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- [00:00]
Afwa Hirsch
Wondery subscribers can binge seasons of Legacy early and ad free. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
- [00:08]
Peter Frankopan
A Listener Note this episode contains reference to suicide, sexual abuse and details of traumatic events that some people might find distressing. Listener discretion is advised, and this is probably not for some younger listeners.
- [00:28]
Afwa Hirsch
Hello and welcome to the fourth and final part of our series on Sigmund Freud. In the last episode, Freud finally achieved worldwide acclaim. His dream theories and groundbreaking ideas about the unconscious have even permeated mainstream culture. But success, as it always does, has come at a cost. Freud has split from his would be successor, Carl Jung, over their differing ideas about psychoanalysis. And he's been rocked by the death of his daughter Sophie, aged 27, in his 70th year.
- [01:00]
Peter Frankopan
Freud can count people like Albert Einstein amongst his many fans, but circumstances aren't going to bless him with a peaceful retirement surrounded by his grandchildren. In Germany, the Nazi party is growing and from the early 1930s anti Jewish violence starts to erupt. Freud is renowned for possessing acute powers of analysis, but even he badly misjudges the threat posed by Hitler and his many supporters.
- [01:29]
Afwa Hirsch
And this time we're doing something a bit different. We're not only joined by psychoanalyst and Freud scholar Professor Brett Carr to help us unravel some of the finer detail, but also author, broadcaster, famous psychoanalyst Dr. Susie Orbach, who will join us later to evaluate the legacy of Sigmund Freud.
- [01:55]
Peter Frankopan
For a wandering goal hanger. I'm Peter Frankopan.
- [01:58]
Afwa Hirsch
I'm AFWA Hirsch.
- [01:59]
Peter Frankopan
And this is Legacy, the show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived and asks if they have the reputation that they deserve.
- [02:19]
Afwa Hirsch
This is Sigmund Freud, episode 4 Good Night Vienna.
- [02:34]
Susie Orbach
Claude is the AI assistant from Anthropic that millions of people have turned to just because it feels different. We've all tried AIs that come across a little robotic, but Claude gets it when it comes to empathy and emotional intelligence. That's why Claude has become the if you know, you know, companion for tasks like vision, boarding, self reflection, planning a move to a new city, plotting out scenarios for a big life decision, and more. Give Claude a try for free at Claude.com. that's C-L-A-U-E.com and let us know how you feel the difference.
- [03:12]
Brett Carr
So I just used NerdWallet's card finder tool to find a better card for me and listeners. This is genius. All you have to do is answer a few questions and in minutes, you'll get matched with recommendations tailored to you. I'm discovering cards I didn't even know existed. And the matching was on point. The best part, no research needed. The nerds already did that for us. So if you, like me, want to easily find the right card for you, go to nerdwallet.com to get matched today. Terms and conditions apply. Credit products subject to lender approval. See nerdwallet.com for details.
- [03:50]
Peter Frankopan
On September 12, 1930, Freud's beloved mother, Amalia dies aged 95. Freud received the news with composure, saying, I was not allowed to die as long as she was alive, and now I may. Somehow. The values of life have have notably changed in the deeper layers. It's funny that the first person he thinks of is himself.
- [04:11]
Afwa Hirsch
Not totally out of character, I would say. But greater ruptures are on the horizon. In 1932, Austria receives a wave of Jewish immigration, triggered by the rise of another Austrian, Adolf Hitler, to power.
- [04:24]
Peter Frankopan
In May 1933, the Nazis begin burning copies of Freud's books in Berlin. According to historian Karl Dietrich Bracher, the exclusion of Left, Democratic and Jewish literature took precedence over everything else. But Freud dismisses it with sarcasm, saying, what progress we're making. In the Middle Ages, they would have burnt me. Nowadays they are content with burning my books.
- [04:50]
Afwa Hirsch
It's one of many ways in which Freud minimizes the threats that the Nazis pose. In June, the German Society for Psychotherapy in Berlin comes under Nazi control. Members are recommended to study Hitler's Mein Kampf, which is to become the basis for their work. When the society president, Ernst Kretschmer, resigns, Jung replaces him and also becomes editor of the Nazis official psychotherapy paper, Centralblatt for psychotherapy.
- [05:19]
Peter Frankopan
In 1933, Freud writes to French psychoanalyst Marie Bonaparte and says, in our circles there is already a great deal of trepidation. People fear that the nationalistic extravagances in Germany may extend to our little country. I have even been advised to flee already to Switzerland or France. That is nonsense. I don't believe that there is any danger here. And if it should come, I'm fairly resolved to await it. If they kill me, good. It's one kind of death like another. But probably that's only cheap boasting.
