Gabor Szendi:
Sigi, you little liar!

Sigmund Freud's entire oeuvre belongs in the category of bluffing: A story of an imaginative, hungry for success man who ignored facts.

 

 

Little Sigi was born with a caul and this sealed his fate forever. Throughout his life, he was afflicted with an overwhelming burden of being a "genius", bearing the mark of a "chosen one." One day, when the crime of scientific deception and fraud will finally be associated with his name, it will be good to remember that. After all, everyone has their excuses. Today of course, only diligent scholars and curious prestige-destroyers make out the phantom traces of a rogue, but one day Freud's carefully constructed and ingenious marketing image will collapse.

From an early age Freud obsessively believed that he was a genius, and no setbacks deterred him from this belief. All his childhood was spent reading, and his family gave him special attention and a private room. In his spare time he later developed his self-analysis complexes. As a young doctor he was constantly working on his reputation, but he was like an unlucky balloon salesman, whose half-inflated balloons burst one after another. As a young neurologist, he tried - unsuccessfully - to set foot on the highest peaks, by way of a new tissue staining procedure, and a description of the nervous system of sea creatures.

Then in 1884 when an English article came to his attention about the newly discovered miraculous effects of cocaine, he eagerly set out to experiment, and thought he had scored a hit. He first heard about cocaine in April, and in the summer was already a self-proclaimed expert on the issue. He wrote to Martha, his fiancée that, "If this works, our home-making is solved." Long story short: it didn't work. He tried cocaine out for himself, becoming an addict for life. He also sent cocaine to Martha and recommended it to everybody. He next decided that he would heal his friend and colleague Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, who was already morphine-dependent from the many doses he gave himself for incurable, painful peripheral nervous system tumors. However Ernst did not quit morphine, but also got used to cocaine and soon gave himself one gram (!) a day, which had a direct consequence on the development of cocaine psychosis, with visions of lovely snakes around his neck.

All this did not stop Freud portraying his friend's case in an article on cocaine as a successful treatment for morphine withdrawal. Although he soon found that Ernst would only live a maximum of another six months, in a lecture to psychiatrists, Freud once again gloried in this successful history of morphine withdrawal, despite the silent death of his friend. As so many times later, the facts did not bother Freud, as he went about creating Fiction Based Medicine. In any case, he was so moved by his supposed success that in 1885, when his name was still only known by the postman, he proudly wrote to his fiancée Martha, "I burned all my notes to complicate the work of my future biography writers." In fact, the cocaine episode became so shameful that Freud forever after forgot this article in his list of publications.

Less than a year later there were reports that cocaine was causing heavy addiction, and was not a panacea at all. Freud had glorified cocaine as something for which it was later banned, but failed to discover its anesthetic effects, which would have made him really famous.

Later the true explorer, Koller, was repeatedly accused of plagiarism for "claiming to discover cocaine's anesthetic effect instead of Freud." As Freud wrote, "If I had not gone on vacation, I would have discovered the anesthetic effect of cocaine." Reading this may give us all thought of what we won't discover this summer if we go off on a great and carefree vacation. However the unbroken hunt for success continued, with Freud now wanting to study infant's brains in Paris, but he was deterred by the primitive circumstances there. Instead he began to attend the famous lectures of Jean-Martin Charcot, in which the Master presented the great mystery of the age, traumatic hysterical phenomena, which he triggered by hypnosis and then eliminated trauma-induced conversion symptoms. At the time trauma could be seen as anything, and - for example - conversion symptoms after a train accident were very common.

Freud immediately recognized that there was more to discover here. He tried to get close to the Master, quickly translated Charco's latest work into German, which was published in German earlier than in French, and sat enthusiastically at Charcot's dinner table, borrowing a little courage from some cocaine in order to converse. Freud saw opportunities in the unexplored area of hypnosis and hysteria, offering the promise of daylight robbery, and when he listened to Charco talk at a reception, where the old man explained that hysteria might be related to sexuality, the possibility of a thriving private practice unfolded in Freud's mind. "Yes, so you have to look for sexual trauma", he said to himself. With that, the unproven preconception was all ready, in the spirit of which he later nagged his patients to death. Returning to Vienna, he immediately gave a Charcot-praising lecture to the Vienna Medical Circle, where it instantly became apparent that the audience already knew the subject better than he did. In psychoanalytic mythology this boring afternoon later turned into a conspiracy of conservative doctors, until Ellenberger, a psycho-historian, discovered the original minutes and found out what the young titan was trying to present as the new wind of new times. Attendees had published several studies, only Freud had not read them.

