The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry
The 1970 edition
AuthorHenri F. Ellenberger
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistory
Published1970 (Basic Books)
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pages932
ISBN0-465-01672-3
OCLC68543

The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry is a 1970 study of the history of dynamic psychiatry by the Swiss medical historian Henri F. Ellenberger.[1] His account of the early history of psychology covers such figures as Franz Anton Mesmer, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Pierre Janet.

Ellenberger's work, which has become a classic, been credited with demolishing the myth of Freud's originality and encouraging subsequent scholars to question the scientific validity of psychoanalysis.

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,[2] and Janet.[3] Ellenberger shows that Freud was dependent on earlier writers, especially Janet.[4] 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.[5]

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 science to medicine, influencing Mesmer's animal magnetism, and eventually Freud.[1] 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.[1]

Reception

Historian Peter Gay writes that The Discovery of the Unconscious is far more comprehensive than Lancelot Law Whyte's The Unconscious Before Freud (1960) and "a rich source of information", but also calls it "far from elegant", "opinionated", and "not always reliable in its quick judgments".[2] Paul Robinson described Ellenberger's chapter on Freud as "irreverent", writing that The Discovery of the Unconscious paved the way for much of the criticism of Freud that followed in the 1980s.[6] Ellenberger's book has been credited by literary critic Frederick Crews with demolishing the myth of Freud's originality and encouraging subsequent scholars to question the scientific validity of psychoanalysis.[7] Psychologist Hans Eysenck, in his Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (1985), calls The Discovery of the Unconscious an "excellent book which unveils many of the myths which have accumulated around Freud", observing that it has become a classic.[4]

Frank Sulloway's Freud, Biologist of the Mind (1979) was partly inspired by Ellenberger.[8] Anthony Stevens has 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 accounts of Freud and Jung.[5]

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c Webster 2005. p. 16.
  2. ^ a b Gay 1995. p. 754.
  3. ^ Reed 2007. p. 494.
  4. ^ a b Eysenck 1986. p. 213.
  5. ^ a b Stevens 1991. pp. 178, 267.
  6. ^ Robinson 1993. p. 2.
  7. ^ Crews 1996.
  8. ^ Welsh 1994. p. 126.

Bibliography

Books
Online articles
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