Why Freud Was Wrong

Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis

Cover of the first edition
Author	Richard Webster
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Subject	Sigmund Freud
Publisher	The Orwell Press
Publication date	1995
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	673 (2005 edition)
ISBN

Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis (1995; second edition 1996; third edition 2005) is a book by Richard Webster, in which the author provides a critique of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, and attempts to develop his own theory of human nature. Webster argues that Freud became a kind of Messiah and that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience and a disguised continuation of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Webster endorses Gilbert Ryle's arguments against mentalist philosophies in The Concept of Mind (1949), and criticizes many other authors for their treatment of Freud and psychoanalysis.

The book for which Webster may be best remembered, it has been called "brilliant" and "definitive", but has also been criticized for shortcomings of scholarship and argument. It formed part of the "Freud wars", an ongoing controversy around psychoanalysis.

Webster argues that Freud became a kind of Messiah and that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience and a disguised continuation of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. He describes psychoanalysis as "perhaps the most complex and successful" pseudoscience in history, and Freud as an impostor who sought to found a false religion. However, Webster also writes that, "My ultimate goal is not to humiliate Freud or to inflict mortal injury either on him or his followers. It is to interpret and illuminate his beliefs and his personality in order that we may better understand our own culture, our own history, and indeed, our own psychology. It is to this constructive attempt to analyse the nature and sources of Freud's mistakes that my title primarily refers." He discusses the influence on Freud of the otolaryngologist Wilhelm Fliess and the biologist Ernst Haeckel.

Webster writes that while Ernest Jones wrote The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1953-1957) with the avowed objective of correcting a "mendacious legend" about Freud, Jones replaced that negative with a positive legend. Webster maintaines that Jones, "did not hesitate to retouch reality wherever it seemed to conflict with the portrait which he sought to create." Webster argues that while Peter Gay's Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988) is presented an objective exercise in historical scholarship, and considers the failings of psychoanalysis and Freud's mistakes, Gay nonetheless retains a reverent attitude toward Freud, preserving the myths about him created by previous biographers. Webster called these myths the "Freud legend". He suggests that the acclaim the book received shows the persistence of the Freud legend, noting that with exceptions such as Peter Swales, many reviewers praised it, especially in Britain. He saw its appeal to supporters of psychoanalysis as being its favorable view of Freudian ideas.