Psychoanalysis Freud Criticisms Valid Cocks

Psychotherapy In The Third Reich: The Göring Institute, by Geoffrey Cocks. 1984

Nazi German Attitudes on Freudian Psychoanalysis. They Have Parallels Today

One striking feature of this book is the fact that many of the Nazi criticisms of Freud and psychoanalysis are still seriously voiced today—minus of course the fact that Freud was a Jew, and psychoanalysis a “Jewish science”. I focus on some of them.

DEALING WITH NEUROSES: THE NAZIS WERE AHEAD OF THEIR TIME

The Freudians thought in terms of such things as repressed sexuality, fixations, and deep unresolved conflicts. In contrast, the once-termed neurotic maladies of anxiety, depression, phobias, and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) are nowadays usually believed to have biochemical causes. This was also the view of the Nazi-inspired German mental health specialists in the Third Reich. Cocks quips, “The major question for psychotherapists in the Third Reich was how to deal with neurosis among their patients. Psychotherapists, of course, rejected the notion of most German psychiatrists that neurosis was a physical illness.” (p. 103).

THE REDUCTIONISM OF FREUDIAN PSYCHOANALYSIS

Consider the neuropathologist Rudolf Bilz. Author Cocks comments, “Psychoanalysis, he [Bilz] instructed, was only one example of an intellectual tradition which reduced the rich biological, cultural, and religious aspects of humanity to a single explanation—instead of properly understanding the ‘wholeness’ of human experience from the biological to the metaphysical. Bilz’ approach was in fine tune with the Nazis’ elevation of German culture over the crass materialism of the West—as represented most troubling, of course, by the Jew.” (p. 82).

FREUDIANISM AS PANSEXUALISM

The Nazis saw psychoanalysis as an embodiment of the Oriental (Jewish) worldview of “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die!” (pp. 87-88).

A Nazi cartoon, shown on page 89, shows a woman telling a psychoanalyst that she is troubled by severe headaches. He tells her to lie down on the couch and tell him whatever comes to her mind. She mentions: roast…, medical waters…, blotter…, handkerchief…, knife… The therapist interrupts her, saying, “’Stop! Knife! That’s it!” The thought ‘knife’ manifests your sexual desires. Your headaches thus arise from the fact that you find no sexual gratification in your marriage. Hence it follows automatically how you can be cured…’” (p. 89).

This can be generalized. Cocks writes of, “…in Nazi Germany, where Freud was regarded as the quintessential Jewish panderer of a contumelious pansexualism.” (p. 96).

PSYCHOANALYSIS AS A MONEY-MAKING FRAUD

Cocks writes, “Freud himself remained a favorite object of scorn, vilified as a major representative of Jewish nihilism and entrepreneurship…turning it into a business enterprise which thrived on a clientele of rich hysterics.” (p. 88).

NO SO-CALLED GAY HOLOCAUST. THE COMPLEX NAZI ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOSEXUALITY

On the one hand, Cocks writes, “The SS typically regarded homosexuality as a major element in the cultural decline that resulted from an egotism implanted by the Jew and the Bolshevik. The true artist, according to one SS analysis, was not a ‘self-impaled’ homosexual but one who transcended his homosexuality to touch the pulse of the male-female ethos in service to his race.” (p. 206).

On the other hand:

Cocks quips, “Thus, homosexuals sent to the Göring Institute were to be treated, cured, and sent back into the community as normal and productive members of society.” (p. 207).