Freud vs Marx, Marx and Freud, or Sartrean Psychoanalysis?

[A.R.Amistad]

I don't pretend to be an authority on this subject at all, but I must say I've always found the notion of Psychoanalysis to be pure mysticism. Perhaps I am mistaken on the principles, but I just wanted to know what the relationship of Freudianism and Marxism was. I've read some of Sartre's psychoanalytic works but they put me to sleep. :sleep: Apparently Trotsky had some admiration of Freud, but I can't find anything that Trotsky wrote on the subject. My viewpoint so far is that psychoanalysis is yet another pseudo-scientific way to give the material that is the human brain some essential value to its very existence (such as saying the human brain "lusts"). I think you all know my viewpoints on those sorts of statements.

[JoyDivision]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_and_Civilization

Have a gander, it's good reading. The book, not wiki.

[vyborg]

I think psycoanalisys is fundamental to understand reality and social relations.
Of course, there are great analyst, so and so analyst and crap analyst.
I suggest anyone interested in the topic to start with the basic of the relationship between marxism and psycoanalysys (Reich, Fromm, Marcuse, Lacan, Althusser, Zizek, etc.) then coming back for discussion.

That's for a start...

Going rapidly, in my opinion, Marcuse is useless in this contest because he is a philosophe not an analyst. Reich was great but so primitive and one-sided....Both Reich and Fromm degenerated after a while even if in different directions.

Lacan was completely mad but so deep and full of intuitions. His most famous scolar, Miller, was a maoist and this was not for good, unfortunately.

[FreeFocus]

Psychoanalysis has very little scientific support, as modern psychology has already disproven a number of its central tenets (e.g. traumatic memories being repressed, when they are really remembered more vividly).

That said, its still an interesting branch of psychology, it's just very unfortunate that the entire science in pop culture is associated with one of its most unsupported schools of thought.

[A.R.Amistad]

That said, its still an interesting branch of psychology, it's just very unfortunate that the entire science in pop culture is associated with one of its most unsupported schools of thought.

Yes, I completely despise pop-psychology, which has perpetuated such widely accepted myths as "we only use 10% of our brain."

[KC]

I'd suggest that you read some Fromm, who wrote extensively on both Freud and Marx. I don't think psychoanalysis is completely wrong, but rather the way it is presented by many is. The same goes with Freud's work.

[vyborg]

psychoanalysis is a model of science vis a vis what passes as psychology nowadays. mechanical, completely idiot, profoundly reactionary...from the creation of DSM on, modern psychology is a useless series of common sense.

as for the connection with neurology and neuroscience (that cannot explain the psyche more than acoustic can explain why people laugh watching tv) it is used not as a tool to deepen analysis but only as an excuse to produce and to sell more medicine.

the reason for the crisis of psychoanalysis is very easily to understand: it is useless for bourgeoisie to make a profit. medicine are...

[Dean]

I don't pretend to be an authority on this subject at all, but I must say I've always found the notion of Psychoanalysis to be pure mysticism. Perhaps I am mistaken on the principles, but I just wanted to know what the relationship of Freudianism and Marxism was. I've read some of Sartre's psychoanalytic works but they put me to sleep. :sleep: Apparently Trotsky had some admiration of Freud, but I can't find anything that Trotsky wrote on the subject. My viewpoint so far is that psychoanalysis is yet another pseudo-scientific way to give the material that is the human brain some essential value to its very existence (such as saying the human brain "lusts"). I think you all know my viewpoints on those sorts of statements.

Take KC's advice, and read Fromm. Psychology is critical to understanding notions of freedom or economic activity, and Fromm is one of the few who took such an approach to the issue.

It's also worth noting that his body of evidence is the primary basis for The Authoritarian Personality theory, which was largely accredited to Frankfurt School theorists after he left.

[Zanthorus]

There is actually some evidence for psycho-analytic theory, or at least the therapeutic aspect of it:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=talk-therapy-off-couch-into-lab

I would also add that Freud is not the be all and end all of "depth psychology". If you're interested you might wanna check out Carl Jung and Alfred Adler.

