WEBVTT - Timeless Wisdom: Ultimate Issues Hour - Freud w/Peter D. Kramer 0:00:21.500 --> 0:00:25.820 Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Here thousands of 0:00:25.860 --> 0:00:29.460 hours of Dennis's lectures courses in classic radio programs. Had 0:00:29.500 --> 0:00:41.220 to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. Go to Dennisprager dot com. 0:00:41.260 --> 0:00:44.060 All right, everybody, welcome to the Ultimate Issues Hour, an 0:00:44.100 --> 0:00:48.300 hour each week devoted to the great questions of life. 0:00:48.500 --> 0:00:51.300 And I think I got a signal from Heaven as 0:00:51.300 --> 0:00:54.100 it were, to move Peter Kramer over into the Ultimate 0:00:54.100 --> 0:00:57.660 Issues Hour. So it's actually worked out better for you, 0:00:57.740 --> 0:01:00.300 and it worked out better, I think, for the show, 0:01:01.100 --> 0:01:03.500 So thank you for your patience. Peter Kramer is a 0:01:03.540 --> 0:01:06.740 professor of psychiatry at Brown University, a well known psychiatrist. 0:01:07.380 --> 0:01:11.100 And there is a there is a series of biographies, 0:01:11.260 --> 0:01:15.140 short biographies that have been put out. They're eminent, called 0:01:15.180 --> 0:01:18.780 Eminent Lives, and he was given the honor and it 0:01:18.860 --> 0:01:22.699 is an honor to write the one on Freud, whom, 0:01:22.780 --> 0:01:26.180 as I reminded you folks earlier in the show, I 0:01:26.380 --> 0:01:29.100 was my nominee either he or Hitler, and I'm not 0:01:29.180 --> 0:01:33.500 comparing them. Although it's amazing how people will pervert what 0:01:33.540 --> 0:01:37.140 you say. I'm a veteran of having my words perverted 0:01:38.260 --> 0:01:41.020 there in no way related, but those were my two 0:01:41.060 --> 0:01:45.740 nominees for Person of the Century. Time eventually picked Albert Einstein, 0:01:46.620 --> 0:01:49.780 which was just a safe pick. But the effects of 0:01:49.820 --> 0:01:53.420 those two individuals, one for ill and one perhaps, I 0:01:53.460 --> 0:01:57.900 guess I'm a mixed bag. I have been to the 0:01:58.180 --> 0:02:01.020 great consternation of many of my listeners. I have been 0:02:01.060 --> 0:02:03.540 a fan of a Freud. I thought the man was 0:02:03.580 --> 0:02:07.340 the genius of the twentieth century, for good and for ill. 0:02:07.380 --> 0:02:09.740 But I really believe he was a genius in opening 0:02:09.820 --> 0:02:15.740 up the unconscious and all of the ideas that he had. 0:02:15.859 --> 0:02:18.380 Do you agree, first of all, on the effect that 0:02:18.460 --> 0:02:19.980 he has had on modern man? 0:02:20.660 --> 0:02:24.500 Enormous effect, you know. I think you have to when 0:02:24.500 --> 0:02:27.460 you write a short biography, choose one challenge or a 0:02:27.500 --> 0:02:29.340 couple and say these are the ones I'm going to 0:02:29.420 --> 0:02:32.180 look at. And I think what's happened to Freud over 0:02:32.220 --> 0:02:35.340 the past twenty years or so is that his stock 0:02:35.500 --> 0:02:38.980 really has gone down as a scientist and even as 0:02:39.060 --> 0:02:42.019 a person of character. I think, as we know more 0:02:42.060 --> 0:02:45.940 about what he's done through witnesses, you know, beyond himself, 0:02:45.980 --> 0:02:51.260 he looks less good. But he has had this enormous 0:02:51.300 --> 0:02:55.300 influence on how we experience ourselves, so that that contrast 0:02:55.420 --> 0:02:58.820 that paradox, how you can be less and less respected 0:02:58.860 --> 0:03:01.940 as a scientist and yet have this enormous influence on 0:03:02.860 --> 0:03:05.540 how modern man lives with himself. You know, that seemed 0:03:05.540 --> 0:03:06.860 to me my challenge. 