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SELMA FRAIBERG
is not, in itself, pathological; (2) it is not repression
qua
repression
that creates neurosis but
unsuccessful
repression. When it breaks
down and an intolerable wish threatens to break through into con–
sciousness a conflict will arise that may initiate a neurosis. There is
nothing, then, in this view (which pre-dates the popularization of
psychoanalytic ideas) that recommends the theory to those who
seek health through the casting off of moral restraints or to those
who try to rear healthy children by avoiding "repressions." The
error in transmission of the idea in popular culture certainly influ–
enced conduct in many spheres. Changes in child-rearing methods
and the sexual morality of adults are attributable, at least in part,
to the popular belief that repression is a danger to psychic health. In
such instances new standards for conduct claim the authority of
psychoanalysis, though the influential idea is a distortion of the
scientific concept.
It is not an easy job to establish the links between Freud's ideas
and their product in social behavior, attitudes and the self-image of
j
modem man. Philip Rieff is a sociologist who brings to this study a
considerable erudition and a discerning eye for forms and patterns
in behavior. He describes a new moral type that has emerged in the
past half-century, the product of diverse historical and socia-eco–
nomic tendencies, one that needed a psychological rationale for its
introversion of interest and found it in Freudian psychology. The
new moral type Rieff calls "psychological man." He emerges quite
convincingly from Mr. Rieffs examination. But the connections
between the modem type, and the influential psychoanalytic ideas
that have formed him are not so convincing, and here Mr. Rieff en–
counters difficulties.
Psychological man is described by Rieff as the dominant
moral type of our time, "specially adapted to endure his own
period: the trained egoist, the private man, who turns away from
the arenas of public failure to re-examine himself and his own
emotions." Rieff identifies a new kind of conscience, a reasoned,
scrupulous examination of self and motive, one that is guided by the
scientific ideal of neutrality and the Freudian "ethic of honesty," a
conscience that measures good by personal health-values and sub–
stitutes reasoned self-judgments for guilt. Because moral aspirations
may endanger his health-values, psychological man does not as-