[Alf]

This is a contribution on the ICC's website, which takes up some of Trotsky's writings on Freud

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/140/the-legacy-of-freud

[Hit The North]

Psychology is critical to understanding notions of freedom or economic activity,

If that were true, we would have to admit that Das Kapital doesn't cut it as an explanation of the capitalist mode of production.

[Dean]

If that were true, we would have to admit that Das Kapital doesn't cut it as an explanation of the capitalist mode of production.

It doesn't. Nothing in and of itself does. We can always learn more, and this is precisely why dogmatically or exclusively focusing on Marx is a mistake.

Its worth noting, thought, that Marx was considered a sociologist as well as an economist. So his understanding of psychology is relevant, but you are correct that he didn't focus on the human psyche as much as he could have. But he had a basis in psychology, which is easily identifiable upon reading any of his works on alienation in particular.

[Buffalo Souljah]

This is what I wrote in another thread on the same subject:


What many Marxists, anarchists, libertarians and others criticize psychology for is its tendency to reify certain socially constructed schemata for interpreting and understanding the human mind, and then taking these as implicit and natural. Take, for instance, the DSM-- until 1973, homosexuality was listed, and widely accepted as a mental disorder. Additionally, in the 19th Century, there was a disorder the symptoms of which included a slave's desire to free himself of his master's dominion. Psychology and psychiatry are relative, the question is relative to what? Are the biases that we maintain in diagnosing and treating patients leading us to beneficial conclusions or are we hindering social progress? I understand where the "anti-psychiatry" movement comes from, though I believe much of psychology/psychiatry can be useful as an aide, always taking into consideration that clinical case studies and empirical data are all we have to rely on for verification, and it is not a "pure" science with exact and perfect prognosis in any and every case. As long as we accept this, many, including Juergen Habermas (see his principle of "phenomenological hermeneutics" in this regard) have no problem embracing psychology/psychiatry as a socially beneficial tool.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/anti-psychology-psychiatry-t130942/index.html?p=1696028#post1696028

[Hit The North]

It doesn't. Nothing in and of itself does. We can always learn more, and this is precisely why dogmatically or exclusively focusing on Marx is a mistake.


It's not a question of dogma, it's a question of whether you think the capitalist mode of production can be accurately presented and understood without recourse to the tools of psychology. If not, then you need to identify the gaps in Marx's analysis in Capital which need to be filled in with the insights of psychology.



Its worth noting, thought, that Marx was considered a sociologist as well as an economist. So his understanding of psychology is relevant, but you are correct that he didn't focus on the human psyche as much as he could have.
I fail to see how being a sociologist would give anyone a privileged understanding of psychology. They're two different disciplines, aren't they?


But he had a basis in psychology, which is easily identifiable upon reading any of his works on alienation in particular.But alienation is not a psychological state but a social condition. If it were the former it could be cured through psychiatric intervention and we wouldn't need to revolutionise our social relations.

[Proletarian Ultra]

(e.g. traumatic memories being repressed, when they are really remembered more vividly).

I know this is a stock-in-trade of the reactionary "skeptic" movement, but it's a very shallow reading of Freud. The repressed returns as symptom. But what's repressed isn't really memories ("my uncle abused me"). Though to be fair, Freud was sloppy about that on occasion. The repressed is thoughts. "I kind of enjoyed it when my uncle abused me." Such a thought, per Freud, would manifest itself in (say) sexual dysfunction until the subject was able to come to terms with it.

Freudianism got a justly bad rap in America when some very simplistic and doctrinaire analysts got hooked up with the police and state-psychiatric industrial complexes. The hilarious part was Frederic Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_of_the_Innocent). But most of the time what it wrought wasn't funny at all. Still like Billy Pilgrim said, compared to DSM-IV psychoanalysis don't look so bad, either in terms of science or oppression-wise.