0:03:07.300 --> 0:03:10.140 Well, it is a challenge. So the question is, and 0:03:10.180 --> 0:03:14.460 there are people who believe this, many people that psychoanalysis 0:03:14.500 --> 0:03:16.980 and psychotherapy, at least in so far as they are 0:03:16.980 --> 0:03:22.700 related to psychiatry, are not based on science and therefore 0:03:23.060 --> 0:03:24.500 are more harmful than good. 0:03:25.220 --> 0:03:28.620 Well, I think psychotherapy is done well. There was psychotherapy 0:03:28.700 --> 0:03:33.540 before Freud. Most psychotherapy today doesn't have very direct links 0:03:33.580 --> 0:03:37.260 to Freud, and psychotherapy is still one of the really 0:03:37.340 --> 0:03:41.380 important treatments for mental illness, for minor mental illness, for growth, 0:03:41.380 --> 0:03:45.260 for education. But the particular additions that Freud made about 0:03:45.300 --> 0:03:49.420 infantile sexuality, some of the things he said about the 0:03:49.500 --> 0:03:52.820 nature of the unconscious just have not nature of dreams 0:03:52.860 --> 0:03:56.700 have not held up as well as probably everybody expected 0:03:56.740 --> 0:03:58.300 fifty years ago they would hold up. 0:03:58.820 --> 0:04:01.500 What do you think of psychoanalysis itself? And for those 0:04:01.540 --> 0:04:04.460 who don't know the difference psychotherapy is if you go 0:04:04.500 --> 0:04:07.100 to a psychologist or you go to any therapist and 0:04:07.140 --> 0:04:11.620 you talk through your problems. Psychiatry is somebody who does 0:04:11.660 --> 0:04:15.300 that and also has an MD and can prescribe prescription drugs. 0:04:15.700 --> 0:04:18.580 And then there was psychoanalysis where you go about four 0:04:18.580 --> 0:04:21.140 times a week and what is it for about two 0:04:21.219 --> 0:04:22.020 hours of session? 0:04:22.420 --> 0:04:25.099 Well, no, usually the same fifty minutes. 0:04:25.260 --> 0:04:28.460 Fifty minutes, yeah, and you but it is about that 0:04:28.620 --> 0:04:29.900 much a week, right. 0:04:29.820 --> 0:04:31.820 It can be four or five times a week, and 0:04:31.900 --> 0:04:35.380 of course doing that is a different experience. You really 0:04:35.700 --> 0:04:39.220 come in touch with aspects of yourself. The psychiatrists psychoanalyst 0:04:39.260 --> 0:04:42.420 becomes very important in your fantasies and imagination. 0:04:43.180 --> 0:04:44.979 Have you undergone psychoanalysis? 0:04:45.020 --> 0:04:49.100 I have? I have, and it was a Freudian psychoanalysis. 0:04:49.100 --> 0:04:52.780 I was in London, where Freud had moved after he 0:04:52.860 --> 0:04:56.539 left Vienna. Anna Freud was still in London, his daughter. 0:04:57.100 --> 0:05:01.500 I was at that institute where you know, they presided, 0:05:02.100 --> 0:05:04.980 and I was a patient and I thought it did 0:05:05.020 --> 0:05:07.700 me a great deal of good. Although you have to 0:05:07.780 --> 0:05:10.820 ask was it for the reasons that people imagined at 0:05:10.820 --> 0:05:13.180 the time, you know, was it important to bring forth 0:05:13.540 --> 0:05:18.180 the Oedipus complex, this notion of having a sexual incestuous 0:05:18.180 --> 0:05:22.980 interest in your mother? And being willing to murder your 0:05:22.980 --> 0:05:25.580 father in the interest of that, you know, that sort 0:05:25.580 --> 0:05:27.779 of thing. Is that? Did that really hold? Or was 0:05:27.820 --> 0:05:29.500 it just that I was in the hands of a 0:05:29.620 --> 0:05:32.820 very good person and given some time and space to 0:05:32.860 --> 0:05:33.820 think problems through. 0:05:34.220 --> 0:05:38.219 I publicly admit that if I had the time, I 0:05:38.260 --> 0:05:40.940 would love to undergo psychoanalysis. 0:05:41.020 --> 0:05:44.460 Yes, well, I say that, and my wife says, you know, 0:05:44.580 --> 0:05:45.900 she'd leave me if I did. 0:05:46.740 --> 0:05:49.460 Yeah, but you did already, Yes, I did already. 0:05:49.700 --> 0:05:50.900 I did already, I see. 0:05:50.940 --> 0:05:53.300 But so you're lucky you did it before you marry. 