One tip off to the pseudoscientific nature of psychoanalysis is to describe
its institutional structure. In a real science there are no central organizations
that function to ensure doctrinal conformity, expel those who deviate from
the accepted truth, and present a united front to the world. It has long
been apparent to observers, however, that this is exactly what psychoanalysis
has done and continues to do. As Crews notes, psychoanalysis 'conducted
itself less like a scientific-medical enterprise than like a politburo
bent upon snuffing out deviationism' (Crews, 1995, p. 110). Perhaps the
first person to notice and be repelled by this aspect of psychoanalysis
was the famous Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler. Bleuler briefly flirted
with psychoanalysis. But when he left the psychoanalytic movement in 1911,
he said to Freud 'this 'who is not for us is against us,' this 'all or
nothing,' is necessary for religious communities and useful for political
parties. I can therefore understand the principle as such, but for science
I consider it harmful.' (in Gay 1987, pp. 144-145). The quotation is telling.
To become a psychoanalyst was like joining a religious or political movement
and not at all like becoming a scientist.
The apex of the authoritarian, anti-scientific institutional structure
of psychoanalysis was the Secret Committee of hand-picked loyalists sworn
to uphold psychoanalytic orthodoxy, described by Phyllis Grosskurth in
The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis:
By insisting the Committee must be absolutely secret, Freud enshrined the
principle of confidentiality.
The various psychoanalytic societies that emerged from the Committee
were like Communist cells, in which the members vowed eternal obedience
to their leader. Psychoanalysis became institutionalized by the founding
of journals and the training of candidates; in short an extraordinarily
effective political entity. (Grosskurth 1991, p. 15)
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