ABSTRACT
George Orwell and Sigmund Freud seem mutually uncongenial figures in intellectual history. Freud was reluctant to develop the political and social implications of psychoanalysis and thought that his techniques were scientific and therefore ideologically neutral. Wherever Freud “applied” psychoanalysis to society, he made the point that his application represented merely his personal views and that others might use psychoanalytic ideas to reach different ethical conclusions. According to psychoanalysis, neurosis binds one to the terrors one tries to master. Freud sought to understand self-destructiveness. The whole concept of “resistance” in psychoanalysis can be abused readily; Freud’s system had too many formulas that excused both analysts and patients from assuming full responsibility for their actions. While Freud was alive he took pains to doctor the history of psychoanalysis to suit his own ideological purposes, and since his death, orthodox followers have continued the falsification of history.