There were always one or two men in Freud's life who were mentally pumped up. At that time he was "running" with Joseph Breuer, who, according to the fashion of the times, was also interested in hysteria. From now on, the two good friends saw hysterics in everyone, and Freud treated them enthusiastically with electro farad therapy, massage, and baths! Although these have nothing to do with psychoanalysis, people somehow had to make a living in those times too. Then Freud thought of writing a book about hysteria because he remembered that he wanted to be famous. "Studies on Hysteria", published in 1895, demonstrated Freud's bad habit of never relying on facts; under his pen, theories from every case were degraded by his own delusions. Freud was indeed a richly imaginative researcher, and remained so. Indeed if he had not treated patients, he could have been the Austrian Dumas, or even a Munchausen. It would certainly have saved his patients from frustrating conversations. He once told Sándor Ferenczi that, "Patients are jerks, they are there to make money."

"Studies on Hysteria" was actually an advertising publication, and its subtitle should have been, "Here comes the miracle doctor, the scientist of mysterious hysteria." What was interesting in the volume, was the theoretical part, written by Breuer. What Freud wrote was falsification and unfounded baloney. It is thought provoking that this work is the cornerstone of psychoanalysis, but frankly, Breuer was simply summarizing the hysteria theories of Janet, Charco and others. This was followed by hair-raising cases, of which Anna O. (aka Bertha Pappenheim) is the most famous, and the first case of psychoanalysis. However people with weak nerves should gather strength before reading further.

In 1880, Mrs. Pappenheim was treated by Breuer for severe neurological symptoms: right side paralysis, absences of consciousness, temporary loss of speech, fainting, swallowing disorders, double vision, etcetera. All of this occurred after caring for her father, who had died of tuberculosis, accompanied by a severe cough. According to a case report made fifteen (!) years later, Pappenheim was clearly hysterical, and her symptoms were conversion symptoms. Breuer brilliantly solved these step-by-step with catharsis or response, and Pappenheim finished the treatment completely healthy. However, after fifty years, this was revealed to be a lie. Henri Ellenberger found Breuer's original disease description, in which Breuer diagnosed tuberculotic meningitis involving the left Sylvian fissure. In the case study published fifteen years later, sentences are taken literally from the original medical history, but by this time had been transformed into hysteria story.

In fact Pappenheim became more and more ill during treatment and moreover became morphine-dependent, due to the indiscriminate administration of morphine given to ease her pain. Breuer, completely clueless as to what to do with her, passed her on to a sanatorium to rid himself of her. Freud at the time wrote to Martha that, "Poor Breuer was just talking about wishing Bertha would die, because that would save her from further suffering." As Breuer was the family doctor of the Pappenheim family, he knew that she was treated in a variety of hospitals for another five years. Freud's wife, Martha, was a distant relative of Bertha, and many years after the 'successful recovery' she wrote, "That poor girl sometimes still hallucinates." So the story is a big lie, and yet Freud told this to his followers, Ernest Jones and Carl Jung. Later, in the cradle of psychoanalysis, he even tore the baby's bottle from Breuer's hand, as Freud spread malicious rumors about him, successfully barring him from later basking in the glory of psychoanalysis. Rumor has it that Breuer had a sexual relationship with Bertha, but whatever's true, and whatever's not, Breuer finally lost interest in psychoanalysis.

Freud's "case studies" are, at best, writings of a dilettante believer in his own theories, which his fanatical - though medically trained - followers didn't dare to question. If one reads these cases unbiasedly, as at the first for example, it can be discovered that the woman being treated, Fanny Moser, is obviously suffering from Tourette's Syndrome. In addition, the neurologist Freud personally was acquainted with was Gilles de Tourette and in 1885 had read the description of Tourette's syndrome. But Moser was the richest widow in Europe (accused of poisoning her husband, a forty-year-old tycoon), who could afford to pay, and would not have contacted Freud if he hadn't convinced her that she was a hysterical. Of course, she was not healed, but Freud commented that, "He didn't go deep enough".