0:05:53.500 --> 0:05:55.500 Right, that's it, that's it. She doesn't want me to 0:05:55.540 --> 0:05:56.300 know any more than I know. 0:05:56.460 --> 0:05:58.940 Right. Oh yeah, No, I understand that I may and 0:05:58.980 --> 0:06:01.500 it may may be better if both spouses do it 0:06:01.580 --> 0:06:02.700 than if only one does. 0:06:02.900 --> 0:06:06.500 I suppose so. But you know, it has changed very greatly. 0:06:06.620 --> 0:06:09.979 Freud thought he was a great scientist. He thought that 0:06:10.140 --> 0:06:12.900 analysis had to be scientific, so you should stand at 0:06:12.900 --> 0:06:16.020 some distance from the patient, not be empathetic, not be 0:06:16.100 --> 0:06:20.220 overly sympathetic, that the patient remain very anxious. And then 0:06:20.260 --> 0:06:23.180 he had these notions of what it was you were 0:06:23.220 --> 0:06:27.620 going to discover, and in particular, these repressed sexual desires 0:06:28.340 --> 0:06:30.700 and as I say that particular line of thought has 0:06:30.780 --> 0:06:32.460 just not. 0:06:32.020 --> 0:06:34.500 Fair, that do you not believe in the complex? 0:06:35.060 --> 0:06:38.219 I think the Oedipus complex is probably and many people 0:06:38.260 --> 0:06:41.060 thought this when Freud was alive, including some of his 0:06:41.140 --> 0:06:44.260 competitors like Jung. That's sort of a shorthand for an 0:06:44.300 --> 0:06:48.620 awareness that there are conflicts even in the best regulated 0:06:48.660 --> 0:06:52.739 of families. I just reviewed a book which is about 0:06:52.740 --> 0:06:56.620 Freud's visit to America. He became friendly with a man 0:06:56.700 --> 0:07:00.460 named James Jackson Putnam, who was an American neurologist helped 0:07:00.500 --> 0:07:04.500 spread psychoanalysis in this country. And there's a funny correspondence 0:07:04.540 --> 0:07:08.020 where Putnam writes a letter saying that he used to 0:07:08.060 --> 0:07:11.500 have fantasies, dreams that when he grew up he would 0:07:12.420 --> 0:07:14.700 sit in front of a fireplace and have a devoted 0:07:14.700 --> 0:07:17.980 wife and children and so on. And Freud writes back 0:07:18.260 --> 0:07:21.180 to the effect of, well, you're you know, you're Sadism 0:07:21.220 --> 0:07:26.460 and masochism obviously are coming to the fore the man 0:07:26.460 --> 0:07:31.100 who would not take yes for an answer, that. 0:07:31.460 --> 0:07:32.820 What's wrong with that fantasy? 0:07:32.900 --> 0:07:35.420 By the way, well it must be a repression of 0:07:35.460 --> 0:07:36.100 the reverse. 0:07:36.180 --> 0:07:36.380 You know. 0:07:36.700 --> 0:07:40.540 Freud could turn anything into the edifice complex. 0:07:40.820 --> 0:07:42.900 All right, so do you or don't you believe in it? 0:07:43.420 --> 0:07:45.980 I don't believe in it in that form. I mean, 0:07:45.980 --> 0:07:49.060 I think that what was valuable about Freud, and I 0:07:49.060 --> 0:07:52.179 think what its contemporaries admired, was that he was very 0:07:52.220 --> 0:07:55.900 open and frank about sex and aggression in an era. 0:07:56.100 --> 0:07:59.780 You know, this wasn't exactly Victorian England, but it was Habsburg, Austria, 0:08:00.180 --> 0:08:03.620 where these matters, although they were widely spoken about by 0:08:03.620 --> 0:08:08.620 the intelligencia, you know, we're still somewhat repressed. And I 0:08:08.660 --> 0:08:12.700 think bringing the possibility of conflict and desire even in 0:08:12.980 --> 0:08:15.140 ordinary intimate circumstances into the did. 0:08:15.060 --> 0:08:16.740 He did he help patience? 0:08:17.740 --> 0:08:21.140 Well, that's an interesting question. You know that his patients, 0:08:21.460 --> 0:08:24.660 the ones he wrote about, almost uniformly did less well 0:08:24.660 --> 0:08:27.180 than he said they did. He was working with very 0:08:27.220 --> 0:08:29.820 sick people. You know, we think of neurosis as a 0:08:29.860 --> 0:08:33.140 mild manner matter, but he was dealing with very disturbed people. 