THE GREAT FREUD CONTROVERSY - ON THE POST PONEMENT OF THE FREUD EXHIBITION IN THE LIBRARY-OF-CONGRESS, WASHINGTON-DC

The heated public controversy about Freud and psychoanalysis that has been raging in America for a number of years has meanwhile found its w ay into major German dailies as well (Frankfurter Rundschau 5. 1. 1996 ; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 11. 1. 1996; Die Tageszeitung 17. 1. 1996). Bohleber outlines the latest case of Freud-bashing in the Unite d States, sparked off by plans for a Freud exhibition in Washington. C loser inspection of the motives and roots of the attacks on Freud lead to the hardly surprising conclusion that the popular parlour game >>F reud Bashing<< has crested the wave in a social climate marked by fund amentalist conservatism, the new prudishness, and a species of scienti fic puritanism born of blind belief in the >>exact sciences<<. The mai n representative of this attitude in connection with psychoanalysis is Adolf Grunbaum, while >>revisionists<< like Jeffrey Masson and Freder ick Crews are to be regarded rather as exponents of the sexual counter -revolution. Bohleber's article is intended as an introductory comment ary on the following essay by Jonathan Lear.