flavor. By placing these concepts on the menu of psychological topics many
years ago, Freud influenced the subject matter of personality research today.
Criticisms
Although Freud ’s ideas were so revolutionary that they were rejected by many
in the medical and academic communities at the time, some writers argue that
Freud ’s ideas may not have been so original or groundbreaking after all. For
example, one investigator discovered that between 1870 and 1880 at least
seven books were published in Europe that included the word unconscious in
the title (Whyte, 1978). Because the educated elite in Europe was relatively
small, one researcher concluded that “at the time Freud started his clinical
practice every educated person must have [been] familiar with the idea of the
unconscious ”(Jahoda, 1977, p. 132). Other historians point out that Freud
probably had access to the works of people already writing about different le-
vels of consciousness, free association, and infantile sexuality (Jahoda, 1977;
Jones, 1953 –1957). In addition, many Freudian ideas appear in literature
that predates Freud ’s work. For example, the Russian novelist Fyodor
Dostoyevski, who died in 1881, described in his writing such things as uncon-sciously motivated behaviors, erotic symbolism in dreams, intrapsychic conflict,
and even hints of an Oedipus complex.
Three points can be offered in Freud ’s defense. First, Freud often cited ear-
lier works on topics similar to the ones he was introducing. This is especiallytrue in his early writings. Second, Freud was the first person to organize many
loosely related ideas into one theory of human behavior. Without a unified the-
ory detailing the relationship among the unconscious, dream interpretation,
and infantile sexuality, it is doubtful whether any of these notions would have
been developed much further by the scientists who were familiar with them.
Third, Freud initiated a lifelong program of investigating the various concepts
in his theory. The work Freud and his followers did with their clients provided
the data on which psychoanalytic theory was developed. Although many of
Freud ’s contributions may have had precedents in earlier writings, there is a
large difference between introducing an idea and organizing, integrating, and
developing many ideas into a comprehensive model of human behavior.
A second criticism often made of Freudian theory is that many of the hy-
potheses generated from the theory are not testable. Recall that one criterionfor a useful scientific theory is that it generates hypotheses that can be either
supported or not supported with data. But critics question whether Freud’ s
theory meets this standard. For example, if a Freudian therapist concludes
that a client has a strong unconscious hatred for her sister, what sort of evi-
dence would demonstrate that the conclusion is incorrect? What if the client
says she cannot remember any negative feelings toward her sister? The clientis obviously repressing them. What if the client describes how much she loves
her sister? Obviously, this is a reaction formation. And if the client admits she
harbors negative feelings toward her sister? Then the therapist has been suc-cessful in bringing the material into consciousness. If the hypothesis cannot
be unsupported, neither can it be truly supported. This makes the theory con-
siderably less useful to scientists.64 CHAPTER 3 The Psychoanalyt ic Approach