0:08:33.620 --> 0:08:36.340 And researchers have gone and found these patients and they 0:08:36.380 --> 0:08:40.980 went on to be rehospitalized and you know, have a 0:08:41.100 --> 0:08:43.780 very spotty careers and so on, and some of them 0:08:43.819 --> 0:08:46.500 lived long enough to be interviewed, and they were really 0:08:46.540 --> 0:08:49.260 still mentally ill at the time of interview many years later, 0:08:49.380 --> 0:08:52.260 so I don't think he had miraculous effects on his patients. 0:08:52.340 --> 0:08:54.980 Let's say that there are patients he didn't write about 0:08:54.980 --> 0:08:58.260 who have written memoirs and diaries, and some of them 0:08:58.580 --> 0:09:02.940 say they did quite well with him. But those accounts 0:09:02.980 --> 0:09:04.980 show some other problems, which is that he didn't really 0:09:05.020 --> 0:09:09.540 do psycho analysis. He was somebody who had strong opinions. 0:09:09.580 --> 0:09:11.940 He'd give people advice, he'd have them over for dinner, 0:09:12.420 --> 0:09:15.460 he'd lend them money. You know, it didn't look the 0:09:15.460 --> 0:09:20.020 way psychoanalysis he wrote about. It was a different, different thing. 0:09:21.179 --> 0:09:23.540 I'd like to tell you in a nutshell why I 0:09:23.660 --> 0:09:28.059 have always admired him because it often surprises people because 0:09:28.060 --> 0:09:32.260 I'm also very religious, and usually people think there's a 0:09:32.340 --> 0:09:36.140 conflict between Freud and religion. Freud himself was an atheist 0:09:36.140 --> 0:09:38.780 and no use for religion. He thought it was essentially, 0:09:40.460 --> 0:09:43.500 you know, some psychological construct or crutch that we needed, 0:09:43.500 --> 0:09:47.380 and that basically God and our Father were interchangeable. How 0:09:47.380 --> 0:09:49.140 we looked at God is how we looked at our father. 0:09:49.900 --> 0:09:53.140 And many people think his worst work is Moses and 0:09:53.179 --> 0:09:56.740 Monotheism anyway, So but I want to tell you in 0:09:56.780 --> 0:09:59.980 a nutshell and have you react. I think that what 0:10:00.060 --> 0:10:04.380 he said was, look, we are really messed up inside, 0:10:05.420 --> 0:10:08.820 and don't walk around with this idealistic notion of the 0:10:08.900 --> 0:10:15.220 Enlightenment that we are you know, basically wonderful beings who 0:10:15.260 --> 0:10:18.020 have just been you know, just been you know, somehow 0:10:18.780 --> 0:10:22.500 ruined by the the economics of our time or by 0:10:22.540 --> 0:10:25.900 our parents. But we are really, we really are a 0:10:25.980 --> 0:10:29.420 mess and that's a religious belief in my opinion as well. 0:10:30.100 --> 0:10:33.699 Peter Kramer, the psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry, My guest 0:10:33.740 --> 0:10:34.900 is book Sigmund Freud. 0:10:34.900 --> 0:10:36.180 This is the Ultimate Issues hour. 0:10:36.220 --> 0:10:40.980 We continue this episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right 0:10:41.020 --> 0:10:50.540 after this. Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom. 0:10:50.780 --> 0:10:52.940 Hi, everybody, this is the Ultimate Issues are on the 0:10:52.940 --> 0:10:55.620 Dennis Prager Show. You can't get much more ultimate than 0:10:55.780 --> 0:10:59.820 the father of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and all the like. 0:11:00.860 --> 0:11:01.579 And there is a. 0:11:01.540 --> 0:11:04.780 New excellent brief biography and you know how much I 0:11:04.900 --> 0:11:09.060 adore brevity in writing by Peter Kramer, who is well 0:11:09.100 --> 0:11:12.020 known for writing on psychiatry. He's a professor of psychiatry 0:11:12.620 --> 0:11:16.500 at Brann University and in private practice in Providence. By 0:11:16.540 --> 0:11:18.380 the way of the two things, can you say which 0:11:18.420 --> 0:11:21.980 gives you more joy? The teaching of psychiatry or the 0:11:21.980 --> 0:11:22.660 practice of it? 0:11:23.980 --> 0:11:26.620 You know, I love working with patients, I'd say they 0:11:26.820 --> 0:11:29.340 you know. Number two for me, probably even before teaching, 0:11:29.420 --> 0:11:32.380 is writing. I love I write in the morning, I 0:11:32.380 --> 0:11:34.699 see patients in the afternoon, and it's just what I've 0:11:34.820 --> 0:11:35.740 what I wanted to do. 0:11:35.980 --> 0:11:38.420 When do you teach in the evening? Uh? No? 0:11:38.460 --> 0:11:39.780 I do you like tea during the day. 0:11:41.420 --> 0:11:43.980 I was wondering for a while. 