Therapeutic redemption

I hate being unoriginal, and Freud is about the most uncreative and overdone topic in the history of psychology writing assignments. Nevertheless, I can’t resist the urge this evening to defend Freud from a bit of the undue hate he gets.

I would suggest that Freud can be associated not with creation or fall, as his theories on the nature of man were mostly unsubstantiated, but with redemption. Psychoanalytic therapy laid the foundations for a healing process in which people could sew up old wounds. Though it has been suggested by critics that past traumas were often fabricated during the therapy, the psychological issues with which these experiences became associated were far from imaginary. The fact that this could even work says a lot about therapy in general: We go there not to cut the tree from which a problem hangs, but rather to find a boat (any boat) onto which it can sail away. This same idea is seen in virtually every modern therapy. Problems are addressed in the present, not through the past.

Though Freud would say psychoanalytic therapy worked because it dealt with problems in the past, its immediate effect was one of redemptive value in the present. It created a pathway through which neuroses and “hysteria” could escape and let a person feel free. It’s easy to claim that, because therapy doesn’t always “stick,” that the method is useless, but, if you’re a Christian, I would urge you to consider this: Is it so much difference from the “redemptive” experiences seen at a Church camp or other emotionally charged religious event? Both (usually) involve initial feelings of regret over some kind of “brokenness” followed by an epiphany (described by many religious devotees as the experienced love of God) and then feelings of restoration and freedom from psychosis (sin). The psychological events taking place in both scenarios are unproven and not falsifiable.

It’s because of this kind of comparison that I wonder if Freud would have many more surviving followers if he had, like many thinkers before him, spent time kissing the collective butt of mainstream Christianity and adapted his theory to support, rather than attack, religion. He didn’t do this, fortunately, so the only dogma standing in the way of his critics was that of his own followers. Even if you reject everything else Freud did and said, you have to give him brownie points for not selling out. He wasn’t a con-artist; he genuinely believed in his work. And I believe that the patients of psychoanalytic therapy do see genuine healing, even though it may be scientific hogwash.