- [05:53]
Afwa Hirsch
Seriously missing the point.
- [05:55]
Peter Frankopan
Seriously missing the point. But I think, to be fair to Freud, the shock of of those wheels as they started to turn. No one could expect that the savagery of Bernie Brooks would lead to genocide and to the Holocaust.
- [06:07]
Afwa Hirsch
On Freud's 80th birthday in 1936. He receives well wishes from Virginia Woolf, H.G. wells, Thomas Mann and many other eminent writers. Einstein writes, I am happy that this generation has the good fortune to have the opportunity of expressing their respect for and gratitude to you as one of its greatest teachers.
- [06:28]
Peter Frankopan
On 12 March 1938, the Germans March into Austria and take control of the country, willingly egged on by many of the country's inhabitants. When we look at it now, Freud's resistance to fleeing the approaching Nazi menace looks incredible. But according to his biographer, Peter Gay, part of his unwillingness to leave Vienna was that he was already ill with cancer of the mouth and he wanted more than anything else to die there. Gay says Freud was determined to be in Vienna when that time came. The intensity of his resolve matched the urgency with which colleagues and friends begged him to leave as the Nazi threat began to grow. So, as an old man attached to his home, that unwillingness to confront reality, I do understand it. But looking back on it now looks horrific.
- [07:13]
Afwa Hirsch
Within a week of the Nazi invasion, Freud's home is raided and his safe emptied. And he's still still refuses to leave, telling Ernest Jones he would feel like a soldier deserting his post. But then something happens which finally changes his mind.
- [07:29]
Peter Frankopan
On 22 March 1938, the Gestapo take Freud's youngest daughter Anna, the most precious person in the world to him. That morning, Freud writes in his diary a single anguished phrase, anna at Gestapo. Freud is terrified that his beloved daughter might be tortured or deported to a concentration camp. Finally, after several tense hours of worry, the front door opens and she's back. He realizes it's time to listen to what everybody is telling him. It's time to get out of Vienna. Brett, in your book Freud's Surviving Global War, Spanish Flu and the Nazis, you deal with this question. Do you think that the Nazis had a problem with psychoanalysis as a science? Was it about personalities? Was it because of Freud was attached to it and other Jewish scholars? What was the issue underpinning this?
- [08:26]
Brett Carr
I'm not sure that we have any evidence that the Nazis ever read a single paper by Sigmund Freud. I think they simply, simply hated the man because he was Jewish. But thank goodness, because he was already an internationally famous, respected figure, he received support from none other than Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, both of whom got messages through to the German government saying, we really want this man to be protected. Otherwise Freud would have been sent to the concentration camps the way that four of his sisters were several years later.
- [09:06]
Peter Frankopan
Most tragically with psychoanalysis the victim of Freud's personal visibility and personal success. Because Freud had become such an international celebrity, of course he was going to catch the eye of anti Semites in Germany. So was that the price that science and the discipline paid because just of Freud becoming too successful?
- [09:27]
Brett Carr
Well, it is very, very interesting because loads of German based and Austrian based psychoanalysts and also some in Hungary and some in Italy all managed to emigrate to either Great Britain or to the United States of America. So the post Freudian generation were very, very, very insular indeed. And although Freud was very keen to welcome candidates at psychoanalytic institutes who came from non medical backgrounds, the Americans particularly said let's limit the number of trainees solely to traditional doctors because we don't want this field to become too well known at this point because they were traumatized by Nazism.
- [10:13]
Afwa Hirsch
BRETT While Freud was like all other Jews in Europe persecuted by the Nazis, his former protege, now rival Carl Jung takes over a post that the Nazi controlled German Society for Psychotherapy. She should we see that as Jungian complicity with the Nazis. What's the correct way to analyze that era?
- [10:35]
Brett Carr
I know several dear colleagues who have written books on Jung and his relationship to Nazism and you won't be surprised that no two scholars have quite the same assessment. But Jung was a Christian, he was never sent to a concentration camp and he did collaborate with various Nazi leaders in that regard and he didn't rush to save some of his former Jewish colleagues in these other countries. So whether Jung did really carry some significant antisemitism I cannot say with certainty. But it would not surprise me were that the case.
- [11:18]
Peter Frankopan
So Freud's eminent status means that he is luckily able to quickly secure a visa to get to the uk. But the Gestapo force him to sign a document before he can leave stating that they treated him well. And Freud signs it, adding ironically, I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone. I mean it's Gallo's humor really is.