0:11:43.980 --> 0:11:46.060 I try to cram at wedge a few things, and 0:11:46.140 --> 0:11:49.100 I got kids. There's a lot going on, but basically 0:11:49.140 --> 0:11:51.180 it's writing in the morning, seeing patients, all right. 0:11:51.179 --> 0:11:53.460 I was saying to you that a lot of religious 0:11:53.500 --> 0:11:58.219 people have a big problems with Freud and Freudian psychiatry 0:11:58.380 --> 0:12:01.260 and and the whole, the whole arena of much of 0:12:01.260 --> 0:12:02.420 that psychotherapy. 0:12:02.580 --> 0:12:05.660 No, I think you captured something, which is that you know, 0:12:05.820 --> 0:12:11.339 this is one of these figures who says rationality has 0:12:11.380 --> 0:12:14.740 its limits in human beings, and that is a philosophical 0:12:14.780 --> 0:12:17.700 and religious issue. And you know, science aside, whether you 0:12:17.700 --> 0:12:20.620 get it exactly right about dreams or the Oedipus complet 0:12:21.260 --> 0:12:24.260 that issue about our irrationality having a big part in 0:12:24.340 --> 0:12:27.380 our makeup is at the center of Freud. 0:12:27.820 --> 0:12:30.500 Yeah, exactly, I say to my you know, to my 0:12:30.620 --> 0:12:35.700 religious audience, that he, you know, he understands how limited 0:12:35.780 --> 0:12:41.140 we are. He is no romanticist about human nature. And 0:12:41.179 --> 0:12:43.780 that's exactly what I got from religion. 0:12:44.500 --> 0:12:47.579 And you know, Freud certainly was, in a certain manner 0:12:47.700 --> 0:12:50.700 a good Jew. He never turned his back on Judaism. 0:12:50.780 --> 0:12:54.699 He you know, played cards with his male friends. That 0:12:54.820 --> 0:12:58.339 been a breath every week. He told Jewish jokes. He 0:12:58.460 --> 0:13:01.579 wasn't pretending not to be Jewish just because he was 0:13:01.620 --> 0:13:04.380 an atheist in the sense that all scientists at that 0:13:04.460 --> 0:13:07.620 moment were atheists. That was the that was the stance 0:13:07.740 --> 0:13:11.059 he had contempt for a belief in God. It's true. 0:13:11.420 --> 0:13:14.340 But this wrestling with Moses is also an interesting issue. 0:13:14.340 --> 0:13:18.780 I mean, he got the theological history wrong, he got 0:13:18.780 --> 0:13:21.220 the anthropology wrong. But at least he is trying to 0:13:21.260 --> 0:13:24.380 do something very brave in the face of the Nazis. Here, 0:13:24.540 --> 0:13:27.940 you know, with this change in Austrian politics, the Nazis 0:13:27.940 --> 0:13:31.020 were at the border, and here is Freud saying, we 0:13:31.060 --> 0:13:33.660 as Jews have to be honest with ourselves. This is 0:13:33.700 --> 0:13:35.380 a new way of looking at Moses. I mean there 0:13:35.420 --> 0:13:38.260 was something very touching about doing this, and this was 0:13:38.300 --> 0:13:40.460 really in his old age. I mean he was he 0:13:40.580 --> 0:13:45.780 was one of these bold, outspoken types from you know, 0:13:45.860 --> 0:13:47.020 adolescents till death. 0:13:48.420 --> 0:13:50.700 Give a couple of examples when you and I both 0:13:50.780 --> 0:13:53.179 believe he's been such a powerful force. I mean, you're 0:13:53.660 --> 0:13:56.540 the subtitle is a great subtitle for your book, The 0:13:56.540 --> 0:13:58.260 Making of the Modern Mind. 0:13:59.900 --> 0:14:02.740 Inventor. Yeah, yeah, he he made the modern mind. 0:14:02.940 --> 0:14:05.059 He did, and you know, as I say, he did 0:14:05.100 --> 0:14:08.140 it without necessarily being right on the science. He thought 0:14:08.179 --> 0:14:11.180 that these things like the Oedipus complex were discoveries, that 0:14:11.220 --> 0:14:14.940 he discovered natural laws the way Copernicus did or Darwin. 