ROBERT MICHELS
Psychoanalysis and Its Cri tics
Edith Kurzweil:
We are gathered here to ask Dr. Michels some questions
about the state of psychoanalysis.
As
most of you know, he is not only one
of the most renowned training analysts afliliated with the Columbia
University Center for Psychoanalytic Training, but is Professor of Medicine
and Psychiatry at the Cornell Medical College as well. We have invited
him
here to explain some of the issues that are fundamental to the controversies
surrounding Freud's legacy and that seem to be central to current thinking
and practice by all sorts of Freudian and anti-Freudian therapists, and by the
public at large. When he agreed to address us, Dr. Michels said that he would
prefer to answer a number of lead-in questions rather than give a formal talk;
and that he would then elaborate on the roots and ramifications of the cur–
rently hot topics some of our audience may want
him
to pursue. Following
are some of these questions which, I think, may clarify some of the confu–
sions that are ranlpant in our culture. In fact, the distinctions between what
Freud said, what one or another of his followers maintained and what his
critics imputed to
him
are unclear to most non-analysts among us, as well as
to many therapists. Actually, psychoanalysis primarily is besieged from three
sides: by literary critics who no longer debate and explore the issues in the
way Lionel Trilling and William Phillips did with practicing analysts such as
Heinz Hartmann and Ernst Kris, by philosophers such as Adolph
Griinbaum, whose main argument is that it is not a science because it can–
not be properly falsified, and by some of the medical profession who find
that advances in drug therapy have made psychoanalysis too expensive in
both time and money. As we know, psychoanalysts sometimes have played
into their critics' hands when explaining their reservations in terms of per–
sonal or societal symptoms. Therefore, I will begin by posing three sets of
questions, which I am sure will be followed by others from some of you.
1.)
Dr. Michels, when you publicly debated the state of psychoanalysis
with the literary critic Frederick Crews, one of the most formidable foes of
psychoanalysis within the culture, you rebutted his contention that psycho–
analysis has been a fraud; and you argued that it cannot be blamed for all sorts
of societal ills it has nothing to do with. For instance, Crews maintains that
the recovered memory movement, wi th all its consequences, is linked to
Freud or derives from him. How do you explain this sleight of hand, how
do you interpret the current proliferation of real and imagined child abuse?