- [11:41]
Afwa Hirsch
This is actually the same year that my grandfather and his little brother left Berlin, also quite late. I mean only a year before the outbreak of war and the borders were closed and it was hard to leave Austria and Germany at this point. To have special permission you had to pay a very punitive emigres tax. The Nazis were trying to make sure that they absolutely exploited the fear that so many Jews had trying to get out at what's almost the last hour. Back in Vienna, Freud was forced to say goodbye to his sisters Rosa, Dolfi, Marie and Paula, who could not leave the country. They were killed in a concentration camp five years later. Tragically, or perhaps for him. Mercifully, Freud never learned their fate. But Freud, Martha and Anna did make it out. They arrived in London on June 6, 1938, to widespread public and media support. People knew they were coming and celebrated their arrival. We are buried in flowers. This is something special for England. Freud wrote numerous letters from strangers who only wish to say how happy they are that we have come to England, that we are in safety and peace, really, as if our concern were theirs as well. I could write like this for hours without exhausting what there is to say.
- [12:59]
Peter Frankopan
So, Brett, you're the honorary director of research at the Freud Museum. That's at Freud's all House at 20 Maresfield Gardens in Southampton. Tell us about the house and about Freud's consulting room. Am I right in saying that it still has that famous couch that Freud's patients lay on?
- [13:15]
Brett Carr
The Freud Museum, London, is an extraordinary institution and I feel so, so privileged to be with this beautiful house. The team has done its very best to preserve all of Freud's furniture, all of his paperwork. Freud, unusually, was able to leave Vienna with all of his books. Over 2,000 books, rather unusual, and over 2,000 ancient statuettes. It's like a mini British Museum, the Freud Museum, London. And yes, you're absolutely right, Peter. We still have his original couch, which was presented to him round about 1891 by this very generous patient of his called Madame Benveniste. And it's beautifully maintained, the couch, and it's a very, very powerful piece of furniture because Freud was the first doctor who said to his depressed, anxious, neurotic, psychotic, troubled patients, we're not gonna subject you to hysterectomies. We're not gonna subject you to castration surgery. We're not gonna give you drugs. All we want you to do is take off your shoes, lie down, rest, and tell me what's on your mind.
- [14:30]
Afwa Hirsch
Why did British people feel enthusiastic about having Freud in their midst?
- [14:37]
Brett Carr
Most British people, in my estimation, did not. You know, if you look at the comparison between the growth of the psychoanalytical movement in the States versus in England, this country was very, very far behind the Americans for many, many years. The British Psychoanalytical Society had no more than 100 members, whereas there were literally thousands in the United States. Obviously, the two countries are of very different sizes. But in this country, if you wanted to study something called psychology or psychoanalysis, many people regard it as shaming. When I was a first week undergraduate, I was at A party at my university to welcome the new students. And I happened to be standing next to this very, very senior physicist, and he said, young man, you know, welcome to our university. What are you here to study? And I said, I'm here to study psychology. And this gentleman who later went on to win a Nobel Prize in physics, by the way, he was carrying a glass of wine. He dropped it on the floor and he said to me, psychology? Why on earth would anybody waste their time studying psychology? That was very much a British view for at least half a century.
- [15:58]
Peter Frankopan
Freud is now 82 and living in England, a country that he has long admired. He may have escaped the Nazis, but he's not going to be able to escape something else that is going to bring his work and his life to a close.
- [16:11]
Afwa Hirsch
Soon after arriving in London, Freud has major surgery for his oral cancer, and it leaves him weak and debilitated.
- [16:18]
Peter Frankopan
Incredibly, he continues conducting up to four sessions of psychoanalysis every day. And in March 1939, his final book, Moses and Monotheism, is published later that year.
- [16:30]
Afwa Hirsch
On September 3, 1939, Britain declares war on Germany and Freud predicts Hitler's downfall, saying, anyhow, it is my last war. His health continues to decline through September. The cancer is eating through his left cheek, turning the tissue septic.
- [16:49]
Peter Frankopan
Freud is in unbearable pain. He calls his personal physician, Dr. Schur, back from America to help him die. On September 22, Dr. Shur gives Freud a third of a grain of morphine at his home. According to Ernest Jones, he sighed with relief and dropped into a peaceful sleep. He was evidently close to the end of his reserves, and he dies just before midnight the next day, aged 83.
- [17:17]
Afwa Hirsch
Three days after that, on September 26, Freud is cremated at Golders Green in front of a large gathering of mourners, and his ashes are placed in one of his favorite Grecian urns.
- [17:29]
Peter Frankopan
So next we're going to examine what he left behind and the impact of his legacy on the world. In 1939, an obituary described Freud as more than a scientist. He was a cultural icon whose theories permeated every aspect of modern life.
