Dispatches from the Freud Wars: Psychoanalysis and Its Passions

"I apologise for choosing it, but it seemed to me on rereading it that this book is actually a wonderful way into Freud, and not only into Freud himself, but all the ideas and the wars, the debates that have happened around Freud. I don’t mean just the wars about whether Freud said this or that, and the claim that it’s not a science, but also the epistemological ones and how one thinks about them. John Forrester manages to bring in a lot of the languages—many of the places where Freud is thought about or used, into one space. There’s the scientific Freud, the philosophical, epistemological Freud, the Freud of history, and more. He has all these disciplines to hand and brings them into the discussion with one another. Yes, that’s a very interesting point. I think it’s to do with the fact that Freud writes about the things we all live and think, and therefore, we think we know about, certainly when it comes to ourselves. For example, that strange ordinary thing called sex which is far more than an act but is caught up with childhood, family, fantasies, memories. So we resist Freud and by doing so also engage with him passionately. But I think it’s also to do with Freud’s place in popular culture—for example, the Freud of the movies, which John manages to take on board in these essays. Freud is a familiar: we all think we know Freud whether it’s through hearsay, The Sopranos , therapeutic culture or by having read him. Everyone has views and feels strongly, passionately about Freud, since Freud is also about your self. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . There are brilliant essays in this book. There’s one on justice, envy and psychoanalysis, which begins with the story of wise King Solomon and the two arguing women, prostitutes, who come to him with a child. These two women have each recently had a child. They sleep side by side and one of the children has died overnight. Each insists that the living child is hers and it’s up to Solomon to judge whom the living child belongs to. He states that since they can’t agree, the living child should be cut in half. One woman says that’s a good idea, the other screams, ‘No, no, no, give it to her.’ So Solomon knows who the mother is. John Forrester uses the story to tease out the way in which envy, that foul emotion, is the motor of justice and fairness. The mother of the dead child would prefer that neither of the women have a living child so that they can be equal. The essay takes us into the philosopher John Rawls and much more. It’s a wonderful illustration of how Freudian thinking can be used to navigate us not only into the psyche but into politics, as well. It’s a very witty piece. I think it’s worth just noting the very diverse terrains that Forrester leads us into. One of the essays is about Ferenczi, one of Freud’s followers and his relationship, relayed through Ferenczi’s analysis with Freud, with a mother, who is Ferenczi’s lover and her daughter. The essay takes us onto the subject of incest: what does the taboo on incest mean? What do you do with that taboo in a world of extended families? And what does this mean in terms of transference within analysis? Then there’s a wonderful essay on Freud the collector. Freud collects ancient objects, but he also collects dreams and he collects jokes. In that sense, he is a varied collector and only gradually moves on to collecting those things that are materially tangible. It’s a dream museum. One of my favourite essays in Forrester’s book is called “A Whole Climate of Opinion,” which explores the way in which Freud becomes common knowledge, and has actually moved through all the various disciplines, as well as into popular culture, where he has a prominent place amongst people who’ve certainly never read him and never want to read him. But he’s just there. He’s there in the cinema, he’s there in any number of TV series without necessarily being mentioned or simply by having the name invoked. He is there as a body of ideas, but also in that extraordinary ‘therapeutic’ twosome that Freud launched onto the world—the analyst and the patient, the listener and the free speaker who talks about his life. I guess we must have… We wrote a book together called Freud’s Women way back. And we read and sometimes edited each other’s work. But when I go back to the books after time has passed, I always find there’s a freshness in them, of argument and sources too. It’s a pleasure to go back and dip into it again."