Two Luthers: The Traditional and the Heretical in Freudian Psychology

There have been two Luthers portrayed in the recent Freudian literature. The portrait by the well-known psychoanalyst, Erik Erik-son, has been widely acclaimed by social scientists. The other, by Norman Brown, a classical scholar turned heretical Freudian theorist, has been largely ignored, at least officially, and particularly by the psychoanalysts. It will be the purpose of this essay to examine these two Luther studies to demonstrate a deep split in current Freudian thinking which aligns the neo-Freudians and ego psychoanalysts as traditional scholars against the scattered few from many disciplines who are the heretics. The many sparkling insights in the Erikson book made it tempting to pick a lesser book and author in order to illuminate a larger issue, but this temptation has been resisted for reasons that will become all too clear as the discussion unfolds. If we are right in claiming that Freud has been stood on his head by the traditionalists, then we must be prepared to document this not merely among the rebellious neo-Freudians, but as Erikson himself so well warns in his Luther study, among Freud's most devoted followers.1

Some of the differences to be pointed out do not involve theoretical disagreements, but matters of emphasis and interest which are nonetheless revealing. While our own sentiments are obvious, this particular essay is not primarily concerned to show the truth or falsity of one position or the other, but rather the differences between the two. Nor should the emphasis on differences imply that there are not some areas of overlapping and/or complementary thinking.