- [18:04]
Afwa Hirsch
I think that's more relevant than ever now. His work has escaped the confines of science and is pervasive in the arts, in education, health, social sciences, philosophy. I mean, I've been thinking, Peter, you know, as we're recording, there's all this discussion about DEI diversity, equity and inclusion. It's become a kind of hate phrase for something that should be banned. But the whole field of anti racism, of understanding that there's Unconscious bias at work all traces its roots back to Freud. And I think that, you know, wherever you look at corporate life, at politics, at our own identities, at the conversations we have about mental health, would mental health exist as a concept without the work of Freud?
- [18:47]
Peter Frankopan
So throughout this series, we've had the benefit of Professor Brett Carr's amazing insights. And of course, he's joining for this final discussion. Welcome back, Brett.
- [18:55]
Brett Carr
Good day.
- [18:56]
Afwa Hirsch
But we're absolutely delighted that we're also welcoming Dr. Susie Orbach. She's the author of many books, including one of my personal favorites, Fat is a Feminist Issue, and Bodies. She founded the Women's Therapy center in London in 1976 and the women's Therapy Center Institute in New York City in 1981. Plus, she presented the BBC Radio 4 series In Therapy.
- [19:20]
Susie Orbach
Hello. Delighted to be here.
- [19:22]
Peter Frankopan
Susie, you once said in an article that you came to Freud quite late. What was it about his work that got you interested and how? When did you come to it?
- [19:31]
Susie Orbach
I was schooled in history and sociology, but I was very intrigued as a youngster in the very early 70s as to why we were so incapable of changing things that weren't in our own interest. And psychoanalysis gave me a way of thinking about another structure like sociology, a way of understanding society, but also about a way of understanding individual human subjects and how we come to be who we are. And I suppose once I came to it, it's so revelatory and so interesting that I just stuck with it and folded all the historical or sociological tendencies that I had. What do we do with this new discipline for me, psychoanalysis?
- [20:23]
Afwa Hirsch
Brett, Freud's focus on childhood and psychosexual development, such a huge part of his legacy, and it's deeply influenced how we understand childhood experiences and the impact of those experiences on adult behavior. Would you say in some ways we're all children of Freud? That's how omnipresent that impact has been.
- [20:45]
Brett Carr
I think that many of us would not have lives had it not been for Freud's very, very serious focus on the importance of not only childhood, but also infancy and also the pre infancy period, the perinatal period. Because what he discovered from his work and what all his first generation of colleagues and disciples discovered, including his wonderful daughter Anna Freud, who really helped to pioneer what we now call child psychoanalysis and child psychotherapy, child mental health, they were really taking childhood seriously.
- [21:23]
Peter Frankopan
Susie, would you agree with that? I mean, to that extent, are we all children of Freud as a result?
- [21:28]
Susie Orbach
I think we're all children of Freud. The massive Outpouring of infant research in the last 50 years has Freud's fingerprints on it. We have studies where we see a mother and a baby looking at each other and the mother turns away and we see the baby collapse. There's phenomenal amount of evidence and we can map attachment patterns now coming out of the ways in which relatedness goes wrong, the way in which a child can't deal with being disappointed or being turned away from. So I think, of course, we're all Freud's children and that is for the better. It is not for the worse. I mean, there may be aspects of the Freudian legacy that we don't want to take forward, but certainly the focus on early childhood, on infancy, on neonatal studies, is absolutely critical.
- [22:22]
Afwa Hirsch
Can I just ask about those aspects that are less comfortable or seem more outdated? Because many of them are also in that realm of his theories about child psychosexual behavior. Some of it has been thoroughly debunked, some of it remains controversial. How do you treat the aspects of his theories about childhood that are less resonant with a modern audience?
- [22:45]
Susie Orbach
This is where maybe Brett and I would disagree. I think that what he was talking about was his understanding of the forces of repression, what we have to cut off in ourselves, what we have to silence in ourselves, what sense we make of things that are unpalatable. I think he gave us the scope to understand that intrapsychically, the structures that we create in our mind to deal with that. I also think that when he's talk talking about sexuality in libido, I think he understood also that life force, which those are, can find expression in many different forms. I think the specificity for me is less interesting. And that bit of the canon I'm not thrilled by, but I think Brett might have a different take on it.
- [23:34]
Brett Carr
I think one of the complexities of dealing with these universally transformative figures, and I'm sure no two people have quite the same assessment of Albert Einstein or Margaret Thatcher or whoever it might be. But I do think that there is an enormous amount that we can learn from the complete writings of Sigmund Freud. I mean, one of the real problems with a lot of the critics of Freud these days, if I may be very, very blunt with you, is that large numbers of people believe that they are experts about Freud, criticize him for X, Y and Z. But when you begin to embark on a conversation, many have not even read a single one of his papers, let alone the multi volumes of his collected writings. So from my perspective, I do think that There is an enormous amount of genius and that we can learn so much from continuing to study Freud.
