Reply to Alan Sirote's Book Review

Let me begin by expressing my appreciation to Alan Sirote for his close reading and thorough explication of my book A Dream of Undying Fame, as well as his reference to my earlier biography, Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision. This is just what an author desires, not to mention his calling them “masterpieces” and books that are “imperative reads for all students of psychoanalysis.” Given his overall positive response to my books, nevertheless I do have a few criticisms, and what author can resist when given the opportunity to respond to a review? Plus, I believe I can expand on the view of Freud and deepen our understanding of him and his works.

Sirote comments on his sense of “an undertone of Oedipal triumph” in my account of Freud, and his feeling that I depict him as an “ogre” and “charlatan,” all of which I think are not true. He does not know me so should not speculate about my motives, Oedipal or otherwise. I have, throughout my career, valued Freud and many of his contributions, and the picture that developed when writing these books emerged from the evidence and was a surprise to me as well as the sad loss of an idealized figure. His other criticism—and a more substantial one—is that he finds it difficult to believe that analysts had worked for naught with concepts like the Oedipus complex for years. But Freud's orthodox followers did work for years with a number of now discredited ideas: views of the inferiority of women; that soldiers with PTSD (then called “shell shock”) would get over it as soon as the war was over; that silence, “abstinence,” and “neutrality” were helpful to patients; that psychoanalysis could view itself as a military enterprise rather than a healing art; and many others. Given the number of invalid ideas in psychoanalysis, it is surprising how Freud's influence has been so pervasive and lasting. How can we account for this?

There is another, more balanced way to understand Freud's theories and ps