The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Volume 10

by Various

BY MEYER SOLOMON, M. D., CHICAGO

I have frequently wondered whether those of us who oppose the dissemination of the Freudian theories, at least as they are being and have been applied to the psychoneuroses and to psychopathology in general, have solved the problem as we should have solved it or fought the fight as we should have fought it. It has not infrequently seemed to me that our plan of battle, our campaign, the battle we have in a way waged, was not as consistently planned and as well organized as it should have been and as the occasion really demanded. There were many lines of attack open for us. We could, if we so wished, have made generalized and wholesale attacks upon all that Freudism stood for regardless of whether, in certain principles, it was right or wrong. This some have actually done. Although this method is not in my opinion fair or scientific, yet, so reckless and so uncritical have been many of the Freudians, and the foremost Freudians at that, in their declarations and conclusions, that I can readily see how one may be prompted to resort to unmitigated ridicule and general condemnation of the entire system, the standpoints and the conclusions that have been made the bulwark of the Freudian movement. Others have adopted a different method of dealing with the situation. They have entirely ignored the Freudian school and all that it stands for, and have permitted the members of this school to go to ever greater and greater extremes and excesses, with the more extensive elaboration of their system, so that eventually the error of their ways would be apparent to all, since the final conclusions to which they would be led would be openly fallacious and give proof positive that the foundation, the psychology upon which as a basis the Freudian system of interpretation and analysis has been erected, was defective to such an extent that it would crumple into disintegrated portions under the heavy load of the unsupported superstructure. This method has by no manner of means been unsuccessful.

A third standpoint to be assumed is that in which replies to or criticisms of individual articles, rather than criticisms of a general nature and applicable to the Freudian psychology or method or conclusions in toto, is adopted as the proper method of dealing with the situation with which we found ourselves with the advent and spread of the Freudian movement. This last-mentioned method is probably the most desirable of the three methods which have been here mentioned.

And it is the method which I shall follow in this criticism of Dr. Coriat's paper, because, among other reasons, I believe it is the fairest to all concerned.

It is not my purpose to take up for discussion the various statements, made by Dr. Coriat, with which I disagree, but rather to consider only the question of the correctness or incorrectness of the general thesis which he has presented.

The reasons for my entering into a criticism of this particular article by Dr. Coriat may be stated as follows: In the first place I am interested in the general problems of psychopathology, and of the psychoneuroses in particular. In the second place I am somewhat unusually interested in the problem of stuttering.[2] This latter interest has two main sources of origin: (1) I am deeply interested in the question of stuttering because of my general interest in neurology and psychiatry, including the speech disorders, under which heading stuttering finds its place; (2) I have myself, from earliest childhood, suffered from this affection and so find myself naturally much interested in the subject.

[2] In this paper I shall use the terms "stammering" and "stuttering" interchangeably.

It is not out of place, it seems to me, to at once answer one of the stock arguments which certain Freudians have been in the habit of offering as a reply to those who criticized their theories and conclusions. I refer to the argument or rather the insistence that those who oppose the spread of the Freudian ideas are themselves unconscious illustrations of the truth and accuracy and general applicability of the Freudian dicta. In this argument they accuse their opponents of unconsciously indulging in or being victims of a defense mechanism, as a means of self-justification and self-rationalization, based on repression, sexuality, etc., in order that their hidden, unconscious, repressed, forgotten desires, tendencies and inclinations may not be brought to the surface and consciously acknowledged. In other words, in my particular case (my present criticism of Dr. Coriat's paper), I could, perhaps, be accused, by those Freudians who are in the habit of resorting to this charge as their own method of self-justification and self-rationalization, as the path of least resistance and as a loophole through which they can escape from meeting the situation presented to them by a frank self-examination and acknowledgment of error or by a fair and satisfactory response—I could be accused, I repeat, of showing, by the very fact of my criticism, that all that Dr. Coriat stated concerning the origin and nature of stammering was true.

In replying to this oft-repeated and oft-resurrected assertion, I need not be detained for any great length of time from proceeding to the consideration of those facts which are the real purpose of this paper. I need only say, in parentheses, that it does seem to me that there surely are a few anti-Freudians (and I may here include myself) who are perhaps, who knows, capable of that degree of unprejudiced self-criticism and intensive self-analysis which is necessary for the purposes of making ourselves eligible for candidacy as critics of the Freudian theories and dogmata. I may go further and gently suggest that it even seems to me that there may be some others of us who are capable of as great a degree of such self-criticism and self-analysis as, and it may even be of a greater degree than, many of those who have been making this claim. I am content to leave this point to the sound judgment and good sense of the average reader of these pages.

The second point that I should bring out in this connection is as follows: That which is of fundamental importance and of basic significance in the life of the psychoneurotic or the stutterer, that which is the fundamental and essential motive force which controls the psychoneurotic and the stutterer is also true, but in greater or less degree, for all of those who are not within the confines of this group.[3] And as a further statement I must assert that whatever is deemed to be the essential and primary cause for stuttering must also be applicable, in the same way but in different degree, to all the other manifestations of speech disorder such as the slips of the tongue, and many other of the psychopathologic acts of everyday life. Consequently, if the Freudian theories of sexuality are directly applicable to the problem of stuttering, it follows that they must likewise be applicable to all the other disturbances of speech just referred to. For, if followed out to the very end, we shall find that the possible mental content and mental mechanisms are the same for all psychopathologic acts, whether of everyday life or distinctly abnormal and outside the pale of our average range. If sexuality lies at the bottom of stuttering, it must be at the root of all other psychopathologic acts, of whatever nature, of whatever degree and wherever and whenever found. I cannot devote the time in this place to enter into an elaborate discussion to prove the truth of this thesis. But I can gain my point more easily and more directly in another way. Although Freud and his followers have not stated, in just so many words, that the psychopathologic acts of everyday life have the same hidden mental content that the psychoneuroses have (although it is my contention that this conclusion is but a natural extension of their sexual theories concerning the psychoneuroses), yet we do find that Freud and the Freudian school in general apply their sexual theories to the whole group of the psychoneuroses. Now, since stuttering is a psychoneurotic disorder of a certain special type, it is understood that they must believe that stuttering, as a matter of course, comes within the rubric of their generalization. As a matter of fact, if their sexual theories were at first applied only to stuttering, as they were originally applied to hysteria, it would mean that, by a process of reasoning, the Freudian school would have to apply their dicta to all of the psychoneuroses. This was, in truth, just what did occur, beginning with hysteria. And it is seen that the same thing would have happened had they begun with stuttering. I contend, further, but I shall not endeavor in this place to prove the correctness of my contention, that what is absolutely and without exception, fundamentally and essentially true of the psychoneuroses is likewise true, in different degree, of the psychopathologic acts of every day life. This would be the conclusion to which I would be forced if I started with any one of the psychoneuroses, whether it be hysteria or stuttering. One can thus see that my statement that if Freud's theories are true for stuttering they must of necessity be true for all psychopathologic acts of whatever sort is quite true.[4] I could go much further and prove that if Freud's theories were the primary and basic explanation for stuttering they must be applicable to all manifestations of human mental energy, which to me would mean that they are no less true of all vital energy, human or otherwise. In other words, the solitary application of Freud's conception to the problem of stuttering would lead us, by logical steps, to the ultimate conclusion that the vital energy was sexual—a conclusion with which Jung will not agree. And let us not forget, too, that the term "sexual" would here be used in a psychological sense, so that, in fact, Freud's theories of sexuality as the explanation of stuttering would lead us, step by step, to a psychosexual conception of the universe. And is this not exactly what the Freudian school has assumed?