- [24:33]
Peter Frankopan
So why is it then that he gets put under such heavy scrutiny and gets attacked? I mean, why do people have views that are very strong about Freud without bothering to read any of his papers? What is the animosity based on?
- [24:45]
Susie Orbach
Well, don't you think it's a little bit, Peter, threatening to think that what Freud has opened up is the idea that we don't quite know ourselves and that there might be all sorts of tricky things about us that we both want to know and don't want to know. And we certainly don't want to be having loads of tells going on in the world. We don't think we live in a poker game. So I think we are very protective, protective human beings and therefore we little bit frightened about the defense structures which were built as a form of protection against hurts and miseries and difficult situations.
- [25:24]
Afwa Hirsch
But yet some of the critiques of Freud are based on very clear, objective allegations. For example, Frederick Cruise in his takedown of Freud says, among other things, all toddlers wish to kill their same sex. Transparent and copulate with the other one is a totally unscientific idea in its origin. And he says Freud's psychological writings contain not a single item of raw data. And others have written a lot about how he generalizes greatly from a very small sample. How do we treat that allegation against Freud's work and legacy?
- [25:59]
Susie Orbach
The research subject is the individual and the individual's relationship with the psychoanalyst. That is the lab. It is the in depth study of how we come to be, who we are, how we are, how we exhibit things, how we absorb things, how we reject ideas, how we feel things, how we behave. That is what Freud was studying. It is a remarkable thing that he created that is quite different than what Cruise is talking about. And the very specific things that when you read the case studies, we may not agree with the interpretations because they seem so 19th century, but we know that he's stretching to understand the circumstances of the person and the views that they have of themselves.
- [26:52]
Brett Carr
In my experience, having been a Freudian practitioner for my whole professional life and a Freudian teacher for my whole professional life, he knew much more about the human mind than anybody historically did. One is allowed to investigate him, one is allowed to criticize him. But as yet I have not encountered any research that says we must really start looking in a different direction. Because I don't know any historical figures who really helped to create the psychology of the Human mind, the study of the human mind, more than this man had done. A lot of people really, really hate him because he was such an expert on pretty much every area.
- [27:36]
Afwa Hirsch
Another thing that he was undeniably is patriarchal. Susie. And one of the really fascinating areas for me about separating him from his legacy and also the way we engage with his ideas, sometimes selectively taking the ones that serve our more modern thoughts and discarding some of the ones that have proved controversial or have been debunked, is his ideas about women, about penis envy, about the mother son relationship that have been criticized for being deeply androcentric. How do we treat those ideas now?
- [28:12]
Susie Orbach
I think they're a story. I don't think they're fact. I've never thought they're fact. I've always thought that his description of what constitutes femininity and what women have to go through in order to become these feminized creatures was very, very accurate. It's not just what patriarchy did and does, but it's what mothers who've already internalized patriarchal positions, what they bequeath their daughters, how they relate to their sons. And of course, this will be incredibly tempered by class and by ethnicity and by where you grow up in the world. But I don't have any difficulty with what he heard. I have difficulty with what he made of it. And I think what those of us who came into psychoanalysis at the early 70s, there were earlier interpreters, earlier feminists, who understood that this was from a patriarchal perspective, had no difficulty revisiting it from a perspective that saw women as in development and rejected quite a lot of what was in Oedipal theory and focused much more on the maternal impact and the transgenerational transmission from the mother to the daughter. But also what a mother projects onto a son, what she allows a son that she doesn't allow a daughter, and without her having any awareness of it. So parents will say, well, I raise my children exactly the same. It's absolutely not true. We never do. First of all, a first child is an only child, and a second child already has. That's another little person they're playing with. But, I mean, even as a very conscious feminist, I treated my children completely differently. I was very, very aware of how I would be startled if my daughter wanted to do something. But I've pushed my son to do certain things, and I was shocked. It was so inside of me that I had to really work quite hard to overcome it.
- [30:07]
Afwa Hirsch
Well, Brett, I'm curious how you regard his attitudes towards Women and the way that's carried over into suspicion of his legacy when it comes to his theories about women and the relationships they have with others.
- [30:22]
Brett Carr
Well, let me respond in this way. When Freud was a very, very young student, most of his contemporaries might have, you know, spent their time going out, clubbing or playing around. But Freud actually undertook the task of translating an English language book into German, which he could very easily not have done. Many people nowadays might not remember the name of the writer, late 19th century writer and political theorist from this country, John Stuart Mill. He wrote a book called the Subjection of Women. And he was really quite a pioneering male feminist. And Freud was very intrigued by John Stuart Mill's book and he wrote a German version of this book, he translated it, and he called it Frauen Emancipation Emancipating Women. So I think there is an enormous amount of historical data which is overlooked by many of his critics that really demonstrates that he was one of the first men to take women really, really seriously. So from my perspective as a historian, I think he was one of the founders of 19th century feminism. I really do.
