Freudian Fallacy: Freud And Cocaine
by E.M. Thornton /
1986 / English / PDF
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Freud's ideas have had an incalculable effect on the history of the twenti eth century. Yet the suppression of crucial correspondence by his family and the psychoanalytic establishment has aroused increasing suspicions about the origins ofhis theory.
In this controversial and comprehensive attack on Freudian orthodoxy, E M Thornton substantiates an extraordinary claim that Freud was addicted to cocaine throughout the period when his central theories of the unconscious mind an child sexuality were formulated.
Examining the literature ofdrug addi ction and the great cocaine epidemicof the 1890s, the author findstriking parallels between the grand iose delusions of cocaine addicts and the founding texts ofpsychoanalysis.
She goes on to challenge the concept ofthe unconscious and suggests that Freud 's early patients were not 'hysterics' at all, but were in facesuffering from forms of epilepsy, a disease little understood at the time.
