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Mankind's resistance to change being what it is, great innovators have to expect that their new ideas will be met with skepticism, rejection, and even outrage. Freud was a striking example of this phenomenon, largely on account of the shock effect produced by his sexual theories, but also because of opposition to his thesis of psychic determinism and the role of the unconscious. Thus, academic psychology long rejected his contributions, though this attitude eventually changed. As noted by Boring (1950) “So Freud. Psychologists long refused him admission to their numbers, yet now he is seen as the greatest originator of all, the agent of the Zeitgeist who accomplished the invasion of psychology by the principle of the unconscious process” (p. 743). (See also Klein, 1970, p. 775.)
From the earliest days of the development of psychoanalysis as a theory and as a therapy, in addition to the critics outside the movement, there have been many within it who have attempted to demonstrate the advantages of altering some of its fundamental propositions. In the sections to follow, a brief summary will be given of the basic principles of psychoanalytic theory and practice, with a description then of some of the schools of thought that have set up alternative assumptions. Finally, there will be a discussion of contributions by those who have remained within the psychoanalytic fold but who have altered the formulations of Freud and the mainstream in some significant respect.
It may be appropriate to note here that the incentive for my addressing these issues at the present time came from three main sources. The first