- [31:44]
Peter Frankopan
I think what I'm also interested in, I mean, I do take the point that if you're a celebrity in any field, you're a lightning rod. But having said that, you know, it is problematic, isn't it, how he depicts women in particular. Ideas about biology, around inferiority, around masochism and so on. Are those just things that we just don't mention because they sort of darken the image of Freud in a way that's incompatible with talking about how innovative he was, because we don't find that difficult in history to understand that people had two sides. But the homework that you're marking for Freud seems to be on the generous side.
- [32:17]
Susie Orbach
Of course we're generous, but I think I was trying to explain that Freud understood the cost of culturation to femininity and that masochism, the management of certain kinds of, if you like, social disabilities, social exclusions, psychological hamperings, how does the individual manage that? How does a whole class of people manage it? And that is where ideas about masochism come in. It's not that it's biologically masochistic, it's psychically masochistic. So I think that's the wrong end of the stick, Peter, if you don't mind me saying. He's really explaining the intricate processes that we go through to tolerate class hatred, to tolerate patriarchy, to tolerate racism, to tolerate poverty. People make have to do things inside of themselves to manage things. And that is part of what he's writing about. He writes about humiliation, he writes about shame, he writes about hurt. He writes about what happens when emotional states or events have been entirely problematic.
- [33:53]
Afwa Hirsch
Another area of his personal life that for me feels inseparable from his lived experience and his work was his Jewishness. I'd love to ask you about the context that he was living in. I mean, the beginning of the most sinister marginalization persecution of Jews in modern history. Living through the anti Semitism of Vienna in the late 19th century, the rise of the Nazis in the early 20th century. What impact has this had on his work from your perspective?
- [34:23]
Brett Carr
That's a very, very important question and a very powerful question. I think that, you know, had Freud come from a more traditional Christian background, he absolutely might not have discovered psychoanalysis. I think, although I would regard him as a pretty sturdy character. He knew about suffering, he knew about the threats to everybody's lives. When he was a young doctor just setting up his practice in Vienna, a man by the name of Karl Ruege was elected as the new mayor of Vienna. And he really focused all of his campaign speeches. He said, if you vote for me as the mayor, I'm going to make sure that all the Jews are marginalized. And I do think it may well have had a very powerful impact on Freud. Made him stronger, but also made him much more sympathetic to people undergoing distress. And he remained that way for the whole of his professional career.
- [35:26]
Susie Orbach
I'm sure there was implicit, if not explicit antisemitism in the medical field. And he was an ambitious young man. I think the whole thing about Jews is they're outsiders and insiders. And particularly if they're more of a secular bent. They have occupied a position of being both at one with and both being separate from the culture and being regarded as suspect because they are something different. This is all being played out right at this moment in our current politics. He would of course disavow aspects of being a Jew because it wasn't interesting to him. What was interesting perhaps was the learning. And I think that does make people feel uneasy that you're perhaps too learned.
- [36:17]
Brett Carr
I think one of the extraordinary features of Freud is that he was both a self identified Jew. He came from an obvious Jewish background. He had rabbis in his family ancestry. But he also became one of the first atheists. He thought that religion could be a sign of neurosis. If you believe that there's this person up in the sky called God who's running your life, Freud said, no, it will be your Mother and your father, who will be the gods of your life because they will have more of an impact on you than anybody in the outer space area will do. So he was not only radical in terms of his medico historical work, he was radical in terms of coming from a Jewish background, but also being very atheistic at the same time.
- [37:07]
Afwa Hirsch
Susie, I'm curious how you feel the perception of psychoanalysis is today. The reputation of the field and the role Freud has or hasn't played in that. I mean, it's more pervasive than ever. It's more socially normalized than ever for people to be in therapy. But what cultural shift have you noticed in the course of your own practice? And where does Freud's legacy sit in that?
- [37:34]
Susie Orbach
I think Freud's become of wider and wider interest. People start off being interested in psychotherapy or psychology. They can be very dismissive. But I think gradually they realize that there's an enormous span that Freudian scholarship has and it's extended to film studies, it's extended to business. People in business now understand that the critical relationships that are going on and that people mess things up when they don't mean to and that that might have something to do with what Freud wrote about. I think comedians know that Freud has quite a lot to say about humor. I think artists are very interested in both liminality and the concreteness of Freud. I mean, there's both aspects, I think, and this ginormous figure like Einstein and Marx, in a way, in terms of that period in life, and people still find new things to use from his work.