0:14:15.300 --> 0:14:18.620 He compared himself to those scientists and to Einstein repeatedly, 0:14:19.500 --> 0:14:21.780 and I think that and to who he was. But 0:14:21.860 --> 0:14:24.940 he captured that sense of there being a lot of 0:14:24.980 --> 0:14:30.260 absurdity in life, of symbols being important, of you know, 0:14:30.820 --> 0:14:33.540 what goes on in modern intellectual studies, you may like 0:14:33.580 --> 0:14:37.100 it or not. Where tag team wrestling may be looked 0:14:37.100 --> 0:14:40.340 at as a subject of serious inquiry. I mean, here 0:14:40.380 --> 0:14:43.060 Freud was looking at jokes and slips of the tongue 0:14:43.300 --> 0:14:47.380 and trying to find basic indicators about the culture and 0:14:47.460 --> 0:14:52.060 about the human mind in these very trivial, trivial products 0:14:52.100 --> 0:14:55.260 and trivial events. And that really just has shaped the 0:14:55.260 --> 0:14:58.340 way we look at the objects around us and think 0:14:58.380 --> 0:15:00.940 about I mean, to give the most humble example, say 0:15:00.940 --> 0:15:04.900 you're on a date and the person doesn't show up 0:15:04.980 --> 0:15:08.300 or shows up late and has some sort of quasi 0:15:08.340 --> 0:15:12.340 reasonable explanation, you will think, you know, maybe he or 0:15:12.380 --> 0:15:15.820 she is hostile, maybe there's something more going on that 0:15:15.940 --> 0:15:18.660 even the person, as he speaks doesn't know about. Well, 0:15:18.700 --> 0:15:21.420 that's freud, the notion of that of the un contract. 0:15:21.540 --> 0:15:22.860 That's such a great example. 0:15:23.460 --> 0:15:26.980 See, it's humbling that that's what I mean, or is 0:15:27.020 --> 0:15:29.100 one of the things that I meant. It is humbling 0:15:29.180 --> 0:15:35.260 to know how much of ourselves we don't know. Yeah, 0:15:35.380 --> 0:15:37.140 that's why, by the way, I said to you, I 0:15:37.140 --> 0:15:40.580 would love to undergo psychoanalysis. I want to know Dennis better. 0:15:41.220 --> 0:15:43.820 Well, there's a project you Well, it is, But. 0:15:44.060 --> 0:15:47.020 That's the that's it's not because I'm sick, it's because 0:15:47.060 --> 0:15:49.820 I want It's it's like we like to we like 0:15:49.900 --> 0:15:54.100 to explore outer space. To me, psychoanalysis is exploring inner space. 0:15:54.540 --> 0:15:57.500 And I think that probably is why most people undertake 0:15:57.500 --> 0:16:01.740 psychoanalysis as opposed to, say, you know, taking prozac or 0:16:02.300 --> 0:16:05.500 undergoing a brief cognitive therapy. I think if you're going 0:16:05.540 --> 0:16:09.420 four or five days a week, you're looking for some 0:16:10.300 --> 0:16:12.220 real insight and transformation. 0:16:12.500 --> 0:16:14.380 But I will tell you this, if I were to 0:16:14.460 --> 0:16:17.780 choose a psychiatrist or psychoanalyst, that's what it would have 0:16:17.820 --> 0:16:18.100 to be. 0:16:18.180 --> 0:16:19.820 I would want a Freudian. 0:16:19.340 --> 0:16:21.380 One h And why is that? 0:16:21.780 --> 0:16:24.700 Because I have I would want them to tap into. 0:16:24.940 --> 0:16:26.780 I don't think it's all nonsense. 0:16:26.860 --> 0:16:27.260 I don't. 0:16:27.380 --> 0:16:31.020 I don't think that all of these almost Kakamami things, 0:16:31.020 --> 0:16:33.980 for example, obviously wouldn't be applicable to me. But I don't. 0:16:34.020 --> 0:16:36.540 I don't know that penis envy is totally nonsense. 0:16:36.860 --> 0:16:37.380 Uh huh. 0:16:37.420 --> 0:16:39.460 Do you think it's not totally nonsense? 