The Influence of Freud on Anthropology

Any homage worthy of Freud demands two things: a patient seeking of the human data; and an astringent, disenchanted assessment of things as they are. Few men have had to such a degree as Freud the quality that Henry James's hero sought — that essentially “masculine character, the ability to dare and endure, to know and not to fear reality, to look the world in the face and take it for what it is.” If this intransigent maleness of mind has caused many to hate and to fear Freud, it is nevertheless the same quality for which others respect and admire him.

In assessing Freud's influence on anthropology this paper uses three techniques: statistical (a self-estimate of anthropologists replying to a questionnaire), historical (a recounting of individual influences in the development of the new anthropology), and bibliographical (a résumé of official periodicals and texts, and a classified listing of works and representative dynamic-psychological interests). The first source of information is the Fellows of the American Anthropological Association. Because of generous criteria in the Association as to what constitutes a Fellow, this latter group includes without question, and almost exhaustively, all the mature scholars and active teachers in the field of American anthropology. We are further fortunate in having within the field an identifiable body of students — an interest-group rather than a formal “school” perhaps — concerned with a new dynamic kind of anthropology. Some members of this