Beyond Therapy: A Set of Essays 
On Miscellaneous Topics in Psychology and Psychiatry (2001-2003)

I. Freudian Myths

0.0   Prologue

	In the Twentieth Century one form of psychology held a dominant position for much of that period in time; a tradition ‘founded’ by one man who claimed, among other things, to have mapped the darkest continent of the psyche, namely, the unconscious. In our retrospective appreciation of this legacy whom must we first meet – none other than Dr. Freud I presume! Because it is he against whom all other modern and postmodern psychological traditions have had to define and redefine themselves! In this essay I would like to show how Western psychological practice, in this Contemporary era, is better defined by avoiding the fantastic paths mapped out by the aforesaid gentleman by indicating and briefly examining the chimerical nature of his speculative journeys. To do this I will quickly first discuss a number of Freudian myths, and, second, will then rhetorically ask ourselves both how this travesty could arise and how we should recognize the relative worthlessness of that type of practice in the hope that we can extricate ourselves in future from other ‘traditions’ equally lacking both in authenticity and conformity with reality (noting, in particular, that this type of question, needs to be asked of all other variants, some might say mutants, of psycho-analytical styles of psychiatry including, the Jungian school and its descendants without, I might add, prejudicially dismissing all such progeny as 'defective' [since there is a charitable interpretation that insists that the historical continuation of some institution implies that it must possess some degree of core-existential authenticity for that continuity to persist]). (1)

1.0   Freud the Man, an Introduction

	Sigmund Freud was born on the 6th of May, 1856 in the Moravian town of Freiberg, now Pribor in the Czech Republic. At the age of three his family moved to Vienna where Freud spent most of the remainder of his life until he was reluctantly forced to flee to Britain, from Nazi persecution, and where he died, some months later, on the 23rd of September, 1939. (2)

	From the mid-1890’s onward, Freud’s life became the history of the development of psychoanalysis with a series of brilliant publications. (3)

	The first myth we must examine is ‘Freud the heroic man’. In his publications Freud was a great stylist and wrote with a great sense of clarity even though the course of much of his speculations was grounded neither in sound scientific practice nor within a good hermeneutic sense of technique (more often than not misinterpreting the nature of psychological phenomena then currently focusing his attention). (4)

	One myth fostered by Freud himself was that the beginnings of psychoanalysis were not well received. This misnomer is put to rest by Eysenck. Moreover, as noted by the same author, …in the case of Freud it is impossible to gain a proper insight into his life’s work without paying due regard to the man himself. After all, much of his theory is derived from his own analysis of his neurotic personality… and his ideas about treatment are largely derived from his attempts to psychoanalyze himself and cure his own neurosis. Freud himself, so it has been said, is the only man who has been able to impress his own neurosis on the world, and remould humanity in his own image. (5)

	Undoubtedly Freud was a genius, but, unfortunately, also a greater propagandist in the same mould as Marx and other 19th century reductionists. Reducing the personality to ‘nothing but’ a miscellany of various complexes and drives; an id, ego and super-ego; and, a number of other components is not going to capture the essential spirit of the person, the unique integrity of the individual just as a mere recipe is not going to capture the nature of a cake and what it is like to eat the same. Of course a recipe is a good place to start especially if one has already tasted that type of cake. But the mere recipe for a cake, without this apparatus for the making of a cake and the sampling of the same, is a prescription for disaster. (6)

	Eysenck warns us in his book The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire not to believe anything you see written by Freud or psychoanalysis, particularly when it is written by Freud or other psychoanalysts, without looking at the relevant evidence. In the same vein he also adds do not accept claims of originality, but look at the work of Freud’s predecessors. Rarely did Freud ever cite the sources from which he so abundantly borrowed from, and, in the process of making his own, often misinterpreting and distorting these mis-appropriations. This veil further contributing to this aura of originality allowed to masquerade about the persona of Freud, a hagiographical aspect of the master reinforced by his many followers when not in dispute with his autocratic and dogmatic manner. (7)

