Free Sigmund Freud* by Kathleen Krull Page B

psychologists were starting what became known as the Freud industry—in honor of the man who was finally bringing some respectability to psychology. No longer was it viewed as speculation but as a body of knowledge. “My scientific expectations are slowly materializing,” he exulted.
    The relationship with Jung, however, was beyond repair. Jung had challenged Freud a few too many times. Jung believed, for example, that the mother could be a protective figure, not an object of desire. Childhood trauma was not solely responsible for mental illness. Nor was the libido the force driving behavior. Jung hunted for new information, researching different cultures from different periods in history to uncover universal patterns of behavior. (In contrast, Freud looked at other cultures mainly to confirm his existing theories.) Jung saw value to finding evidence that challenged preconceived ideas: “It was a good thing to make occasional incursions into other territories and to look at our subject through a different pair of spectacles.”
    Freud saw disagreement as betrayal of golden Sigi: “Psychoanalysis is my creation. I consider myself justified in maintaining that. . . . No one can better know than I do what psychoanalysis is.” Jung countered that Freud’s protégés all became “slavish sons or impudent puppies” because of the way Freud treated them.
    Jung was certainly no slavish son. But his research led him to some extreme places—phrenology, UFOs, astrology, alchemy, and many topics that fall under the “New Age” umbrella. Freud himself was interested in the occult. He published three papers on mental telepathy or mind reading (since then totally debunked). For a while he worried his office might be haunted, because of groans coming from two Egyptian grave-markers atop the oak bookcases. Still, he considered himself much more scientific—Jung was dismissed as being positively “mystical.” Freud took great pains to defend psychoanalysis from quackery and occultism—“the black tide of mud.”
    In 1913, after six tumultuous years, his stimulating conversation with his crown prince was over. Jung wrote poetically, quoting Hamlet , “The rest is silence.” Jung went on to become an extremely influential psychologist in his own right, writing major books, helping the United States during World War II by doing psychoanalytical profiles of Nazi leaders. He died in 1961.
    “The truth is for me the absolute aim of science,” wrote Freud loftily. Yet as much as he aspired to scientific objectivity, his personal relationships pulled him in the opposite direction. They obscured his ability to see clearly. The more supporters he had, the more possibility of challenge, so the more he closed himself off. He was still open to some new ideas, but mostly if they fit in with his existing theories or came from his own highly original mind.
    In the world of science, Freud’s continual combativeness could be counterproductive: He had to win. That was more important than listening to new ideas.
    “God!” Jung exclaimed years later. “If he had only gotten over himself, it would have been crazy to ever want anything other than to work with him.”

CHAPTER TEN
    The War Years
    I N TALKING ABOUT science, Freud was fond of using military terms, even more so than archeological ones. He himself was not opposed to war in general. In fact he thought it cleansed society of corruption and brought out the best in men—loyalty, heroism, dedication.
    From 1914 to 1918, Freud saw firsthand what war brought out in men.
    On June 28, 1914, the assassination of an Austrian duke by a Serbian revolutionary was the match that lit the fire of World War I. Austria-Hungary—to which Freud was fiercely loyal—declared war on Serbia, and soon the conflict was global. Russia defended Serbia, while Germany declared war on Russia and then France. England joined the conflict in support of France, and three years later so did the United States.