Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis (review)

It seems true, as the book jacket claims, that Revolution in Mind is the first book "ever to fully account for the making of psychoanalysis." George Makari's impressive new book vibrantly renders the intellectual environment of late-nineteenth-century Europe, exhaustively traces psychoanalysis's development through World War II, and generously enlivens an enormous cast of thinkers who fundamentally shaped the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Makari's history includes the warts of Freud's science: the politicking, jockeying, and hand waving that plagued the effort are recounted in rich detail. Yet, through comprehensive historical detective work, Makari demonstrates why psychoanalysis was an astounding advance and an unparalleled watershed in the science of the mind and brain.

This is neither a biography of Freud nor a good introduction to psychoanalytic thought, since Makari only indirectly explains Freud's ideas by detailing their development. Instead, Revolution in Mind is a history of a scientific discovery. The development of psychoanalysis as a science is finally and fully recounted: a brilliant synthesis of previously incommensurate ideas; the development of initial hypotheses and their dialectical refinement; theoretical advances in fits and starts; and an increasingly persuasive accumulation of evidence. The social portion of science is also detailed: the attacks from the mainstream aging lions; the backdoor politics enacted to maintain cohesiveness among colleagues; the uneven link between theory and practice; and the rising tide that lifted all boats.

Makari demonstrates that, by prioritizing hypothesis testing and standards for data collection, Freud created an avalanche of investigation in psychological science. He deftly describes how Carl Jung, Eugen Bleuler, and other colleagues in Zurich devised experimental techniques with which to test tenets of Freud's model of the mind. Experimentation in the clinic also led to theoretical developments. Freud initially used dreams as the primary source of data about the unconscious, but dream interpretation proved a haphazard data collection tool. It took decades for psychoanalysts to recognize that the relationship between analyst and analysand could be a reliable representation of unconscious processes. Makari says, "Freud had pushed aside the complex hermeneutics of dream interpretation and replaced it with the analysis of transference. From the evidentiary point of view, this move was a winner, and Freud knew it" (p. 332).

Revolution in Mind is also a useful corrective, because it confronts certain totalizing myths about Freud. Freud was not an intellectual autocrat. Freud did struggle to maintain some theoretical unity among colleagues of immense diversity, and at times he squelched debate. His ideas were not inherently misogynistic. Instead, they were interpreted by some as blatantly revolutionary and libertine and by others as progressive and friendly to women.

Overall, the critiques of psychoanalysis do not appear to have changed much in a century. Auguste Comte's curse haunted early analysts: psychological knowledge "could never be objective," Comte claimed, because a mind looking at itself would surely produce "as many theories as there are observers" (p. 11). Lacking rigorous laboratory techniques for gathering data, psychoanalysts argued over fundamental truths. One analyst's conclusions could easily be impugned as only "marked by the author's neurosis" (p. 170). Freud recognized that theoretical innovation emerged from introspection (e.g., following his father's death, during his own self-analysis) as often as it did from experimentation. And, as early psychoanalysts gleefully appropriated Freud's ideas to issue scathing cultural critiques, psychoanalysis as a social theory conflicted with psychoanalysis as a clinically relevant theory of the mind. For these reasons and others, psychoanalysts had difficulty maintaining a position in academic medical circles.

Makari accomplishes a remarkable feat: he thoroughly explores the nuances of progress and retrenchment in this intellectual and scientific movement. His history does not shy away from the complexity of its subject. Revolution in Mind fills a significant gap, and it is a must read for scholars interested in the history of ideas about the mind or brain.