Could you please tell me of any publication in which S.Freud said"It is more important to understand than to treat" and in what year?

Thank you.

-- Louise Holly (adriel@lm.net.au), September 29, 2001

Answers

[The following answer was contributed by David Smith of the University of New England. He was responding to a query by Fred Weizmann of York U. (Toronto)., who had seen Louise Holly's question on the APA Division 26 listserv, where I had re-posted it (being unable to answer it myself). -cdg-]

David Smith wrote:

This quotation does not sound at all like Freud. I very much doubt if he ever said it. I imagine it is a garbled, out-of-context rendition tenuously derived from one of Freud's remarks. There are a couple of other passages that spring to mind. The first is from the 'Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis' (1916-17): "Even if psycho-analysis showed itself as unsuccessful in every other form of nervous and psychical disease as it does in delusions, it would still remain completely justified as an irreplaceable instrument of scientific research'[ (255). The following one is from the 'New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis' (1933): "I have told you that psycho-analysis began as a method of treatment; but I did not want to commend it to your interest as a method of treatment but on account of the truths it contains, on account of the information it gives us about what concerns human beings most of all - their own nature - and on account of the connections it discloses between the most different of their activities. As a method of treatment it is one among many, though, to be sure, primus inter pares." (156-157) I hope that this helps.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), October 06, 2001.

[Posted for NBB by cdg.]

This quote reminds me of something I ran across recently, but I've been unable to track it down. I did find some references (in Paul Roazen's Freud and His Followers) to passages that suggest the general idea. E.g.,

"Neither at that time, nor indeed in my later life, did I feel any particular predilection for the career of a doctor. I was moved, rather, by a sort of curiosity, which was, however, directed more towards human concerns than toward natural objects" ("An Autobiographical Study," p. 8).

In "The Question of Lay Analysis," Freud says, "I have no knowledge of having had any craving in my early childhood to help suffering humanity.... In my youth I felt an overpowering need to understand something of the riddles of the world in which we live and perhaps even to contribute something to their solution. The most hopeful means of achieving this end seemed to be to enrol myself in the medical faculty" (p. 253).

-- Nicole B. Barenbaum (nbarenba@SEWANEE.EDU), October 07, 2001.

[Posted for SB by cdg.]

I haven't been following this too closely, so I apologize if I'm repeating what has already been said. But I got around to doing a Google search using the question as a string.

It retrieved a brief essay by Jean Chiriac titled "Sigmund Freud and the Spirit of Psychoanalysis" in which he states, without attribution:

"More than once Freud stated that is[sic] more important to understand than to treat".

(at http://www.geocities.com/innersights/pap3.html)

I suspect that Louise Holly may have come across this essay or someone quoting from it, and is attempting to verify it. The essay appears as a web page whose home page is titled "Psychoanalysis: On-line Teachings and Practice (http://psychoanalysis.tripod.com.) sponsored by AROPA (Romanian Association for Psychoanalysis Promotion).

As soon as I finish this note, I'llI send them a query to see if they can provide a source for the claim. If, as, and when I hear, I'll inform the list.

-- Stephen Black (sblack@UBISHOPS.CA), October 07, 2001.

[Posted for SB by cdg.]

I recently replied on Cheiron to a query forwarded by Chris Green on behalf of Louise Holly. It concerned a statement allegedly made by Freud to the effect that "It is more important to understand than to treat". I traced the sentence to a brief essay by Jean Chiriac on the web, in which he claimed that Freud said this "more than once". The essay was posted on a website of AROPA, the Romanian Association for Psychoanalysis Promotion.

I sent an inquiry to AROPA, and received an immediate, if unhelpful reply. Ioan Ionut told me that my inquiry was "irrelevant in the context of the article" but nevertheless referred me to Paul Roazen's work "Freud and his Followers" for "a lot of quotations related to Freud's aim to understand instead of healing".

At this point things get a little weird. I wrote back to again ask whether at least one source where Freud himself said this could be identified, and asked for biographical information on Jean Chiriac, the author of the essay. I was again (with exclamation marks) referred to Roazen's work, and my request for biographical details of the mysterious Jean Chiriac was refused.

Being nothing if not persistent, I tried my own web search. I discovered very little, only that Jean Chiriac goes under the alias of Ian Blackwell, and possibly also Alan White, and that Jean Chiriac/Ian Blackwell/Alan White is the President of the International Journal of Taoism.

Now I don't have Roazen's book handy but undoubtedly others on this list are familiar with it, and will know if there is anything in it which remotely supports the claim about what Freud said on more than one occasion. Personally, I doubt it. I suspect that the discourteous and unhelpful response I received from Ioan Ionut is an indication that the claim is unsupportable.

One other thought: I understand that the famous phrase "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" widely attributed to Freud was never found in his writings. Similarly I believe the familiar term "thanatos" for the energy of the death force does not appear anywhere in Freud's work, although someone (Ernest Jones?) claimed to have heard him use it in conversation. It's possible that "It's more important to understand than to treat" falls into such a category of oral history, handed down by people who knew him. But frankly, I doubt that as well.

-- Stephen Black (sblack@UBISHOPS.CA), October 08, 2001.

[Posted for NBB by cdg.]

Stephen Black's recent posting mentions Paul Roazen's book "Freud and His Followers" as a possible source of the quote attributed to Freud. Roazen does argue (in his chapter "Research Aims") that Freud's main concern was scientific research, rather than therapy. However, there are several qualifications to this argument, and the quotes from Freud's works do not include the quote "It is more important to understand than to treat," from Jean Chiriac's essay.

Regarding the other "quotes" Stephen Black mentions, Alan Elms argues that Freud probably never said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" (either in writing or in conversation); Elms's article (in press, Annual of Psychoanalysis) is entitled "Apocryphal Freud: Sigmund Freud's Most Famous 'Quotations' and Their Actual Sources." And according to Roazen, it is Ernest Jones who says that Freud used the term "Thanatos" in conversation but not in his writing.

-- Nicole B. Barenbaum (nbarenba@SEWANEE.EDU), October 08, 2001.