杏吧原创

THE name Sigmund Freud is inextricable from psychoanalysis. And vice versa. But why? And how did the two wind up in the same cultural basket as Copernicus and Darwin?

In The Freud Files, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and Sonu Shamdasani have a tangled tale to tell but their mission is clear: 鈥淲e should hurry to study psychoanalysis whilst we can,鈥� they write, 鈥渇or we will soon no longer be able to discern its features 鈥� and for good reason: because it never was.鈥� The pair argue that without the Freud legend the 鈥渋dentity and radical difference [of psychoanalysis] from other forms of psychotherapy collapse鈥�.

Attempts to debunk the legend in the 1970s and 80s failed. But a current assault, helped by a wealth of 鈥渄eclassified鈥� material, correspondence and critical studies, looks more likely to dismantle the monomyth. The Freud Archives, a collection of letters and papers, were deposited at the US Library of Congress by Freud鈥檚 daughter, Anna, to put them out of reach of unofficial biographers. This move also locked away Freud鈥檚 patients鈥� versions of their own problems.

But now, as primary material is made public, parts of the archive are declassified and his letters re-edited without censorship, the legend is 鈥渇raying from all sides鈥�.

It is a tragic tale. In the 1890s, Freud apparently attempted to lay foundations for interdisciplinary neuroscience, only to abandon the programme. If he hadn鈥檛, perhaps he might have ended up deserving his place alongside Copernicus and Darwin.