Another case was a nurse who obviously had temporal epilepsy, occasionally with smell hallucinations of burnt pudding or cigars, and temporary loss of sensation of the nasal afferents., There was a similar case of temporal epilepsy, with the story of Kathrina, who Freud did not treat, but just questioned while on vacation. Freud's last case was a girl with a rheumatic joint problem who, "Only uses her rheumatic complaints to develop symptoms."

None of the cases of Freud and Breuer would be regarded as conversion hysteria today, but were mostly misdiagnosed and misdirected neurological patients. The reason for this was not the lower level of scientific knowledge of the time, but the blind efforts of Freud and Breuer to find hysterics at all costs, in order to write their book. Freud was overwhelmed with the thought that he was still a beginner at age 40, with an embarrassing cocaine episode behind him, and had already revealed his vain theory-making face, only to be overwhelmed by actual facts.

Freud had in mind, on a purely theoretical basis, that he could tell at a glance what a hysterical symptom was and what it was not, and that the root cause of each hysterical symptom was sexual trauma. He obsessively investigated all his patients for sexual traumas, and tortured them with this until he even managed to squeeze out false memories. This was the era of seduction theory. Who was seduced? Clearly Freud.

In a lecture at a conference in Vienna in 1895, Freud published his "shocking discoveries" gained from his 18 patients. These patients - for some through encouragement and sometimes threats - all reported being abused or molested by their relatives in their childhood (father, uncle, etcetera). "The patient should never be believed", was Freud's slogan. Sounds familiar? Freud was 110 years ahead of the TV character Dr. House. So Freud wanted to create a sensation again, but to his frustration the masses in Vienna did not want to carry him in celebration on their shoulders. Freud was so enraged that he immediately published his lecture in the form of an article titled 'The Causal Doctrine of Hysteria', thinking, "I will be the one to disturb the peaceful dreams of the world."

Now the world really did become restless because these allegedly abusive fathers had financed their daughters' treatment with Freud, who now, soon after the rise of his famous psychosis theory, realized that his theory was detrimental to business. Who would send their daughter to a therapy where she is told that her father raped her, only she hasn't remembered it until now? Freud withdrew his seduction theory in an elegant twist, and from 1896 he "theoretically" concluded that all these were products of fantasy. This was true because the whole trauma theory was the product of his own imagination. The zero series was unmarketable, and the improved version no longer disturbed anyone's dreams. What's more, the real rapists could sleep in peace, because it has since become a tradition in psychiatry to treat childhood molestation as a product of the child's fantasy. Whether there is seduction theory or not, any variation is undeniable and unverifiable. Therefore psychoanalysis is merely a comfortable occupation where the analyst always knows very well what the patient thinks. If the patient heals over time, that is the triumph of the analyst. If they do not heal, then they have resisted. If they don't like something, they resist. If they want to stop therapy, they are really just in denial.

All psychoanalysis is permeated by this elusiveness. If Freud said to a neurological patient that they were hysterical, from that time they improved. Say spontaneous remission occurred, then the therapy had won. If the patient worsened, then they had resisted. If anyone disputed the magical fantasy of psychoanalysis, they were a conservative reactionary, while whoever believed the magic was clearly advanced. Freud was a tyrant who reckoned against everyone who wanted to innovate. Psychoanalysis multiplied by division, and that is why there are so many trends within the main stream, because Freud argued with everyone, even those who thought just a little differently to him.

How Freud kept his theories superior and how much he surrendered to his actual worshippers is well illustrated by the calvary of Emma Eckstein, as published by psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson. Masson was so fond of Freud and the movement, that he became, by schmoozing around Anna Freud, the caretaker of the Freud myth, and was eventually entrusted with maintenance of the estate. Masson read Freud's original letters with religious reverence, but began to realize more and more that the publication of the letters was fragmented. He realized that Freud's lies and blunders had simply been removed from the oeuvre. He was able to read in several letters that Freud had found real sexual harassment, but since the new theory banished all sexual abuse to the world of infantile fantasy, he had only recognized these in his correspondence. Following Freud's teachings, sexual abuse within the family became a taboo for decades, as pointed out in Masson's "The Assault on Truth." Other trauma scholars, such as Judith Hermann, consider it a crime of psychoanalysis that family pedophiles and perverts have received impenetrable protection based on theoretical complicity. Today, according to American statistics, 20-30% of women go through some form of sexual trauma in their youth, but of course they will not become hysterical due to this.