1.1   Analysis as Not Scientific

On a number of occasions Freud refers to his work as scientific. Eysenck takes Freud to task on this type of claim and argues that science is conducted using informed and constructive criticism, is able to put forward alternative hypotheses, and, adopts an experimental approach. On all three counts Freud fails. He, and his fraternity, did not take too kindly to criticism, whether from other therapeutic traditions or patients. He often cited psycho-analytical ‘resistance’ to his vision of the truth in these matters, indeed, patients had to accept his version of their own illnesses before they were acceptable for, or hypothetically amenable to, treatment. In the same vein he also argued that only after years of training and self-psychoanalysis was one in a technical position to critically evaluate the merits of this complex methodology. Alternative hypotheses and therapies also were not looked at, especially if they issued from outside the psychoanalytical framework. Only in time has the financial forces of the market place itself been better able to head health resources into those forms of therapy that appeared, or currently appear, to be relatively more effective. Lastly, clinical trials, of all types, were dismissed peremptorily by Freud himself. (8)

In such a ‘discipline’ how is one to decide the truth of that proposed? Indeed, the relative lack of such criteria may well explain why at the moment there are about one hundred different schools of psychoanalysis, all engaged in internecine warfare… because being entirely subjective in its method of proof, it cannot furnish any ways of deciding between alternative theories. Eysenck also argues that psychoanalysis has actually impeded psychology and psychiatry from developing into a proper study of normal and abnormal behaviour. As he states: It is properly true to say that Freud has set back the study of these disciplines by something like fifty years or more. (9)

1.2   Freud the Misinterpreter 

There is a debate as to whether Freud was not so much a scientist as a hermeneuticist – a person who studies the meanings of texts through acts of interpretation. It would appear that Freud could profitably be compared to Marx in this regard in order to show how both grand nineteenth century projects, psychoanalysis and communism, failed. I would contend, however, that this discipline of hermeneutics has its own critical rules of engagement and that a critique of Freud’s ‘methodology’ should show how he equally abused the spirit of this type of discipline too. Although it is true to say that all texts are misinterpreted to some extent, by our not being able to absolutely interpret them in a definitive manner, it is also true to say that there is a distinction to be made between a relative sense of ‘interpretation’ and ‘misinterpretation’. Freud was a good exponent of the latter! It has been said, in regard to his analysis of the dreams of his patients, that those dreams which the patients expected to provoke a negative response from the analyst were not reported to him… it was not the ‘dreams’ of his patients, but elaborations, partly conscious, partly unconscious, of those elements of their dreams which the patients thought would be likely to find favour with him. Furthermore: It is now admitted by most psychoanalysts that the patient’s dreams are powerfully influenced by the psychoanalysts’ theories; thus Freudian patients dream in Freudian symbols, Jungian patients dream in Jungian symbols, and so forth. The patient is trained and learns what kind of dreams and symbols are pleasing to the analyst, and consciously or unconsciously, aided by secondary elaboration, is only too happy to accede! Moreover, the reports of dreams were never encouraged to be recorded on awakening giving plenty of time for this process of secondary elaboration to take place. This pattern of interpretation, it would appear, also extended to other fields of analysis. It would seem that a selective hunt for themes of a recognizable nature upon which to work a Freudian style of analysis were searched for rather than looking for reports of psychic phenomena that would be subjected to a relatively objective style of examination and analysis; this treatment, or rather ‘mistreatment’, of so called ‘unconscious’ material being used as evidence for an unconscious aspect of the psyche. (10)

