Art of Psychiatry Society

On June 10 2013 psychiatrist Allen Frances delivered the 2013 Freud memorial lecture.

From the Freud museum website:

Allen Frances MD was the Chair of the Task Force that prepared the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV), often called the bible of the American psychiatric profession. However, he has been a vocal critic of the new DSM V, condemning what he calls its diagnostic hyperinflation. His new book, Saving Normal, is part mea culpa, part j‘accuse, and part cri de coeur. It explores why psychiatry has always been subject to so many fads, while deploring the medicalization of everyday human experience and the excessive use of psychiatric medicine.

In the prestigious Freud Memorial Lecture, Dr Frances argues that the current under-estimation of Freud is in part the price for his having been overestimated during his lifetime. ‘It is unwise to worship Freud or the DSM as bibles – but equally unwise not to know them,’ he says. His lecture will draw attention to which of Freud’s contributions he thinks still relevant, which quaint historical artefacts.

A graduate of the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center, where he taught the Freud course for ten years, Allen Francis is now Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University, where previously he was Chair.

Prof Frances has kindly given us permission to make the slides from his presentation available to readers of this blog.  They can be downloaded via this link:

Freud lecture slides

A number of us attended the talk and we hope to post some thoughts here in due course.  In the meantime, please leave any thoughts or reactions as comments.