[black magick hustla]

Freudian psychology and "psychoanalyisis" got laughed out of academia a while ago. It only exists in critical theory and english departments. Some people say because "academia" is bourgeois. That may be the case, but I think it happened because there are too many aprioristic postulates that have no basis in empirical evidence.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Freudian psychology and "psychoanalyisis" got laughed out of academia a while ago. It only exists in critical theory and english departments. Some people say because "academia" is bourgeois. That may be the case, but I think it happened because there are too many aprioristic postulates that have no basis in empirical evidence.

As usual, ICCers hate everything fun.

[black magick hustla]

As usual, ICCers hate everything fun.

1) i am not in the icc. i am close to it. i know some of the militants and help them but i dont really represent them.

2) most iccers love Freud. are you kidding me? theres like a billion icc articles on how freud was great

[Hiero]

Freudian psychology and "psychoanalyisis" got laughed out of academia a while ago. It only exists in critical theory and english departments. Some people say because "academia" is bourgeois. That may be the case, but I think it happened because there are too many aprioristic postulates that have no basis in empirical evidence.



Psychoanalysis has very little scientific support, as modern psychology has already disproven a number of its central tenets (e.g. traumatic memories being repressed, when they are really remembered more vividly).


Modern psychology is no benchmark to judge psychoanalysis. Pyschology has become more compatibleand supporting of modern capitalism. Its focus is purely to get subjects back into the production processes. It takes on capitalist ideologies of the individual.

Marxism has for a long time been "laughed" out of economics. That doesn't mean sociologists, anthropologists, politial scientists and philosophers should abandon Marxism. Economics and psychology acadamia have completly turned to the assistance of capitalism, rather then question how the mode of production effects individuals.

[black magick hustla]

Modern psychology is no benchmark to judge psychoanalysis. Pyschology has become more compatibleand supporting of modern capitalism. Its focus is purely to get subjects back into the production processes. It takes on capitalist ideologies of the individual.
I think my point is that psychoanalysis is more of an ideology than a science. You see, you are complaining about modern psychology getting subjects back into the production process. I don't only think freudian psychoanalysis is ideology though. I think a good part of modern mainstream psychology is. But a lot of this freaudian stuff is the worse, one has only need to open a book on lacan and take a peek at the wild labyrinthic language, which coincidently, its absent from "bourgeois" psychology.




Marxism has for a long time been "laughed" out of economics. That doesn't mean sociologists, anthropologists, politial scientists and philosophers should abandon Marxism. Economics and psychology acadamia have completly turned to the assistance of capitalism, rather then question how the mode of production effects individuals.

All academia is integrated to capitalism.

[I.Drink.Your.Milkshake]

Psychoanalysis has very little scientific support, as modern psychology has already disproven a number of its central tenets (e.g. traumatic memories being repressed, when they are really remembered more vividly).

That said, its still an interesting branch of psychology, it's just very unfortunate that the entire science in pop culture is associated with one of its most unsupported schools of thought.


It's true that psychoanalysis has little scientific support and nor will it ever, due to its very nature. But I have to take issue with the concept of repression being "disproven". People do repress traumatic events. Maybe not everyone that ever has a tramatic event happen to them but in certain cases it happens.

One of the most frustrating things about psychology is how diffuse its various branches are. This makes it very difficult to ever really 'know', in terms of quantifiable physical data, much about it beyond physiological psychology. How exactly do you measure depression?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

As I have pointed out several times already, Freud was a complete charlatan:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1339862&postcount=55

[anticap]

the reactionary "skeptic" movement

Why do you classify skepticism as reactionary? As I see it, one must maintain a skeptical outlook, for the very reason illustrated two posts above yours. The fact that mainstream psychiatrists once classed homosexuals and rebellious slaves as mental defectives suggests to me that I had better maintain a healthy skepticism of anything they tell me today. Unless you believe that psychiatry or any other science will ever reach a state of completeness, then in all likelihood we will one day look back on aspects of the current consensus with equal horror. This makes skepticism the only sensible position to take.

