Does Psychoanalysis Work?

There has been repeated criticism of Freud’s psychoanalysis throughout the decades. One rather bitter one was published by no less than Ian Stevenson [1], who refers to an investigation by Hans Jürgen Eysenck and others [2] and wrote: “Suffice it to say that comparisons of different modes of psychotherapy, such as psychoanalysis, behavior therapy and client-centered therapy, failed to show any superiority in outcomes of one type over another (Luborsky, Singer & Luborsky, 1975 [3]). Other studies even showed no superiority of psychoanalysis over being on a waiting list and given an ‘attention placebo’ (Paul 1976, Solane, Staples, Cristol, Yorkston & Whipple, 1975 [4]).”

He then states severe doubts about past-life therapy, claiming that most memories would be false. He refers to investigations by Zolik and Kampman, which I have, however, shown to be tendentious and inconclusive [5], and by Venn, which I have also shown to be inconclusive [6]. These “investigations” are quite clearly designed around the pre-conceived idea that there could be no reincarnation. That Stevenson is strongly critical to past-life regression will have a personal explanation. First he had in just one or two cases tried it with children who remembered past lives, but without success, and second he was in an exposed position already, dealing with a subject regarded as highly controversial, and he didn’t want to attract still more criticism through advocating such a “suspicious” thing as past-life therapy [7].

Hence there are two aspects of his critical article: 1. a general criticism of psychoanalysis based on and summarizing a long series of investigations by others (with some 20 references) and 2. his personal view of past-life regression. Yet he defends cases such as Bridey Murphy and Antonia (a case of Linda Tarazi [8]).

He states cases of regression experiences, which would be “obviously wrong”.

1.  A subject described himself as a courier for the King of France at the time of the Crusades, carrying messages between Versailles and Bordeaux. But Versailles at the time of the Crusades had no significance for the government of France. My remark: Obviously, there was a bleed-through here of school knowledge and a faulty association of the client, which doesn’t prove that the rest would be wrong.

2.  Another subject pronounced “Leicester” as “Lechester” and said that he had been evicted by “Lord Cromwell”. But there was no such eviction. My remark: Again we cannot exclude a mix-up with school knowledge. The pronunciation “Lechester” could well be proper in medieval English, and should have been researched by a linguist.

3.  A lobotomy was described by a patient who would have been born to this life before lobotomy was first performed. But the estimated birth date is uncertain and is it really impossible that lobotomy was experimentally performed in a single case earlier?

4.  A subject lived in the Netherlands within sight of the mountains, but there are no mountains in that country. Yet there are hills in the southeastern region, which will easily be described as “mountains” by someone who has never seen anything higher.

5.  A subject relived himself as Lincoln’s murderer John Wilkes Booth with allegedly “false” data. I have discussed this case in detail on another webpage [9].

So even though his objections to these cases are inconclusive, I do accept his objections to psychoanalysis, simply because there is a lot more literature on this and several investigations have been performed. This may at a first glance seem a bit subjective – and as a regression therapist, I cannot deny a certain subjectivity – but there actually are real quite hard facts to base these opinions on! The most impressive investigation was published in a book by Catherine Meyer et.al. [10] which I have reviewed in another article [11]. See also here. In my review I have explained what seems to be an obvious explanation for Freud’s failure to reach helpful results and cures using hypnotic regressions to traumata earlier in this life (before he developed his form of psychoanalysis). Today we know better and have learned to deal with emotional experiences, which Freud quite obviously wanted to avoid. The way to real catharsis in a regression is to have the client relive past soul-injuring emotions, release such emotional energies and replace them with positive energies, and not going around emotions like “the cat around the hot porridge”. The latter merely explains the problem but doesn’t solve it.

Another very revealing book was written by the Austrian journalist Karin Obholzer [12] who interviewed Freud’s most “famous” patient, the “wolf-man”, see [11].

Still another heavy criticism of psychoanalysis was published by Edward and Cathey Pinckney [13]. I will quote some interesting statements in their text:

•  “Freud has said that no one has the right to criticize psychoanalysis: ‘The skeptic one … is not in the position to form a reliable judgment on the matter’ and the critic is simply revealing his need for analysis. Since rational argument is impossible to Freudians, it seems equally clear that psychoanalysis is not a rational construction but rather fulfills certain unconscious needs of the analyst.”
•  “The psychoanalyst can best be portrayed as someone with dictatorial dogmatism totally wrapped around the symbolism of sex.”
• “The psychoanalyst cannot be wrong even if proved wrong. He believes that his judgment is infallible.”
• “Even though he [a client] would be normal at the beginning of the analysis, the analytic procedure would create a neurosis.”
• “We must see to it that the patient’s sufferings, to a degree that is in some way effective, do not prematurely come to an end.”
• “And the entire concept of dream interpretation is no more than another excuse to apply sexual symbolism to excite the patient – and, no doubt, the analyst.”
• “… one solitary sick man [Freud] – a man who could not stand to have people look at him; a man who had abnormal feelings about his mother at the expense of his wife; a man who vicariously reveled on sordid sexual stories – brought forth a doctrine to justify and excuse his own abnormalities.”
• “There is not one single ‘scientific’ experiment on record to support the doctrine that psychoanalysis … has, or can, cure anybody or any illness!”
• An evaluation “… by the American Psychoanalytical Association (and revealed only to members at closed meetings) showed that less than a third of all who ‘completed’ analysis could be called cured! What is shocking about this report is that it has been repeatedly proved that more than one-third of all persons with any form of mental illness recover without any treatment whatsoever.”

And so on... I admit that I have extracted some of the nastiest statements and that this refers only to Freudian psychoanalysis, and probably less to other forms (especially as concerns viewing everything as based on sexuality). But nevertheless…

There have been recent attempts to criticize ways in which regression therapy is carried out. The idea is, of course, to arrive at guide-lines for proper and responsible regression work (cf. this text [14]), which is a proper and respectable idea, but some attempts tend to almost ridicule all that is “esoteric” or “diffusively spiritual” and seems to want to boil techniques down to a rather “materialistic” philosophy in accord with actual views of conventional science, or what I like to call “scientific prejudice”. To shave off almost everything that such “prejudice” regards as doubtful, speculative or unrealistic would amount to “throwing the child out with the bath-water”.

Such “esoteric” and “spiritual” elements in modern regression therapy has shown to be very effective and helpful, to such an extent, that in a large number of the cases the client’s problem can be solved in only one single regression (which then lasts typically 4-5 hours). This contrasts heavily against long series of psychoanalytical sessions, maybe only an hour long each and throughout 1-2 years or even more, which after all didn’t always help as much as expected. One client of mine afterwards said that one regression helped her a lot more than all the psychoanalysis sessions she had gone through. But it seems rare that a client has had such previous sessions before coming to a regression, which would explain that this has not been reported more often. Here is a field of research!

So if we would “shave off” what to some may seem too “esoteric” or “spiritual”, regression techniques could boil down to little more than another albeit different form of psychoanalysis, loosing grounds so far gained. Sure, we should be prepared to learn from conventional science (which, of course, includes conventional psychology), but the latter also has some to learn from our experience …

My first teacher on this subject, Bryan Jameison, somewhat jokingly put it the following way [15]:

• Conventional psychology tries to make the client live with his problems,
• psychiatry tries to suppress them with pills,
• we try to make him free from his problems.

1.     Ian Stevenson: A Case of the Psychotherapist’s Fallacy, Reincarnation International, London, Issue 2, April 1994, pp. 8-10.

2.       H.J. Eysenck: “The Effects of Psychotherapy: An Evaluation”, Journal of Consulting Psychology, No. 16, 1952, pp. 319-324.

3.       L. Luborsky, B. Singer and L. Luborsky: “Comparative Studies of Psychotherapies”, Archives of General Psychiatry, No. 32, 1975, pp. 995-1008.

4.      G.L. Paul: “Insight vs. Desensitization in Psychotherapy Two Years after Termination”, Journal of Consulting Psychology, No. 31, 1967, pp. 333-348.

5.       http://www.christian-reincarnation.com/Sokaren/052RegressionstestE.htm.

6.       Jan Erik Sigdell: Wiedergeburt und frühere Leben, Heyne, München, 2007, pp. 184-189.

7.       Jan Erik Sigdell: Wiedergeburt und frühere Leben, Heyne, München, 2007, p. 60.

8.       Linda Tarazi: Under the Inquisition – an experience relived, Hampton Roads, Charlottesville VA, 1987.

9.       http://www.christian-reincarnation.com/ReincInt/LincolnBooth.htm.

10.   Catherine Meyer et al.: Le Livre Noir de la Psychanalyse. Vivre, Penser et aller mieux sans Freud (“The Black Book of Psychoanalysis. To live, think and feel better without Freud”), Les Arènes, Paris, 2005. There seems no be no English or German translation yet, but there is one in Spanish.

11.   http://www.christian-reincarnation.com/Freud.htm.

12. Karin Obholzer: The Wolf-Man Sixty Years Later, Routledge and P. Kegan, London, 1982, and Continuum Publishing, New York, 1982.

13.  Edward R. Pinckney and Cathey Pinckney: The Fallacy of Freud and Psychoanalysis, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1965.

14.   http://www.christian-reincarnation.com/RespRegTher.htm

15.   Jan Erik Sigdell: Reinkarnationstherapie, Heyne, München, 2005, p. 16.