Freud’s Contribution

            The theory was nonsense.  Ego, superego, id – a chimera of Freud’s imagination.  Its sole value was as a metaphor which lended a degree of structure to the therapeutic process.  Probably any number of other metaphors could have done as well.  But what Freud accomplished, what he demonstrated and enunciated broadly was that:  (1) the unconscioius mind was real, that people had experiences that they did not remember, that they had successfully suppressed, and (2) that people got better if therapy could help them to remember those suppressed experiences.  Freud showed us:  (1) that there was a mechanism there, a self-protective mental mechanism of some kind, that seemingly every individual had; and (2) that it was a proper role of therapy,a  critical role, for the therapist to help the patient to get past that protective mechanism and recover what had been hidden.

What you couldn’t remember could hurt you, and what you could bare to the light of day and thenceforth incorporate into your normal awareness was no longer a threat.

In fact, you could go one step farther.  Man was only permanently crippled by what he couldn’t remember.  Actual memories, no matter how painful, were not what crippled a man.  It was what he couldn’t remember.  The old saw, “What you don’t remember can’t hurt you,” was utterly false.  A man or woman was hurt precisely by those things he couldn’t remember.  Hence, it was a primary goal of therapy to uncover what the patient could not remember.