In other words: many of yesterday's "facts" have turned out to be today's nonsense; and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that many of today's "facts" won't turn out to be tomorrow's nonsense.

And no, this can't merely be waved away by defining it as the scientific process at work. Oftentimes it is simply a matter of utter shit being widely accepted one day and flushed down the toilet the next.


Freudian psychology and "psychoanalyisis" got laughed out of academia a while ago. It only exists in critical theory and english departments.

Well the same is true of political economy (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/o.htm#political-economy), which has been supplanted (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~rgibson/commodityfetishism.htm) by the safely sterile "economics (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/e/c.htm#economics)."


Some people say because "academia" is bourgeois.

Under capitalism, it is bourgeois. And that is the reason why political economy was "laughed out" of it.

I'm not accusing you of this, but I just want to say that I have little patience for those who play right into the hands of the bourgeoisie by accepting that academia, and science in general, are coolly objective, while denying that they could be ideologically tainted.

(As to Freud, I have no opinion.)

[black magick hustla]

Well the same is true of political economy (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/o.htm#political-economy), which has been supplanted (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/%7Ergibson/commodityfetishism.htm) by the safely sterile "economics (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/e/c.htm#economics)."


I don't think this is true. It merely got shifted to Political Science, Anthropology, etc departments.






I'm not accusing you of this, but I just want to say that I have little patience for those who play right into the hands of the bourgeoisie by accepting that academia, and science in general, are coolly objective, while denying that they could be ideologically tainted.


To be honest. I am really suspicious of the idea that freudian psychoanalysis got laughed out out of "politics". I don't see anything particularly wild or dangerous about freudian psychoanalysis.

[Raúl Duke]

Many ideas got laughed out of academia that we don't even consider valid ourselves...
I don't see what the deal is with Freud and leftism...he really doesn't have much to give us.

Also, in psychology, psychoanalysis has been mostly challenged by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Freud's work, by itself, has mostly been discredited while some ideas and concepts, particularly about development, have been salvaged and integrated.

[Belisarius]

Many ideas got laughed out of academia that we don't even consider valid ourselves...
I don't see what the deal is with Freud and leftism...he really doesn't have much to give us.
Psychoanalysis has much to offer to marxism. great syntheses have already been made by e.g. Zizek and Althusser. But indeed, i would say it isn't Freud, but Lacan who gave inspiration to marxism. Althusser for example mixed Marx and Lacan in his essay "Ideology and ideological state apparatuses", one of the best essays i've ever read. it's here:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm

[Hiero]

Psychoanalysis has much to offer to marxism. great syntheses have already been made by e.g. Zizek and Althusser. But indeed, i would say it isn't Freud, but Lacan who gave inspiration to marxism. Althusser for example mixed Marx and Lacan in his essay "Ideology and ideological state apparatuses", one of the best essays i've ever read. it's here:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm

The use of Lacan is a very important aspect of Althusser, and that makes him very exciting in this era. Many people during Althusser's time, supporters and critics completly missed the Lacanian influence.

Looking back at the criticism of Althusser with a bit of knowledge on Lacan it really reveals how short sighted the criticism was. In the Thompson, Williams and Hall debate if I recall correctly not once do they mentioned the Lacanian influence on Althusser. Even though retrospect it is obviuos when Lacan mentions about a subject and a big Subject discourse and interpellation. The criticism that Althusser is a orthodox Marxist and Stalinist come viod when you consider the use of Lacan in Althusser.

[black magick hustla]

I think the reason why marxists are so prone to psychoanalysis is because some crazy stalinist who killed his wife wrote a few good sounding essays about it. I dont think marxists appropiate it out of an honest attempt to be scientific, but because its very ideologically convenient.

Psychoanalysis suffers more or less what sociobiology does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_stories Its merely a just so story. Its lacanian derivatives are even worse, because they are just gibberish.

And when someone questions the scientific basis of psychoanalysis then the marxist psychoanalyists just finish the debate by claiming academic psychology is bourgeois. This is a bit dishonest.