But going back to Emma's story, as Masson found out, she came to Freud in 1892 with stomach problems, painful menstruation and difficulty in walking. What could have been the diagnosis other than hysteria? Freud's "love" then was Wilhelm Fliess. They both looked down on the facts, both had malicious obsessions, and both considered themselves geniuses. Fliess's doxasma was that the nose caused sexual problems. With great respect, Freud offered to ritually sacrifice Emma on the altar of his friendship with Fliess. Abusing his medical authority, he convinced her that nasal surgery, which could not be medically justified, would stop her painful menstruation. Fliess hastily travelled there, roughly performed the first surgery of his life, and then left. Even after two months, Emma's nose was extremely swollen and bleeding, and then in a sudden hemorrhage, a large piece of bone exited her nose. Freud quickly called for another surgeon who put a drain in her nose, but four days later, according to Freud's letter, Emma almost died. A strong hemorrhage reappeared, and the incoming surgeon pulled out a half-meter purulent piece of gauze from her nose, which Fliess had forgotten about. That's when the bleeding really started. Freud ran from the room, feeling sick, and it was only the presence of the surgeon that saved Emma's life, whose pulse by the end of the procedure was no longer detectable. Emma was soon hospitalized, re-operated on by fracturing her nasal bone, but ten days later had an almost fatal acute bleeding.

And what did Freud feel meanwhile? Pity? Or that he should re-think everything? Not quite. He wrote to Fliess, "I have already given up hope for the poor girl, I only regret immensely that I involved you in such a frustrating affair." So he didn't divert in his own theories, did not accuse himself, or question how he could have delivered a patient to a madman, but then went on to apologize for the unpleasant situation he had put Fliess into. Fortunately, Fliess, as a real madman, was not bothered by such trivialities, and what is more, in his 1902 book on the relationship between the nose and sexual dysfunction, Emma was recorded as a successful case! Let's face it, it could have ended much worse. Let's say if Fliess's obsession was to undertake brain surgery, or if he had demanded the removal of the uterus, Freud would have been willing to give that a go too. There is no true friendship without sacrifice.

Is this outrageous? Yes. Not because I mention it, but that it could actually have happened. Let me add a little more icing to cake of this story. When I published my paper, "A Brief History and Neurobiological Model of the Concept of Conversion Hysteria" in the journal Psychiatria Hungarica, some analyst-friendly psychologists came together to discuss what disciplinary action should be taken against me. In their opinion the problem was not that Freud's continued falsification of science could have happened, but that somebody in Hungary was writing about it. The plan to discipline me failed because I was not a member of any "psycho" organization. The story hauntingly chimes with a similar failure of psychiatry. When my Depression Industry essay came out, they also wanted to bar me. At their meeting, they told the secretary to check if Szendi was a member. "Yes, Szendi is a member", the secretary shouted back, and everyone was rubbing their hands in glee because, "Then we're going to bar him right now." Psychiatrist István Szendi was almost barred by chance. Wow! Is it my fault that someone else has a similar name? So this story of Freud contains a great lesson, which at first sight does not seem related to it.

The lesson is: If you want to represent the truth, never join any organization or party.

 

References

Szendi G: The short history of conversion hysteria and its neurobiological model. Psychiatria Hungarica. 2004 19(4):276-309.

Borch-Jacobsen, M: Remembering Anna O. Routledge, New York, London 1996

Ellenberger, HF: Beyond the unconscious. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1993.

Ferenczi S: Clinical diary, 1932. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1996.

Freud, S, Breuer, J: Studies on hysteria. The Pelican Freud Library vol. 3. Penguin Books, 1988

Jones, E: Life and work of Sigmund Freud. Abridged, January 9, 1975

Masson, Jeffrey M: Freud and the Seduction Theory. A challenge to the foundations of psychoanalysis. The Atlantic Monthly, 1984 Febr.(www.theatlantic.com/issues/84feb/masson.htm)

Sulloway, FJ: Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend. Harvard University Press; 1992

Webster, R: Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. Fontana Press; 1996