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At the outset of this slight book comes a large claim, followed by an interesting proposal: “We have discovered fundamental theoretical, clinical, and institutional paradoxes at the very core of psychoanalysis. The aim of our Questions for Freud is to pinpoint the internal contradictions that undermine the potential effectiveness of key aspects of Freudian thought…in the hope of finding the source of those contradictions” (p. ix).
The argument is easily summarized: The present impasse of psychoanalysis has been caused, not so much by the embarrassing but here unchallenged revelations of recent years about such matters as Freud's “willful misrepresentations and doctored evidence; the lack of independent empirical corroboration of his theories; the absence of safeguards in his system against unexamined dogma or arbitrary interpretations,” and so forth (p. xi), as by a series of inner contradictions. Therefore, what is needed is not a scientific or empirical study (for which the authors frankly admit they are unqualified), but an examination of its internal inconsistencies and a discovery of their source.
Their list of contradictions is short: 1. Freud tells us that we must try to understand dreams on the basis of the dreamer's idiosyncratic free associations, but he provides a list of symbols with universal meanings. 2. Psychopathology is caused by real traumas, but psychopathology is also caused by pathogenic fantasies—a part of psychic reality. 3. Freud misdiagnosed the hero of Jensen's novel Gradiva, whose problem was not sexual repression but pathological mourning. 4. Psychoanalysis is devoted to the uncovering of secrets and facing unpleasant facts, yet its own history contains many instances of secrecy (e.g., the Committee), and censorship (withholding major parts of the Fliess letters and much of