1. Introduction: Freud's Lakatosian Moment, Or, Why Freud's Case of Little Hans is the Most Important Clinical Theory Paper Freud Ever Wrote 2. "All My Efforts Valueless": Freud's Lifelong Concern with the Suggestion Objection as the Major Threat to Psychoanalytic Theory 3."A More Direct and Less Roundabout Proof": The Hans Case as Freud's Response to the Suggestion Objection 4. "A Little Oedipus": Freud's Analysis of the Hans Case (co-authored with Jordan A. Conrad) 5. Freud Versus the Fright Theory: Wolpe and Rachman's Behaviorist Challenge to the Oedipal Analysis of the Little Hans Case 6. "Without an Object to Begin With ": Does the Case Evidence Support Freud's Claim that Hans's Disorder Started with a Period of Free-Floating Anxiety Preceding the Phobia? 7. "Chronological Considerations Make It Impossible": Solving the Century-Old Puzzle of the Day the Horse Fell Down 8. "A Repressive Process of Ominous Intensity": Freud's N=1 Sexual Repression Argument 9. Methodological Interlude: The Suitability Argument as Freud's Foundational Methodology and His Reply to the Suggestion Objection 10. "Acquaintance at Close Quarters": Evaluating Freud's Suitability Argument for the Oedipal Theory of Hans's Phobia 11. Critical Analysis of Grunbaum's "Tally Argument" Analysis of Freud's Response to the Suggestion Objection 12. Conclusion: The Little Hans Case, Philosophy of Science, and the Fate of Psychoanalysis
Jerome C. Wakefield is university professor, professor of social work, affiliate professor of philosophy, professor of the conceptual foundations of psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry (2007–2019), associate faculty in the Center for Bioethics in the School of Global Public Health, and honorary faculty in the Psychoanalytic Association of New York Affiliated with NYU Grossman School of Medicine, at New York University.
'This book is a major work from a unique philosophy of science
perspective. Wakefield traces Freud's reasoning and theoretical
motives in proposing the theory of the Oedipus complex. He
demonstrates with his usual lucidity that Freud's formulations of
infantile sexuality and Oedipal theory represented efforts to
rescue the core proposition of the sexual theory of the neuroses
following the failure of the seduction theory. Wakefield's analysis
of the logic and pattern of Freud's thinking and reasoning is
unmatched by anything I have read in the area of Freud scholarship.
It is as if the reader has occupied Freud's mind and is privy to
the sequence and pattern of his thoughts. An additional virtue of
the book is that even if that is not its intention, it speaks to a
long-standing barrier between clinicians, on the one hand, and
theorists and researchers, on the other. Wakefield's analysis of
Freud's reasoning and use of clinical data is unmatched in its
lucidity and cogency. It serves as a model for a meaningful
discussion of the use of clinical data in theory building. For
anyone interested in bridging the gap between clinical practice and
theory in psychoanalysis, this book is a must-read.'
Morris Eagle is professor emeritus at the Derner Institute for
Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, and author of
Toward a Unified Psychoanalytic Theory: Foundation in a Revised and
Expanded Ego Psychology'Wakefield offers not only a logical
reconstruction of the Oedipal theory, based on the case history of
Little Hans—Freud's paradigm for positive Oedipus complex—but also
a performative analysis of this theory, aiming to explain why it
was accepted in the absence of sufficient evidential support. The
impact of the Oedipal theory is described as enforcing a new form
of regulation and restraint of the affection between mother and
son, consistent with the direction in which marital relations were
being restructured early in the twentieth century... Structured as
it is in a sequence of stringent arguments, Wakefield's thesis is
fascinating and persuasive. Its rare merit is that it makes the
reader think.'Carlo Bonomi, PhD, is a training and supervising
analyst of the Società Italiana di Psicoanalisi Sándor Ferenczi. To
read this review in full please visit: Is the Oedipus complex an
iatrogenic theory? Book essay on Jerome C. Wakefield, Freud’s
Argument for the Oedipus Complex: A Philosophy of Science Analysis
of the Case of Little Hans (Routledge, 2023) and Attachment,
Sexuality, Power: Oedipal Theory as Regulator of Family Affection
in Freud’s Case of Little Hans (Routledge, 2023), International
Forum of Psychoanalysis, DOI: 10.1080/0803706X.2023.2273784
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