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

IV. Co-Authored Phenomena - A Brief Introduction

	I am currently writing a series of papers looking at various aspects of psychology from a philosophical point of view. Besides an introductory essay the first paper was on Freud. In this paper I criticise much of what Freud proposed often quoting from the work of H.J.Eysenck and Richard Webster. (1)

	Both authors are very critical of Freud; in my opinion, on very good grounds. However, in turn, my criticism of these authors, especially the latter, is that they seem to have gone too far in the opposite direction being too inclined to see psychological disturbances as somatically based in contrast to a psychically based focus where Freud 'spent' most of his speculative interest (even though originally trained as a neurologist). (2)

I used the expression 'spent' because I personally feel he essentially wasted his time and energy and, despite the elegance of his prose, his propaganda it would seem merely brought to the surface a muddled mixture of social prejudices and popular 'insights' that have contributed little in the way of adequate psychological therapy, indeed, at times, it has been strongly argued, may well have been detrimental to the well-being of patients, especially women. (3)

	Whereas Freud was convinced, at least to begin with, that 'talking cures' could be engineered, today we have swung in the opposite direction and focus too much on the body, invoking genes, and defects in their enzyme expression, for the miscellany of disorders that populate our post-Postmodern World in this Contemporary Era. The unfashionable grand-narratives that late Modern thinkers have entered into, such as proposed by Freud and Marx, e.g., have been subjected to a virulent attack from various Postmodern critiques. However, a number of Postmodern philosophers, such as Lacan, e.g., have also continued this type of project as exemplified by the life-work of Freud. In my opinion merely perpetuating the nonsense, otherwise known as 'psych-babble', emitted by the psychoanalytic establishment when the last rites for this style of therapy would be more appropriate from the point of view of the future welfare of patient suffering from serious mental illnesses! Perhaps only now, in this Contemporary Era, this sad history of psychiatry can be put behind us? Eysenck argues in his book Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire that psychoanalysis has actually impeded psychology and psychiatry from developing into a proper study of normal and abnormal behaviour. As he also states: It is properly true to say that Freud has set back the study of these disciplines by something like fifty years or more. (4)

	Webster, e.g., sees 'hysteria' as a diagnosis now no longer in demand with the improvements made in modern medicine. Let me quote a passage from my essay on Freudian Myths on this point: (5)

	"One more book I would also like to recommend (besides those of Eysenck) 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 summarise what this author, and others, seem to think on this intriguing topic. 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 psychoanalyse 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!" (6)

	However, although we cannot disagree with much of what he says in this regard, I do believe the scale of his re-writing does not do justice to the extent that 'hysteria' was a phenomenon at the time Freud, and other writers on this subject, were writing. To some extent it was almost an epidemic! Whereas today 'hysteria' is hardly counted as a respectable diagnosis except perhaps in rare forms of hysterical conversion. And herein lies a clue… and the focus of my critique. (7)

	In my opinion a number of psychiatric phenomena, and a larger number of phenomena that are not psychiatric in nature, occur, have their locus, in the interpersonal space between people, i.e., as co-authored in nature. Just as two or more people can share the writing of a book, or, a number of people can form a committee and operate as a group, so too there are psychiatric phenomena that are generated from within a public oriented sense of interpersonal 'space'. This type of socially co-authored phenomenon should not be reduced, indeed cannot be reduced, to either the 'psychic' nor the 'somatic', nor, for that matter, their union in the form of the 'psycho-somatic' even though they will find an expression, and leave some form of an 'imprint', through the individual self-expression of the person. In other words, this type of phenomenon is expressed through the sense of the personal but cannot be reduced to this sense of the personal, indeed, misdirected efforts in these directions in the past have prevented us from properly appreciating their co-authored status. Let me illustrate this from noting some comments on the way Freud abused some of his female patients. (8)

	At this juncture we might like to give to Freud the following award, namely, the title 'the father of all recovered memories'. It has been noted by a number of authors that Freud consistently browbeat his patients, especially women, into finally changing their opinions as to 'what must have happened in the past' along those lines he felt his theories would predict on such artificial a priori grounds. So, if a woman was considered neurotic and/or hysterical it was because she was abused, sexually or non-sexually, as a child, and/or, was a practising masturbator who should therapeutically admit to such a practice and should show no more resistance to the therapeutic guidance of her psychoanalytical therapist in this regard by admitting to such and/or confessing to such practices, etc.   (9)

	Co-authored phenomena cover a gamut of human activities from two or more people writing a book, people functioning in a committee, a hypnotist and their hypnotised subject or subjects, 'recovered memories' assisted through hypnosis, 'past-life' experiences 'recovered' through hypnosis, 'reports' of alien abductions, whole villages going into a state of trance (as happens in certain festivals on Bali), to multiple personalities recounted in interaction with their therapist. As a critical philosopher I am neither denying nor asserting that these types of phenomena could have both a validity of form and a validity of content. A past life recounted under hypnosis, e.g., might well be just that - a past life; regardless of the veracity, manner and quality of its transmission. This aspect, for me, is not the direct aspect of my concern, rather, my interest is in this 'co-authored dimension' and coming to understand what part other people play in the very formulation and exercise of our own existence. Indeed, it is this interpersonal dimension that can account for the fact that often epidemics of these types of behaviour are found to occur and re-occur, an aspect that cannot be accounted for by such authors like Webster with their fashionable re-focusing on the somatic, the physical being of the person in this world-of-life when we are also people-who-live-in-a-world-with-others! (10)

	Hopefully, a deeper understanding of this aspect of our human existence will assist us in our coming to better appreciate this dimension in ‘our’ expressive utterance of 'texts', whether verbal or non-verbal in nature, and, as a consequence, successfully assist ‘us’ in the formulation of forms of therapeutic intervention when and where this type of psychiatric response finds itself correctly called for!? (11)

							    Noël Tointon, Sydney, 24.5.02.