1.3	  The Unconscious Unconscious

It was claimed by Freud that the interpretation of dreams was the via regia to the knowledge of the unconscious element in our psychic life. Upon this model he built his theory of neurosis and various modes of therapeutic treatment for the same. In my opinion this postulation of the unconscious as a basis for the psyche is a profound contradiction in terms and renders much built upon it as just sheer nonsense! The unconscious can only be unconscious and in no possible manner could it ever enter into psychic life through it being unconscious, the complete antithesis of life itself! This is not to say that the person is absolutely aware! But this objection should also argue, at the same time, that we cannot be absolutely unaware of the processes of our conscious life; effectively we may be unaware of the details but never absolutely unaware, i.e., some sense or aspect of the self always enters into the formation of its mental phenomena even if the conscious fraction of our existence is only a small part of the overall sense of our psychic totality. To that extent a product of the psyche is distinctive to that same extent is it the result of a process of resolution wherein competing motivations are harmonized, to some extent, in order for that particular formation to be both allowed to issue forth and to find therein some form of a recognition in the level of psychic organization pertaining to that particular gestalt field wherein it made that particular kind of presentation. All motivation and all that motivates are intentionally constructed regardless of the degree of our awareness or unawareness of that aspect of our intentional life. (In a non-metaphysical frame of reference) a rock, or log of wood, could be said to be unconscious. But a person cannot be said to be unconscious unless in a deep coma or dead, like a rock or log of wood! The term unconscious therefore is a nonsense when applied to the intentional life of a living person! We would be better to substitute an expression like subconscious, or pre-conscious (and for that matter we could also postulate a post-conscious along with a sense of the trans-conscious as that aspect exercised in acts of judgmental appreciation). Indeed, I believe that a re-examination of dreams, and all other psychic phenomena, would show that all aspects of our psyche were intentionally constituted to some degree or other and therefore could never support this ludicrous hypothesis of the so called unconscious! As stated by Eysenck: Whatever dreams and slips of the tongue may be, they are certainly not the royal road to the unconscious; at best they may at times be motivated by conscious ongoing thoughts which may or may not be charged with strong emotion. For this there is some evidence; for the ‘unconscious’ and ‘repressed’ wishes in the Freudian equation there is no evidence at all, not even in Freud’s own examples. (11)

1.4	  Freud’s Fantastic Speculations on Sex

Another area of Freudian speculation that I find too bizarre to wish to re-entertain is his warped sense of the nature of sexuality and the proposition of his stages of psycho-sexual development along with his theories of bisexuality and homosexuality. Of course all processes go through stages of development (even if only pre-developmental and post-developmental in nature). But what is there to be gained by postulating an ‘oral stage’ and a later ‘anal stage’ if the raison d’être of these manoeuvres is unsubstantiated speculation cast in a circular self-fulfilling descriptive form with no true therapeutic possibilities or consequences. So ‘Tom talks and/or eats too much’ means ‘he is orally fixated’ because ‘if you are orally fixated you exhibit orally oriented and related forms of dysfunction’, and, ‘Dick is mean and/or obsessive in his behaviour’ means ‘he is anally fixated’ because ‘if you are anally fixated you exhibit anally oriented and related forms of dysfunction’. These so call ‘insights’ have entered into our cultural ways of seeing each other without any form of critical assessment. As already mentioned, Freud was none too keen on looking at alternative hypotheses let alone scientifically testing and evaluating his own. No doubt these forms of speculation were ‘in the air at the time’, the master merely re-thematizing them in a medical, or pseudo-medical, guise which through the power of his skilful propaganda persuaded people to take them on board as gospel so to speak. This medicalization of cultural prejudice is not, however, to be ‘perceived’ as a frozen snapshot of a certain stratum of Viennese life and custom as the influence of the psychoanalytical movement spread, and took root, throughout the ‘modern’ world, and, in my opinion, represents more an expression of an overall Western malaise. One must wonder to what extent a Freudian model could ever be seriously entertained, e.g., in a traditional Japanese, Chinese or Indian cultural matrix? (12)

	Equally bizarre are Freud’s conjectures, or at least in the manner as put forward, on the subjects of the bisexuality of the human psyche, and the causation and consequences of the homosexually oriented personality. With respect to the former there were no objective statistical studies done in this field for Freud himself to have re-evaluated such notions. However, it is obvious that although sexual practice might somewhat be spread along a spectrum of activities that a ‘psychic sense of sexuality’ usually is not so amorphously differentiated. People may settle for second best they usually know what they want. As for the homosexual basis for paranoia, and v.v., and other conjectures on this subject put forward by Freud, little, if anything, has stood the test of time! (13)