0:16:39.580 --> 0:16:42.580 Well, I think it is much too simple. If you 0:16:42.660 --> 0:16:45.100 think of the You know, if you were a woman 0:16:45.340 --> 0:16:49.420 in late nineteenth earliest twentieth century Vienna, and all the 0:16:49.500 --> 0:16:52.500 power you know, were really in the hands of all 0:16:52.580 --> 0:16:55.860 the explicit power were in the hands of men, you know, 0:16:55.940 --> 0:16:59.740 of course, you might wish that you had some more 0:16:59.740 --> 0:17:03.380 of the benefits that manhood brings, whether that is related 0:17:03.460 --> 0:17:07.179 to thinking, you know that you're having the fantasy that 0:17:07.220 --> 0:17:09.139 your penis was cut off, you know, which was what 0:17:09.220 --> 0:17:12.379 he imagined, that women thought that they were they were 0:17:12.379 --> 0:17:14.700 in a sense wounded or injured. You know that does 0:17:14.740 --> 0:17:15.820 seem a little nonsense. 0:17:15.820 --> 0:17:19.659 Agal, Yeah, I agree with that in the maturer woman. 0:17:19.899 --> 0:17:22.220 I always thought of it more than any younger girl. 0:17:23.060 --> 0:17:25.659 And I must tell you, and you know I'm not I 0:17:25.659 --> 0:17:27.859 don't want to saddle you with this, so you can say, Dennis, 0:17:27.899 --> 0:17:30.340 I completely disagree, and I will never talk to you again, 0:17:30.939 --> 0:17:33.859 or at least not publicly. But but I have viewed 0:17:33.939 --> 0:17:37.139 much of the feminist movement as a form of penis envy. Yeah, 0:17:37.580 --> 0:17:43.299 in that whatever men do, that's what's really valuable, and 0:17:43.419 --> 0:17:47.499 so let us women model ourselves on the male model 0:17:47.540 --> 0:17:48.219 of achievement. 0:17:48.739 --> 0:17:50.979 Yes, I do disagree with you, do you know? I 0:17:51.020 --> 0:17:53.259 think that there's a lot to be said for power, 0:17:53.340 --> 0:17:55.819 and if you're in a culture, and I think this 0:17:55.979 --> 0:17:58.260 is less true now, and you know, you look at 0:17:58.300 --> 0:18:01.260 Madeline all right, and kind of Lisa Rice and Magufacture 0:18:01.300 --> 0:18:03.419 and so on, it certainly is less true now. But 0:18:03.459 --> 0:18:05.539 if you look at the culture over the past one 0:18:05.619 --> 0:18:08.100 hundred years, men have had so much more power. And 0:18:08.139 --> 0:18:10.619 then if you go back to times when women really 0:18:10.619 --> 0:18:14.220 couldn't own land or assume certain positions in the culture, 0:18:14.260 --> 0:18:18.259 become professionals of certain sorts, have positions, you know, within religions. 0:18:19.459 --> 0:18:21.899 I think there are lots of reasons women would be 0:18:22.060 --> 0:18:23.699 envious of men without. 0:18:23.459 --> 0:18:28.100 Having Yeah, but the feminist argument has not produced in 0:18:28.179 --> 0:18:30.899 my opinion, the average woman, I don't think, I think 0:18:30.979 --> 0:18:34.020 is less powerful today. She may have a bank account, 0:18:34.379 --> 0:18:37.820 but in terms of her influence. Uh, I mean, I think, 0:18:37.899 --> 0:18:42.099 for example, their women are far more sexualized in public 0:18:42.179 --> 0:18:48.019 life today than they were in Freud's time, right, I mean, 0:18:48.060 --> 0:18:50.659 I mean, look at look at look at what Miss 0:18:50.699 --> 0:18:55.659 America contestant has to wear today compared to fifty years ago. 0:18:56.020 --> 0:18:57.979 In terms of the skimpiness of the bikini. 0:18:58.300 --> 0:19:00.780 Well, you know, that can be degrading or that can 0:19:00.820 --> 0:19:03.579 be liberating. I think that's you know, that's a close one. 0:19:04.139 --> 0:19:05.219 Ah, that is interesting. 0:19:05.260 --> 0:19:08.100 We'll continue in a moment the thoughtful Peter Kramer and 0:19:08.139 --> 0:19:12.340 will take calls one eight Praguer seven seven six his latest. 0:19:11.979 --> 0:19:12.859 Book on Freud. 