What Is Freudian Psychology?

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Theodor Meynert was a leader in viewing psychiatry research as a form of brain science.

In 1883, Freud joined Meynert's clinic, leaving in 1885 to study under Charcot in Paris.

Freud's ideas about hypnosis and 'male hysteria' offended Meynert, leading to a break healed on his deathbed.

Freud is best known, of course, for the creation of psychoanalysis as a treatment for mental illness, though later he began to emphasize its utility as a method for enhancing self-knowledge. Interestingly, in his early years, his clinical interests were actually in internal medicine; in this post, we will describe the influence of Theodor Meynert, who guided his first major exposure to clinical psychiatry. As we will see, the two later had a falling out, which continued for some years, until it was resolved on Meynert’s deathbed.

After graduating from medical school, Freud began to work in a neuropathology laboratory. His research flourished, though he had little income, and by 1882 he was in financial straits. He cast about for a new career; at first he applied to training programs in internal medicine, but was not accepted. He ultimately followed the advice of his former teacher and mentor, Wilhelm von Brücke, and took a position as a physician in Vienna’s General Hospital. After assignments in a number of areas, including surgery and dermatology, in April 1883, he began working in Theodor Meynert’s psychiatric clinic.

Meynert, one of the best-known European psychiatrists of the late 19th century, was a strong believer that the study of psychiatry should be considered a form of brain science, and advocated associating various psychiatric symptoms with deficits in specific anatomical areas of the brain. Freud became involved in the effort to view psychiatry in this manner, resulting years later in the Project for a Scientific Psychology. It has been argued that Meynert also formulated an early view of the ego, which he believed was based on various patterns of neural connectivity; he also touched on ideas which later grew into expression as repression, defense and the pleasure principle (1). Freud later referred to Meynert as the person ‘in whose footsteps I have trodden with such deep veneration’.

By 1885, Freud was given an appointment as a Privatdozent (an unpaid lecturer) in neuropathology; he then looked for financial support from the university, including travel grants. He took the opportunity to study under Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris. Charcot had made advances in many areas, including parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis, but Freud was particularly intrigued with his work on hysteria (in modern terms, conversion disorder and related conditions). He believed that this disorder, which was most often seen in young women, could be treated with hypnosis and that conversely hypnosis could induce the qualities of hysteria in normal volunteers. His demonstrations were very impressive, often bordering on the theatrical, and Freud became very interested.

Upon his return to Vienna in February 1886, Freud tried to convey his enthusiasm to his former mentors. To his surprise, his lectures were met with disdain by Meynert and others. In the words of one of his colleagues, ‘Meynert in the discussion bluntly rejected Freud’s statements and thus he fell into disgrace with the Faculty.’ They were particularly incensed by the therapeutic use of hypnosis, as well as the notion that hysteria could appear in men as well as women. Such was Meynert’s derision that he cancelled Freud’s use of his university facilities, thus leaving Freud with nowhere to lecture. Ultimately, Freud developed a private practice of neurology, inspired in part by the example of his mentor Joseph Breuer, but even this was difficult without referrals from the academic establishment. In what may have been to some degree an economic decision, he let it be known that he would see patients with hysteria. One wonders how he might have felt, given that his interest in hysteria had so greatly affected his professional life. Many physicians were reluctant to treat it, and consequently Freud received many referrals. Ultimately, his practice was highly successful and continued until 1938.

Over the years, the views of Freud and Meynert hardened with respect to each other. Meynert continued to deride Freud, challenging his skill as a doctor, and Freud criticized Meynert’s unshakeable dictum that specific symptoms could always be related to specific anatomical loci in the brain. Freud, instead, believed in the importance of experiences in shaping nervous system function and elaborated on Charcot’s notion of the ‘functional dynamic lesion’.

Meynert became very ill. It is said that Freud came to visit him in 1892, though the date remains uncertain, but by many accounts they appear to have had a reconciliation. Freud described the conversation some years later in The Interpretation of Dreams, in the context of a dream in which he believed his father represented Meynert: "When I visited him during his fatal illness and asked after his condition, he spoke at some length about his state and ended with these words: ‘You know, I was always one of the clearest cases of male hysteria.’ He was thus admitting to my satisfaction and astonishment, what he had for so long obstinately contested” (2).

What Is Freudian Psychology?

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It is uncertain whether Meynert was trying to gain closure with his former protégé, and of course his own mental acuity at that moment is unclear. He had been grieving from the death of his daughter Christi in February 1892, and of his wife a few years earlier. On the other hand, he was able to give a complex lecture on neuroanatomy to the Academy of Sciences a few days before his death in May 1892. There is also a mythic quality to Freud’s description of this meeting, and it is not certain whether this account published in 1900 may have reflected his own wishes and memories. We may never know exactly what happened.

The reconciliation was also ironic in a way: Freud had long since given up the use of hypnosis in favor of the techniques which grew into psychoanalysis, and Meynert seemed to have now agreed that 'male hysteria', as it was then called and understood, existed. Meynert had made a major contribution in emphasizing that psychiatric research could be seen as a form of brain science, even though he was later criticized for his unwavering focus on specific nuclei rather than the functional networks advocated by his student Carl Wernicke and others. And among his many accomplishments, it was he, as well as Josef Breuer, who first introduced the newly-minted general physician Sigmund Freud to the practice of clinical psychiatry. To some degree, the interaction of the two can be seen as a microcosm of the beginnings of the historically differing paths of those who advocate a biological approach to psychiatric symptomatology, and those who emphasize some forms of psychotherapy.

1. Dalzell, T.: What Freud learned in Meynert's clinic. Irish Journal For Lacanian Psychoanalysis. 49:65-72, 2011

2. Freud, S.: The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900. In James Strachey's translation of Volumes IV and V of the 1953 Standard Edition. (London, Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis) Basic Books, New York, pp. 527-528

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