[Dean]

I think the reason why marxists are so prone to psychoanalysis is because some crazy stalinist who killed his wife wrote a few good sounding essays about it. I dont think marxists appropiate it out of an honest attempt to be scientific, but because its very ideologically convenient.
No, psychoanalysis has been an established tendency within the Marxist milieu, primarily denouncing Stalinism. This is a tired debate, but I shouldn't have to mention the Frankfurt school which had no connection to Stalinism.


Psychoanalysis suffers more or less what sociobiology does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_stories Its merely a just so story. Its lacanian derivatives are even worse, because they are just gibberish.
Hah! The same argument could be applied to Marxism, and indeed almost all political and economic theory which relies on vague, social or otherwise provisional facts. This is nothing more than an endorsement of Popperian narrowness, and it should be rejected in particular within the fields of psychology, philosophy and sociology.


And when someone questions the scientific basis of psychoanalysis then the marxist psychoanalyists just finish the debate by claiming academic psychology is bourgeois. This is a bit dishonest.
Firstly, there are valid criticisms of all the different tendencies. I don't see off-handed rejection of academic psychology, but it notably suffers from the same "just so" problems as psychoanalysis, and the degree of this suffering varies from tendency to tendency.

The only theories psychology which don't suffer from this are vague correlative ones, or strictly chemical / biological ones, and even then its not uniform.

What can be said of mainstream psychology is that it primarily serves to redefine the individual to suit the interests of society. This is done by resolving personality conflicts by reshaping the individual, rather than studying the actual creative forces behind the conflicts, which would reveal a large number of class and economic antagonisms responsible.

[Niccolò Rossi]

2) most iccers love Freud. are you kidding me? theres like a billion icc articles on how freud was great

Actually, in my understanding the supporters of psychoanalysis always enjoyed a minority position within the ICC.

Also, there are hardly a 'billion icc articles on how great freud was'. Matter of fact, the only article published publicly in English dealing directly with psychoanalysis has been in the latest edition of IR! Even in this case this article is individually signed as is a contribution to debate and not as the position of the ICC as a whole.

Nic.

[Alf]

Maldoror: earlier on you wrote that you "don't see anything particularly wild or dangerous about freudian psychoanalysis".

Perhaps it fails in its purpose, but the article on our website does try to get to the roots of why Freud's theories are such an affront to bourgeois common sense civilisation. I would be interested in your comments on what, as Niccolo rightly ponts out, is the first published article in the entire history of the ICC to raise the question of the relationship between psychoanalysis and communist theory.

In passing, wondered where you got the nom de plume from: Maldoror was certainly a hero of the surrealists, but so was Freud. Where do you stand on the surrealists' efforts to investigate the unconscious?
__________________

[Devrim]

2) most iccers love Freud.

I don't. I am completely uninterested. Also some people in the ICC are really anti-Freud.

Devrim

[Hiero]

To maldoror:

When did science become a benchmark? Social science can not be compared to hard science. The relationship between people is contextual, it can't be decontextualised and this means it can't be always put into a rational arguement. Marxism is a science in that it explains the material relations of people, this can be tested through political economics. But if we are talk about the symobolic and imaginary relations of people it is bound to go beyond science. How do you scientifically explain how someone views someone? You can explain for instance that racism is a structural phenomona, something inherent in the capitalist system. But how do you explain why the sight of Jewish nose causes revolt in the anti-semite? How can science explain a libidinal things, something on site that causes a feeling the gut? The closest model is linguistics, signifier and signified, but soon as it enteres anthropology of psychoanalysis you claim it is not scientific.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Has anyone read "Life Against Death" by Norman O. Brown? It was popular w/the 60s counterculture. It was supposed to represent "cultural radicalism" vs. Marcuse's "political radicalism". I didn't realize Brown was a Marxist until recently.I have a friend who rereads this once a year, just so he can get a better insight on Marx. Brown takes Freudian concepts into a materialistic view of history.