FREUD AND BRAINWASHING
SIR,— In writing my book Battle for the Mind, I can assure Mr. R. T. Oerton that its main purpose was never a desire to dismiss the findings of psycho- analysis. Much more important matters were dis- cussed at much greater length in emphasising how, by using certain techniques, apparently normal people can be made to believe nonsense.
However, since all psychoanalytic belief is de- rived solely from two-way communications between a patient on the couch and an analyst sitting behind iti Freudian theory could, unfortunately, turn out to be one of the great scientific hoaxes of the century. In my book I tried to show how both the patient and the analyst can unknowingly brain- wash each other; this two-way process again prob- ably explains what happened' with perfectly honest policemen and their witnesses in the recent Ward trial.
And I did not just 'repeat the old assertion' about Freud brainwashing his respectable Viennese women patients so that all of them came to believe that they had been sexually assaulted or seduced by their fathers. This is described in the fullest detail in Ernest Jones's standard life of Freud. Jones even quoted the most enlightening letter Freud wrote to
his friend and confidant, Fleiss: . . the result was at first hopeless bewilderment. Analysis had led by the right paths back to these sexual traumas, and yet they were not true. Reality was lost from under one's feet. At that time 1 would gladly have given up the whole thing [psychoanalysis]. Perhaps I only persevered because I had no choice and could not then begin again at anything else.'
Freud was an honest and obsessive investigator. If he had known what we know today about brain- washing,. he probably would in fact have 'given up the whole thing.' Instead, he inadvertently founded what amounts to a Freudian church, in which certain beliefs and uncritical faith in them are both transmitted and repeatedly confirmed by this two-way process on the couch. Shortly before he died in England, Freud was also honest enough to admit to a doctor friend of mine that he 'did not mean it all to happen.' He said this in deploring the uncritical faith of his British followers in the effectiveness of his treatment methods.
19 Hamilton Terrace, NWS
WILLIAM SARGANT
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