1.5	  Analysis as Neither Analysis nor Therapeutic

Freud himself had serious doubts about the therapeutic potential of his psychoanalytical practice and thought he would be appreciated for his techniques advanced for the study of the mind and his exploration of the realm of the unconscious. In time, this tradition itself has had a crisis of conscience and has progressively whittled away at what areas of mental health, and what type of patients, it thinks might benefit from this genre of practice. Very early on a line was ruled through most forms of psychosis, e,g;, schizophrenia. This process has continued to such an extent that, today, it must be considered a travesty of public and private expenditures that so much finance is still wasted in these marginal regions of mental health. It is an open secret that, sadly, the type of patient that ‘seems’ to benefit from psychoanalytical practice is ‘young, well educated, well motivated and wealthy’. It has been argued that in such a ‘therapeutic context’ psychoanalysis is not much more than a ‘prostitution of friendship’ (and a rather expensive form of ‘confessional practice’ situated in the midst of an indefinitely long, and expensive, talkfest)! Indeed, one must wonder as to who are the true beneficiaries of these rituals of dubious therapeutic merit? I am reminded in this regard of an anecdote mentioned by Eysenck when very early in his career he overheard a young analyst say “the patients may not get any better, but it is good to know that one is doing the right thing”. (14)

With its initial basis in hypnotism, psychoanalysis is also still not very analytical by nature, and, rather co-opts its patients in the conjoint formulation of what I call co-authored phenomena, i.e., the active manufacture of texts with more than one author. So the patient is not encouraged to state things-as-they-appear-to-them but rather to translate everything selected as relevant to the case to hand through a lens of the therapist whose theoretical apparatus is neither scientifically based nor hermeneutically-constructed in a manner that allows the ‘text’ to speak for itself, or, i.e., for the person to speak for themselves, and, therein, ‘face their own problems’ and ‘find solutions for themselves’ with the assistance, and only the assistance, of the therapist as a facilitator. Unfortunately, various epidemics of false memories, multi-personalities, past-lives, etc., would suggest that this type of observation has not yet been taken to heart! (15)

1.5	  Freudian Resistance to Therapeutic Practice

In my professional experience the expression of ‘resistance’ is more indicative of the fact that the person exhibiting and experiencing resistance is the person who is demonstrating, to others, a lack of insight in to their own practices of self-deception. To often, in this light, the mantle of ‘doctor’ is allowed to dictate the terms of the engagement when, existentially, the ‘situation itself should be allowed to speak’. Being ‘professional’ does not mean ‘hiding behind a mask’ with an ‘aura of status’ and ‘merely dictating the terms of the engagement’.  In this, as in everything else, ‘ego’ must be put to the side, especially in both the helping of others and in the helping of our own selves. Only through ‘a listening to our relationships’ can we be more attentive to the needs of ‘the other’ and in this task our ontological, and professional, commitments need to be put in a state of abeyance or ‘suspended’. Certainly not abandoned, only put in their place! In the forum of the world we should also, from this advancement of a transcendental attitude, extend ‘an involved yet detached appreciation of the situation’ that allows us to adopt and adapt other practices that might more ably assist others and assist ourselves! In this spirit of (passionate-)dispassionate pragmatism no discipline should ignore, and not give cognizance to, those other traditions that might be able to better help us in that task currently to hand. In this light the closed shop attitudes of the Freudian practitioner says more about the defense, and defenseless nature, of their own traditions than how successful this tradition is, or might become, if they were to adopt this truly self-critical attitude (to be found and exercised in and through such transcendental reflection)… (16)

The master may show us the way (or mislead us) it is up to us to determine whether we be ‘sheep’ or ‘goats’ in this endeavour should we wish to accept this mission ‘to authentically live our own life in this world-of-life’(and therein evaluate the ‘truth’ of that ‘path’ as indicated)! (17)

2.0   In Recovery?

	On many occasions I have found the work of Freud to cast no light on problematic psychiatric or psychological questions and on some occasions would envisage its adoption to be actively non-therapeutic. E.g., there is a time and place for everything and have found that a blanket prescription of  ‘a talking through of one’s problems’, especially when conducted in an unstructured and unsupportive manner, is more often than not detrimental to the person concerned. If one is in a state of trauma the last thing one should do is to discuss it in detail, even if some time has elapsed after the event. More often what is called for is for some form of distractional therapy or at least some form of discussion where the consequences of recent events are constructively engaged and therein resolved. Forgetting can be a form of therapy too that where appropriate should be encouraged (and not considered as some psychotic/neurotic form of repression/suppression as per Freud). (18)

