"A Primer of Freudian Psychology"

Review's original title: "Up with Freud, Down with Gossips"

Copyright © 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

Sigmund Freud was a pioneer in the study and treatment of mental illness, but interest in using the techniques of psychoanalysis, which he developed and wrote books about, has practically died out in the United States. Drug therapies have arisen to take the place of talk therapies, psychoanalysis among them. But the more apostles of later treatments despise and vilify Freud (1856 – 1939) and other talk therapists, the more convinced I become of the truth of Freud’s insights; drug treatment or no drug treatment, humans are as violent as ever.

We need more not fewer talk therapies, both secular and spiritual, just as we need more and better drug treatments. It’s time to resurrect Freud. Adults who have never been clients of a psychiatrist, psychologist, or psychoanalyst for more than a few sessions or who have never acquired through study a basic understanding of the principles of psychology, including those enunciated first by Freud, are likely crippled in human relationships. Ignorance of Freud’s defense mechanisms alone puts psychologically unaware persons at a big disadvantage.

Projection is the name Freud gave to one of the most important and socially useful defense mechanisms. Projection in psychology means attributing one’s own traits, attitudes, or unconscious motivations and desires to other persons.

It doesn’t take a lot of training to infer projection. For example, it’s easily identified in habitual gossips who talk about the inner character or condition of their victims without evidence to support their claims. I say “victims” because gossip is verbal violence.

X is a classic case, ripe for picking apart even by amateur Freudians. To start with, we know X despises homosexuals because he talks about them so much and because what he says about them is always negative. We also know X does not like Y. One day, X informs Z that Y is homosexual. When Z asks why X claims Y is homosexual, X says “I just know,” or “I can tell by his voice,” or “I can tell just by looking at him,” or other nonsense.

X usually gossips behind his victims’ backs and out of their hearing, so they can’t defend themselves. Gossip is not only violent but also cowardly.

If Z is familiar with Freud’s writings about projection, Z will immediately suspect that X, the accuser, is an unconscious homosexual and that Y, the victim, could be anything. To free X from the power of his destructive and unconscious impulses, X probably needs a good talk therapist, not drugs. The least X could expect from Freud or any good therapist is an understanding of the importance of defense mechanisms, such as projection, in everyday life.

Several good books introduce the life and thought of Sigmund Freud. At the top of my list is Calvin S. Hall’s A Primer of Freudian Psychology (1954). Chapter 4, “The Development of Personality,” includes a clear overview of the defense mechanisms in normal people: repression, projection, reaction formation, fixation, regression. The remaining chapters explore Freud’s other personality theories.

If Hall’s book awakens your interest in Freud, take a look at two books written by Freud himself: Interpretation of Dreams and Psychopathology of Everyday Life. But rather than specialize in Freud, I suggest you move on to Carl Jung by reading Calvin Hall’s A Primer of Jungian Psychology (1973), coauthored with Vernon J. Nordby. Hall’s Freud is only 127 pages long; his Jung, only 142 pages. They are the best introductions I know to Freud and Jung.

If you’re new to psychology, you may never be the same after reading and thinking about Freud and Jung. You’ll be well on the way toward questioning and understanding who you are and why you feel as you do about yourself and others. It takes guts to understand and explore what lies behind—and beyond—human emotions and motivations.

Welcome to the island of psychological understanding. Once you start exploring the island, you will never paddle back out onto the sea of ignorance, assumption, and violence that surrounds it.