Toward a More Progressive Psychoanalysis

The purpose of this article is to examine two efforts, by Dr. Joseph Wortis and Dr. J. B. Furst respectively, to render psychiatry more progressive at the expense of classical psychoanalysis.(14, 13) It may be stated in general that Wortis, in negating the value of psychoanalysis completely, attempts the scientifically impossible; while Furst's “modern psychoanalysis” is an incompatible grafting of the evasions of Karen Horney upon Marxist doctrine. The development of psychoanalysis is certainly not limited to mere elaborations of Freud, but in order to outdistance the founder it is necessary first to come abreast of him. It must be concluded that the efforts of Wortis and Furst are well-intentioned but ill-considered. Such a conclusion is of course no reflection on Marxism as such, and the authors mentioned do not purport to speak for the American Communist movement.

Wortis maintains that Freud, in his attitude toward women, accepts contemporary middle-class standards. He discusses this subject further during his evaluation of the film, “Lady in the Dark”. In this, the heroine is torn between her desire for love and a compulsive drive to be a boss. To Wortis, this is a conflict traceable only to the social structure, and psychoanalysis is to be censured for attributing it to biology. “This conflict”, says Wortis, “is not [to be] resolved by submission to the orthodox pattern of femininity, and such submission should not be represented as an acquiescence to an overwhelming innate need [my emphasis].” The film, incidentally, resolves the conflict with an acceptance of equality, in both love and work.

It should be plain, however, that the submission of women in a male-dominated society comes from acquiescence to the coercive demands of that society and not to any innate need for “femininity”. Psychoanalysis would show that the woman who feels compelled to be a boss for its predatory satisfactions and despite the mores of her times is