would become the most literary Harold Bloom wrote this: “We live more than
of philosophers. ever in the Age of Freud, despite the relative
Freud was never completely honest about decline that psychoanalysis has begun to suffer
the degree to which he deliberately annexed the as a public institution and as a medical spe-
ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, cialty. Freud’s universal and comprehensive
but from a young age he understood intuitively theory of the mind probably will outlive the
that literature and philosophy contained the psychoanalytical therapy, and seems already to
clues, the intimations of the truth he wanted have placed him with Plato and Montaigne and
to explore in the caves of the human psyche. Shakespeare rather than with the scientists he
“Psychoanalysis,” writes Phillips, “whatever else overtly aspired to emulate.” Freud might feel a
it is, is a dictionary of modern fears,” and it’s ping of vindication to see the April 2014 cover
hard to disagree with that, especially since psy- story of Discover magazine, the title of which is
choanalysis helped to forge those modern fears. “The Second Coming of Freud,” about the ways
This is what the incomparable Karl Kraus meant neuroscientists are merging their research of
when he famously quipped that “psychoanalysis the brain with Freud’s theories of the mind.
is the disease of which it claims to be the cure.” The improbable name of this new species of
But let’s forget about diseases and cures for scientific insight? Neuropsychoanalysis.
a moment. In one of the truest observations in Listen carefully. Can you hear that? It’s Sig-
Becoming Freud, Phillips contends that “Freud mund Freud, cackling from his Greek urn.
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