0:19:16.139 --> 0:19:18.379 You're listening to the Ultimate Issues Hora on the Dennis 0:19:18.419 --> 0:19:22.580 Prager Show, talking about the I think correctly stated by 0:19:22.619 --> 0:19:27.140 the author Peter Kramer, Professor of psychiatry at Brown University, 0:19:27.260 --> 0:19:31.139 the inventor of the modern Mind, and our take on 0:19:31.300 --> 0:19:35.179 Freud on psychiatry on all the insights here in a 0:19:35.179 --> 0:19:39.300 free wheeling discussion. We were just talking about penis envy 0:19:39.419 --> 0:19:43.580 and the silly or non silly notions that Freud had, 0:19:43.619 --> 0:19:47.220 and I was saying that if I were to undergo psychoanalysis, 0:19:47.219 --> 0:19:50.379 I would want a Freudian and that I don't fully 0:19:50.419 --> 0:19:53.819 dismiss that notion, especially in light of my view of 0:19:53.859 --> 0:19:57.699 the feminist movement, which I think exhibited it. 0:19:58.100 --> 0:20:00.379 And you don't agree, and I didn't think you would. 0:20:00.939 --> 0:20:03.340 And then I asked you, though you spoke about women 0:20:03.419 --> 0:20:05.659 in power, and I said, I thought that the average woman, 0:20:05.939 --> 0:20:10.619 not Madeline Albright, but the average woman Dr Kramer today, 0:20:11.260 --> 0:20:15.219 in fact has less power. And the average girl in 0:20:15.300 --> 0:20:19.459 high school and college feels that essentially her greatest power, 0:20:19.899 --> 0:20:22.899 I say, the averag girl, not every girl, is. 0:20:22.859 --> 0:20:25.939 In fact the flaunting of her body. 0:20:26.260 --> 0:20:29.979 Well, let me ask this question. If you could just 0:20:30.219 --> 0:20:33.179 drop down out of the you know, ozone and be 0:20:33.340 --> 0:20:37.179 born at any moment in history as a woman. When 0:20:37.219 --> 0:20:40.259 would that be? Because I think you wouldn't be in 0:20:40.300 --> 0:20:42.980 college for most of history. This is you know, the 0:20:43.020 --> 0:20:45.820 fact that a majority of people in college, I think 0:20:46.179 --> 0:20:50.539 certainly in the selective colleges are are women is absolutely unique. 0:20:50.580 --> 0:20:56.820 There's no moment like that in history. So, uh, you know, lawyers, doctors, 0:20:57.699 --> 0:21:00.660 it's right, well, women have assumed more of the burdens 0:21:00.699 --> 0:21:03.059 of men. But it's but I mean, I don't know 0:21:03.060 --> 0:21:04.980 how you would how you would answer that. But would 0:21:05.020 --> 0:21:07.379 you want to be in the fifties as a housewife 0:21:07.500 --> 0:21:08.660 or or would. 0:21:08.500 --> 0:21:12.739 You want to be you know, Well, the truth is 0:21:12.899 --> 0:21:15.779 I don't know. It's a very fair question, and I 0:21:15.820 --> 0:21:16.859 don't know the answer. 0:21:17.300 --> 0:21:21.100 I agree with the downside, and Freud would have agreed. Also. 0:21:21.300 --> 0:21:23.659 Freud was very interesting. He thought of as being one 0:21:23.699 --> 0:21:26.700 of these sexual liberation people. I think he was very 0:21:26.699 --> 0:21:30.460 aware of sexual repression, but he wasn't entirely against it. 0:21:30.899 --> 0:21:34.419 He thought that sexual repression in Leonardo DaVinci yes great 0:21:34.979 --> 0:21:37.379 art and science, and he was actually worried that he 0:21:37.419 --> 0:21:42.139 would be misunderstood as being in favor of much more 0:21:42.139 --> 0:21:45.859 sexual directors. He actually was very much of his time 0:21:45.899 --> 0:21:46.539 in that regard. 0:21:46.939 --> 0:21:47.979 Yeah. 0:21:48.300 --> 0:21:52.300 And to answer your question, I do an hour every 0:21:52.300 --> 0:21:54.179 week on my radio show on happiness. 0:21:54.179 --> 0:21:55.100 I wrote a book on it. 0:21:55.179 --> 0:21:58.219 I am very very concerned with that subject. And I 0:21:58.260 --> 0:22:01.059 don't know if the sum total of female happiness today 0:22:01.139 --> 0:22:04.859 is greater than the sum total of female happiness fifty 0:22:04.899 --> 0:22:07.580 years ago. I really when I say I don't know, 0:22:08.139 --> 0:22:10.659