I have extensively quoted from the work of Eysenck. I have found his arguments to succinctly express many of my own intuitions accumulated over time in the same regard. I could have quoted a number of other authors and would suggest that the reader who wants to follow this topic further should attend to his extensive bibliography. (19)

	One more book I would also like to recommend is written by Richard Webster: Why Freud was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. In this book the author notes, as have many others, that hysteria as a phenomenon seems to have disappeared. Let me summarize what this author, and others, seem to think on this intriguing topic. (20)

	Often medical phenomena ‘disappear’ when they are re-differentiated in the light of better diagnostic practice. This would seem to have happened in this instance. The hysterical condition as diagnosed by Charcot, et al, would seem to have been a misunderstanding of a certain form of epileptic illness, namely, temporal lobe epilepsy. In an era that knew little about germs before the work of Pasteur, could not differentiate (numbness and paralysis), e.g., (in) multiple sclerosis from extremely rare forms of hysterical conversion, and, was inclined to psychoanalyze every other condition, (including certain neurological conditions even though apparently saturated with organic features, e.g., brain trauma, tertiary syphilis ) perhaps Freud could be partially forgiven for being in tune with the spirit of his time. But we should not be so charitable with proponents of psychoanalytical practice who still argue for the relevancy of much of what Freud did when the philosophical and medical grounds upon which it was based are now no longer in existence! (21)

	So, Western psychological medicine should now be in a state of recovery..!? (22)

3.0   What should we Conclude?

	Should we not be amazed that so much speculative nonsense was passed off by Freud as absolute truth? Or is it the case that perhaps this type of performance is the norm? That the world operates with various collections of myths only minimally peppered with a modicum of truth, enough not only to hoodwink the public but also their professional practitioners(?). Sadly this might well be the case – that only in extensive hindsight can we retrospectively see the error of such ways? Thankfully, most myths seem to be benign. On the other hand, not being able to radically alter this social fact of ‘reality-as-it-is’ should we not concentrate on those mythic constructions embedded in our social fabric that need to be neutralized and removed, or at least transformed into less malignant forms of belief and practice… being optimistic enough to believe that a slow, positive incremental change might be enough to enable us to be more authentic and more in conformity with the nature of reality as it should be found in (intrapersonal and) interpersonal experience? (23)

	In a previous essay I explored, in passing, the topic that everything we do, and write, must reflect to some extent the nature of the world as ‘it really is’, as found shared in intersubjective experience. This is a charitable interpretation of everything from philosophy to religious cults, from the scientific enterprise to hermeneutical practice. Whether it be science or scientology, the psychoanalytical tradition or other traditions of psychology, no system can be dismissed as without existential insights into the nature of the world. On the other hand, one must learn to develop an existential sense of discrimination that can evaluate the adequacy or inadequacy of claims claimed by those systematic forms of practice. As ‘maps of the world’ they must reflect that world to some extent. No interpretation of the world can be absolutely in tune with the world, nor, completely out of step with it. As a result it behooves us to develop the acumen that allows us to evaluate the degree to which these maps actually do seem to map this shared ‘simulated vision of the world’ (as ‘simulated visions’ of this world). To conclude I would like to present a shorter version of this task, and, a relatively longer version in a different, more detailed philosophical vein. (24)

3.1   A Shorter Version of this Conclusion

	That all forms of expertise are constructed in this world in such a manner that wittingly and/or unwittingly misinterpret this world to some extent or other! In such a light it behooves us to develop the skills that would allow us to better navigate through these minefields of deception (and self-deception). In keeping with this spirit we should adopt an open pragmatic attitude. If a system x says it does y with result z then it is up to us, or those acting by proxy for us, to clearly evaluate the merits of this type of claim. In this light Freudian psychoanalysis was a failure and some might also say a disaster. E.g., Freud stated that psychoanalysis could cure mental patients of their troubles and that only psychoanalysis could do this. He argued that by going to the root of the problem his treatment was not symptomatic and impermanent, as practised by other psychiatric traditions, but fundamental and permanent in nature. Unfortunately for Freud, and even more unfortunate for his patients, these two claims remain unsupported by the evidence to date. In an atmosphere of such confidence as exuded by Freud, and by his fellow practitioners of psychoanalytic theories, if a potential patient were contemplating psychoanalytic treatment, perhaps by Freud himself, what could one have done to have pre-critically assessed the merits of such an option? (25)

