A Slap at Psychoanalysis

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 846, 14 December 1929, Page 22

A Slap at Psychoanalysis

BHAT Freud should be spelt with an “a” would appear to be the opinion of Dr. R. J. Berry, dean of the faculty of medicine in the University of Melbourne, and author of a standard work on "Brain and Mind,” who contributes to “Current History” an article on “The Fallacies of Psychoanalysis.” Writes Dr. Berry: “To two great classes—those lacking from birth in the necessary numbers of brain cells to give an average mentality, and those whose limitations reduce the number of incoming sensations from all sources —the postwar teachings of psychoanalysis and Freudianism have come like manna from Heaven. They never ask themselves what does this psychoanalyst know about the structure, functions, disorders, or workings of the human brain? Even if* he be a fully qualified mqdical man, it by no means follows that he is any better equipped to tackle such an analysis or to pass an examination in the physiology of the brain, and if he can do none of these things, his analysis of some

other person’s so-called ‘mind’ by probing into his sexual past is just another instance of the nonsense which to-day passes for mind. If the brain itself be deficient, no psychoanalysis in the whole wide world can change that brain into an organ of efficiency. As the late Professor Sir Clifford Allbutt remarked, ‘popular psychoanalysis is false science; it has no units, no means of measurement, no controls, no precise definitions, no separation of objective and subjective evidence/ “On the very insecure foundation of a half-truth Freud has built up a veritable Woolworth Tower of untruth, but has had the luck to strike oue of the most deep-seated of all human passions. Sex is always popular and fascinating, especially with those lacking in brain power. Freudianism has blamed its way around the world, but what good has come of it? Is it true that sex is the greatest driving force of life? Hunger is even greater, because it means the life of th« individual, whereas a repressive sex does no one any harm. “Freudianism is but another example of the many devastating doctrines of mind which divert attention from the essential instrument itself —- the brain. These doctrines have their brief and fleeting moments in the limelight, and die a speedy death. At the moment there is an almost universal ignorance of the construction of the human brain, but when its marvellous truths do become more widely known, these false sciences and much of what today passes for psychology will die the death they so richly deserve. “Nature’s reply to Osier’s classical query as to ‘too old at forty’ is that all depends on the nature and nurture of the individual's brain. Many a moron is a hopeless mental wreck at 40 years of age, whereas those who have been well endowed by nature with a multiplicity of brain cells can carry on into an honourable old age. Neither psychoanalysis, Freudianism, nor any other ‘ism’ can stay mental deterioration, because it has a purely physical origin. . • “No student of the marvels of the human brain can be a pessimist, and notwithstanding the manifold follies of mankind, there is a greater power even than man, and that greater power is slowly but surely fashioning a mighty implement—the human brain and mind. With the passage of a few more geological ages, that work will doubtless be perfected, and then we shall cease to talk nonsense, and seek only the truth, which is that mind is the product of brain, and the better the brain the better the mind. Remove that brain, even in its present perhaps imperfect state, and the soul of man is as the dust of the fields.”