- [38:32]
Peter Frankopan
But Einstein and Marx, Susan, they've had lots of critiques, lots of ways in which what they've suggested, both scientifically and politically in terms of political science. But Freud is in a slightly different category because the methodologies, the ideas that Freud's had, the way in which he submitted his evidence, it has had much more robust criticism than other scientists. Is that justifiable? Is it fair? I mean, should we be paying as much attention to Freud as we do?
- [38:59]
Susie Orbach
I definitely think we should be paying a lot to the clinical writings of contemporary psychoanalysts. And what I said before, in terms of looking at the analytics session as your lab and understanding that it's a very, very special space to see how people change and what stops them changing. I'm not really prepared to throw Freud out, which I think maybe you are, but I think I probably was more prepared to throw Freud out when I was younger. And it's not that I'm somebody who gets into bed and reads Freud and thinks he's the most marvelous storyteller, which many people do. I just have an enormous sense of gratitude to how wide, how baggy, how precise. I can go with on a little bit of Freud, I can go a very long way.
- [39:54]
Afwa Hirsch
I can't resist just quickly asking, Susie, have you got the same couch? Are there any antiquities usually in your consulting room?
- [40:03]
Susie Orbach
Absolutely not. There's one antiquity that came from the Great Wall of China by chance. My parents had it. I don't even operate on the couch. I operate face to face. So I'm a rule breaker in that sense because I'm really interested in what I pick up from the bodies in the room and how they smell and how people sit with themselves and how much they move and fidget or compose themselves. There's so many different things. I'm really intrigued. So I've changed the geography of the room for my own practice.
- [40:39]
Brett Carr
I would describe you, Susie, as a 21st century Freudian.
- [40:43]
Susie Orbach
Yes.
- [40:43]
Brett Carr
It's not a legal requirement for every mental health practitioner today to use a couch. I would. Although I'm practicing Now in the 21st century, I will happily describe myself as a 19th century Freudian because absolutely I do enjoy using the couch. And I find that those of my patients who do lie down on the couch often will reveal even deeper dreams and earlier childhood memories and reveal sexual secrets and so forth. So we all practice in a similar way, but in our own style.
- [41:18]
Peter Frankopan
I'm scratching my head to wonder whether any of the characters we've ever looked at have had such a long legacy because he's such a Titanic figure and he is sort of the first mover in so many of these things that are still relevant today. You know, he always has to be referenced. He always has to be part of the conversation. His name alone carries that weight. And that is understandable, but doesn't mean it's necessarily liberating.
- [41:41]
Susie Orbach
But yes and no, Peter. I mean, look, films would not be the same without Freud because what he does with dream sequences or fast cutting or the weird things that can be shown in film are very much like what goes on in our minds. Right? But the film doesn't have to keep referencing Freud. And frankly, I've written loads of papers where I never reference Freud, and I've given tons of talks where I don't. So people take that figure as a given. Just as one may not reference Marx every time one's making an economic argument which he may have first made. You're shaking your head, but I really don't think that we overblow Freud at all. I think those of us who are practitioners are very happy to have him in our background and we have our modern tools in which we become contemporary practitioners of psychoanalysis.
- [42:36]
Afwa Hirsch
Brett, if you had to really summarize the legacy of Freud for us in contemporary society, for people who might never have read anything Freud wrote, who might be using concepts that they don't even know came from Freud, what is his legacy for our everyday lives and our culture?
- [42:54]
Brett Carr
I think I would underscore the fact that he has given us an enormous amount of hope as human beings because he demonstrated more than anybody else that if parents treat their children kindly, reliably, regularly, non abusively, they will contribute to the children growing up in a non traumatized fashion. The children will be less likely to become mentally ill. And when those children grow up and become prime ministers and presidents and world leaders, they will be much less insane. So I think that Freud is really our inspiration for global mental health.
- [43:37]
Peter Frankopan
And Susie, how would you sum up the ways in which Freud has shaped how we think?
- [43:42]
Susie Orbach
I think he introduced the idea that we're both knowable and unknowable, that there's a lot more to know about us in terms of what motivates us. Not the specificity of what he thought was motivating us, but the very fact that there are things that motivate us and that we can't actually be as competent or clear about those things as we might wish. The notion that we transmit and that we absorb feelings from others and that that sets off a whole chain reaction in each other. The fact that we are made in culture and that the making of the human subject is because they grew up with other subjects. And the journey from being a neonate a baby to being a human subject and having agency is to do with how we internalize and make sense of what our circumstances are.
