EDITH KURZWEIL
47
Sanford Gifford anticipates a smaller social role, less visibility, and more
scientific advances by fewer persons - that is, research that may be dis–
seminated to others in the various helping professions. Some of his colleagues
expect therapeutic insights through applications of new knowledge ofthe self
or of object relations. Most Londoners, I believe, would concur but would
stress the great number of discoveries being made in the area of child
development. German psychoanalysts are more likely
to
focus on the social
impact of unconscious drives,
to
extrapolate
to
mass psychology, and ,
to–
gether with their "uncritical" colleagues, to establish formally a watered-down
psychoanalysis as the optimal method for the treatment of mental ailments.
As
for the French, they are bound to find a number of innovative amalgams
of classical and Lacanian therapy.
As these psychoanalytic therapies are undergoing their metamor–
phoses, psychoanalytic ideas will become ever more entrenched in the culture
at large. But these ideas themselves are diffused by practicing psychoana–
lysts and are derived from reflections and generalizations based on specific
experiments with patients. Since these patients, in turn , respond to their ana–
lysts' theoretical and clinical approaches, psychoanalysis on every level mir–
rors culturally approved assumptions. Consequently, as time goes on, each
country increasingly evolves its own Freud. Sometimes this occurs with the
help of anthropologists, literary critics, ethnologists, sociologists, or psycholo–
gists; at other times the influence of the media dominates.
In any event, Freudian thought in one way or another will retain its
hold on the human imagination. Even if Freud's larger hopes for a better so–
ciety have not been borne out and he failed to find the formula for wiping out
large-scale wars and individual irrationality, he has been a dominating figure
in the modern mind and has revolutionized our way of thinking. Despite
widespread criticism and frequent hostility
to
psychoanalysis in one form or
another, Freud's ideas have permeated the consciousness of humanity, in–
cluding the minds of those who swear they do not possess an unconscious.
Freudian psychoanalysts have helped many people and have provided most
of the tools used by other helping professions. Ultimately, even if only aspir–
ing candidates will be exploring their unconscious four to five times a week
for four or more years, many of Freud's basic ideas will prevail. He supplied
us with the means to explore "scientifically" the roots of our modern
imagination - a conscious and unconscious imagination that has taken off in
different directions, responding to cultural traditions, influences, and trends.
Freud cannot be dislodged from his role as "father" of our century: no disin–
terested thinker any longer can deny the power of the unconscious, or the
impact of both
le nom
and
le non-du-pere.