Very little I suspect. On the other hand, we might try to meet some of these so-called ‘cures’. Or, we could listen to undercurrents of opinion that would not seem to support, or even perhaps deconstructed, such arrogant self-assessments and therein assisted us to statistically recognize the same as statements pronounced in an inauthentic spirit. Then, if we were actually undergoing this practice of Freudian therapy one might try to keep a clear mind as to what you might think the merits of such a practice were when attended to from the point of view of common sense or the adoption of an existentially intuitive appreciation of that situation (from the ‘psychic point of view of that relationship itself’). That is, of course, more easily said than done. Another technique that could be adopted, if exercised with great skill, it to test for the ‘resistance of the therapist’ by probing for those ‘hot spots’ exposed through perceptive questioning that would seem to suggest that the therapist’s ‘confidence’ was not ‘resolutely certain’ on those particular points focused upon and resisted in that process of ‘enquestioning’. Then, even if a certain action or response in itself does not appear to be ‘authentic’ if it were conducted in an authentic manner then the experiential fabric of that engagement should hopefully attest to its ‘purity of intent’, or otherwise, if closely attended to…(?) (26)

	You shall know them by their fruit… all we have to do is taste and savour the comparative merits of that engagement to experience first hand the existential ‘value’ of that encounter..!? (27)

Or, just give up and discover, in time, what luck we might have had or might not have had in that regard (and, hopefully, from such reflection, if only by default, at least learn something)…. (28)

3.2   A Longer Version of this Conclusion

	Eysenck in discussing the tension between scientific methods and hermeneutic practices, I believe, unwittingly puts his finger on the point where a resolution of this problem ‘How should we evaluate a tradition in general?’, and ‘How should we evaluate the psychoanalytical tradition and/or practice in particular?’, should be conducted. Although distinctly different in the manner of their aims and aspirations, scientists and hermeneuticists (or rather hermeneuts) on a deeper level must join forces, indeed must have cooperated, in order to have been able to have exercised their respective disciplines. Let me explain. (29)

	In effect we have a hermeneutic circle within which both parties must have exercised, to some degree and in some manner, a scientific ‘phenomenology’ and a hermeneutic ‘archaeology’. By ‘phenomenology’ I mean an attendance to phenomena and an investigation of their constitution in order to map this examination within the ambit of our comprehension (of the regional ontologies that constitute our experience) of the lifeworld. By ‘archaeology’ I mean a hermeneutic investigation of the meaning structures and processes that appear to constitute the nature of our interpretative examination . (30)

Elsewhere I have examined the phenomenology of the hermeneutic circle discerning three dialectical-like ‘moments’ or ‘stages’ through which all act of textual interpretation must proceed. Namely, a retrospective moment of analysis or reduction centered in a phenomenological examination of the ‘text’ whether that be conducted scientifically or not scientifically; a prospective moment of synthesis or re-constitution centered in a hermeneutical examination of the ‘meta-text’ whether that be conducted critically or not critically; and, an existential moment in the historical present (and the trans-historical sense of ‘presence’ within the simulation of the ‘not-textual’) wherein the meaningfulness of that activity is self-engaged and reflected upon through an engagement with the ‘non-text’. Put more simply, in the reading of a text textual ‘parts’ and ‘wholes’ within and outside that text are engaged in a dialectical fashion through the three moments of the phenomenological , the hermeneutical and the existential. The implication being that, although science and hermeneutics are different disciplines, on a deeper epistemological level of functioning they utilize the same transcendental machinery as involved in any judgmental act of appreciation! So it behooves the (transcendental) philosopher to show how this is the case and what implications and consequences this has for the scientist, hermeneut, existentialist, etc., etc. (31) 