- [44:43]
Afwa Hirsch
Once again, a huge thank you to Brett Carr and Susie Orbach, our incredible experts, authoritative in their field. It's such a privilege to have them enriching our conversation about Freud. Peter because much as we've both made a huge effort, we are not psychoanalysts. So it's been really special to have them shine a light on the finer points and the history and everything they understand from the actual experience of treating patients with psychoanalysis that we could never have done on our own.
- [45:11]
Peter Frankopan
I agree. I've learned so much from Susie and from Brett, and I've learned so much thinking about Freud himself and trying to work out why he was so Successful, how many of his ideas stack up. And also, as always, about Freud himself as a person. The complications of someone who sits behind all these great ideas.
- [45:28]
Afwa Hirsch
On that note, Peter, it's that time that we look forward to every season. Three words that summarize Freud.
- [45:36]
Peter Frankopan
Do you know what? I normally love this bit.
- [45:38]
Afwa Hirsch
You do. And you always have something really clever.
- [45:41]
Peter Frankopan
No, but now I'm really worried about exactly what it reveals and why I'm picking these three words.
- [45:45]
Afwa Hirsch
By the way, you, you got off lightly. I haven't really conducted anything like the amateur couch analysis that I was planning to on your unconscious.
- [45:54]
Peter Frankopan
Next time, my three words, I'm gonna go for prolific. You know, Freud is a hard worker and he was constantly trying to adapt and evolve. Provocative. He loved a bit of beef. Not just to eat, he loved a bit of beef. Of wanting to take people on and.
- [46:10]
Afwa Hirsch
See what you did there.
- [46:12]
Peter Frankopan
And third, the bit that I'm surprised about with Freud having talked about him is insecure. You know, I thought Freud would be much thicker skinned. I can understand why he might have been nervous about criticism and anxious about how his work was regarded. But he was more thin skinned than I realized. How about you?
- [46:28]
Brett Carr
Come on.
- [46:29]
Afwa Hirsch
I've got a kind of serious one and a less serious one. Cause I'm gonna tell you, my serious one is. After Freud's death, the writer W.H. auden wrote a quote that I think is quite moving. He said to us he is no more a person now, but a whole climate of opinion. So my serious three words would be climate of opinion. Because I think that is quite a good summary.
- [46:51]
Peter Frankopan
That's great. God, I love that.
- [46:53]
Afwa Hirsch
But my slightly more light hearted one is he needed therapy.
- [46:59]
Peter Frankopan
Both of those are better than mine. He needed therapy. I like that. Climate opinion is great. I've not heard that before.
- [47:04]
Afwa Hirsch
I know I might start using it.
- [47:06]
Peter Frankopan
What a great quote. Anyway, that's it for this series on professor extraordinarius Sigmund Freud. It's been a wonderful journey into the mind, not just in general, but also into your mind as well. Afwa. So I hope that your mother and sister are going to be generous when they hear us talk about it.
- [47:23]
Afwa Hirsch
Likely.
- [47:23]
Peter Frankopan
But anyway, please join us next week when we're going to begin to unravel the life of one of the most famous figures of the 20th century.
- [47:32]
Afwa Hirsch
As the world gears up to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, we will lift the lid on the life of Joseph Stalin, the communist leader man of steel, whose war machine helped defeat the Nazis, but also the man whose ruthless hunger for power went on to cause the suffering and death of millions and ultimately to reshape the world.
- [47:53]
Peter Frankopan
Isn't this just a great show? That's next time on Legacy.
- [48:13]
Afwa Hirsch
Follow Legacy on the Wondery app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge seasons early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondery.com survey from Wondery and Goal Hanger this is the final episode in our series on Sigmund Freud. We've used many sources for this series including A Life for Our Time by Peter Gay and the Life and Work of Sigmund Freud by Ernest Jones. Legacy is hosted by me, Afwa Hersh.
- [48:49]
Peter Frankopan
And me, Peter Frankapen for Goal Hanger. Our series producers are Jane Morgan and Anoush Lewis. Jack McKay is Associate Producer. Our production managers are Izzy Reid and Alex Hack Roberts. The executive producers are Tony Pastor and Jack Davenport.
- [49:06]
Afwa Hirsch
This series of Legacy is sound engineered and designed by Will Farmer.
- [49:10]
Peter Frankopan
Music supervision is Scott Velasquez for Fritz and Sync.
- [49:13]
Afwa Hirsch
Our producer for Wondery is Emanuela Quinati Francis and our managing producer is Rachel Sibley.
- [49:19]
Peter Frankopan
Executive producers for Wonder Wondery are Estelle Doyle, Chris Bourne, Morgan Jones and Marshall Louis.