	One implication that can be drawn is that without their inter-cooperation no psychic ‘sense of place’, ‘meaning’ and ‘meaningfulness’ could be found let alone an actual ‘act of reading’! So although a distinction can be drawn between the phenomenological scientist (in their dealing with phenomena) and the hermeneutical archaeologist (in their re-construction of meta-textual meaning) on a deeper level there can be no conflict between these two disciplines! Indeed, they must successfully operate together on a deeper transcendental level of epistemological functioning in order for there to have been an ‘act of reading’ regardless in which discipline the operator of that system is overtly acting from within. The further implication being that both parties must learn to cooperate in order to facilitate their own critical, professional development… meaning… both disciplines need each other in order to be exercised in a critical fashion. So, someone, like Freud, in formulating a qualified systematic mapping of the world, must adopt a critical scientific attitude in their description of phenomena, and, a critical hermeneutic attitude in their formulation and clarification of meaning-structures utilized as such in their projects. And, of course, such an endeavour should be existentially engaged in such a manner as to authentically allow (read ‘facilitate’) the text to (finally) speak for itself! (32)

	Translating this into non-technical language we might say that a scientific attitude and a critical attitude to textual meaning should work hand in hand, otherwise, our projects, what ever they be, must loose their authenticity, must loose their effectiveness and sense of critical self-awareness along with all sense of  ‘integrity’ and their hope for success! (33)

	‘Success’ is the ‘successful realization of value’, i.e., the realization of an ‘existential excess’ of value wherein there is discovered an excess of value above and beyond that psychically invested in the course and process of that engagement. (34) 

	Now, all maps of the world in being entertained, as indicated previously, will produce (and re-produce) an existential excess of value over that invested in that process (of simulation and re-simulation). However, (an existential) ‘discrimination’ demands that we try to accurately evaluate the relative merit of that excess, i.e., discern its relative potential to provoke and promote additional value in this regard. (35)

	Then, armed with these insights (into the nature and functioning of the hermeneutic circle involved in the reading of all texts) we might like to note the following points in how we might go about ‘winnowing the wheat from the chaff’, so to speak, in our having to deal with systems proposed as ‘reliable maps of the world’. With such metaphorical armour we should no longer be so exposed to inauthentic forms of expression that actually hinder our progress through this world-of-life while self-advertising themselves as accurate guides to profit, fame, success, health and/or whatever… (36)

	As stated earlier - You shall know them by their fruit… all we have to do is taste and savour the comparative merits of that engagement to experience first hand the existential ‘value’ of that encounter! And by this I mean – learn to appreciate the existential excess that devolves from our encounter with that particular system of thought, and, learn to appreciate this in the wider context of the sum accumulation of our life-experience! In other words, learn to intuitively appreciate the relative worth of such an enterprise to that extent we can go about its self-critical ‘self-evaluation’! (37)

3.3   Epilogue

	As demonstrated by this essay, Freud did not adopt a truthful scientific attitude in his examination of phenomena. Neither did he critically conduct an archaeological sifting of meaning-constructions in his own system(s) of thinking in order to re-construct an edifice that transcended its rootedness in cultural prejudice. Lastly, this conjoint failure could only realize a system of thought whose true existential excess could never reach the potential misleadingly claimed for by itself and claimed through the once all pervasive dissemination of its propaganda! (38)

So much for Freud – at least even he was aware, to some extent, of the failure of his own thinking and practice! (39)

So much for psychoanalysis – which, to survive, must re-constitute itself on grounds that cannot be Freudian in nature! (40)

So much for the future of therapy, or rather therapies – which must demonstrate their relative worth in order not to fall quickly by the wayside! (41)

And so much for patients in this Contemporary era – that we now no longer need to define, and re-define, psychological medicine in the long, dark shadows cast by a Freudian Psychoanalysis and its fabulous travels across the darkest continent of the psyche - that imaginary Land of the Unconscious - which Dr. Freud fraudulently mapped and into whose quick-sands the work of five generations will sink without a trace except in dusty libraries as footnotes to tomes that once charted these sad, and recent, misadventures of the human spirit!! (42)

							           Noël Tointon, Sydney, 1.10.01.