Freud & The Cocaine Episode in Context

This essay was originally posted on January 5, 2015

Coca in Context: From The Andes to Paris & Atlanta

An early documentation of the use of the medicinal properties of the coca plant came from the Spanish friar, Vincente de Valverde, reporting on the importance of the coca tree to the Incas:

"...coca, which is the leaf of a small tree that resembles the sumac found in our own Castile, is one thing that the Indians are ne'er without in their mouths, that they say sustains them and gives them refreshment, so that, even under the sun they feel not the heat, and it is worth its weight in gold in these parts, accounting for the major portion of the tithes."¹

It was not long until quantities of the medicinal plant were being exported from South America to Europe and the United States, where Western "medicine men" began making coca infused beverages and tonics. Historian Howard Markel points to an 1817 article published Gentleman's Magazine to illustrate the European fascination with coca:

"[The Indians] masticate Coca and undergo the greatest fatigue without any injury to health or bodily vigor. They want neither butcher nor baker, nor brewer, no distiller, nor fuel, nor culinary utensils."²

According to Markel, the article called for immediate scientific research to uncover the wisdom of the power of Coca.

By the mid-nineteenth century, coca leaves were being analyzed for their chemical structure. In Germany, Albert Niemann earned his doctorate by developing a method for extracting the coca alkaloid from the leaf in 1860.³  As academics and pharmaceutical laboratories were investigating the chemical properties of coca, medicine men of a different sort were developing tonics and a variety of coca-infused beverages. One of the most popular and successful of these libations was Vin Mariani, a coca wine developed by the French chemist Angelo Mariani. By the turn of the century, Vin Mariani had become the choice intoxicant of many celebrities and artists. Mariani published a collection of celebrity endorsements for his wine in a book entitled Portraits from Album Mariani.⁴

In 1859 the influential Italian neurologist and fiction writer, Paolo Mantegazza, published an influential paper On the Hygenic and Medicinal Virtues of Coca.⁵  Sigmund Freud was an avid reader of Mantegazza's fiction.⁶

The Myth of Freud's Iceberg Model

Originally published on February 29, 2012

The 1933 illustration Freud used to depict the psyche.

About ten years ago I was heading to teach a class in introductory psychology at a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. As I walked passed the social sciences office I encountered a box of books marked "free". Little did I know that the box contained an out of print gem, Robert C. Bolles' The Story of Psychology: A Thematic History.

On The Psychology of Religion (Part 2)

                                                                                                                 

Psychology & Religion

Psychology and religion have a historically uneasy relationship. Many psychologist hold the view that religious belief is parochial, myopic, and ignorant. Many religious thinkers find psychology to be rigidly adherent to objective empiricism (only accepting as valid that which is observable and measurable) and capable of producing only shallow interpretations of spirituality. Although these attitudes are not reflective of all psychologists and theologians, we can make a general observation that what religion  might lack in certainty, psychology might lack in wisdom.

On The Psychology of Religion and Religious Belief (Part 1)

Religion matters to many Americans. When asked, 42% of the population believes in creationism and 57% believes that religion can answer all or most of our problems. This high level of religiosity in roughly half of the population entices a number of questions regarding religiosity and the human experience of religion.

The Social Responsibility of the Press: Lessons From the 1947 Hutchins Commission

This article originally appeared on February 26, 2015.

Journalists and the media platforms that broadcast their work play an essential role in the American version of democracy. Those who write the news, produce, and distribute it act as an unofficial fourth estate of government. Founders including Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson felt that the press should act as a watchdog that keeps-in-check the actions of the executive, legislative, and judicial estates of government.

The history of journalism is necessarily entangled with the history of technology. With each technological revolution, the fourth estate has undergone considerable transformations. In its earliest appearance town criers would read the news aloud to a largely illiterate citizenry. The press came to refer to the news when figures such as  John Campbell, John Peter Zenger, and Benjamin Franklin established press-printed news broadsheets; early forms of print newspapers. The technological transition passed from an oral, to print, to electronic, and currently to digital medium which has been described as a networked fourth estate or a fifth estate. Marshall McLuhan's (now banal) declaration that, "the medium is the message," points to the fact that technology influences how we receive, process, and react to information.

The Public Pursuit of Personal Significance

It has been a decade since Facebook has been available to all Internet users. We construct public personae that proposes what we would like others to believe about us and what we would like to believe about ourselves. We cultivate a satisfying image that we float for others to either validate or reject through likes and comments. We carefully construct our persona campaigns through images, writings, videos, and sound recordings. We also carefully share media produced by others that supports our public image.

Sometimes a post is made with just one recipient in mind. We make these posts publicly as a sort of cloak under which the intended recipient can be reached without the risk of our having to take full responsibility for our actions. We can also carry on private conversations which enables us to communicate with one person, or a select group of persons. Often these conversations take place synchronously with a corresponding public conversation. In this way, the platform functions on a public and private level, Facebook replicates a conscious/unconscious or private/public structure. We present carefully selected information publicly and privately. It is interesting to consider what the chronological correspondence must look like, if we were able to compare one's public and private postings.

Before the digital persona campaign, we knew much less about fewer people. When we encountered an acquaintance, or an old friend in a public space, there were certain limitations on what they knew about us and what we knew about them. Public image, the persona campaign, was much slower and shallower. One's public persona was limited to how they acted, what they shared, and with whom. Occasionally some individuals or families would publish annual newsletters that served to inform those close to them of the state of their affairs. Some published holiday cards with the image of the happy, prosperous family. But those media are trifling compared to the mass, digital platforms we use today.

We now know much more intimate details about many more people. These details are carefully crafted; we have become public relations experts. We attentively construct how we want others to think of us and look to their reactions for validation of a desired image and self-view. Much of what we publicly post goes beyond the polite and acceptable grounds of sharing, and serves the purpose of generating a social image of ourselves and our families.

We grieve our losses, celebrate our accomplishments, share gossip, news, and culture at a pace and volume that was heretofore unknown. Each of us now eclipses the daily exposure that even the most celebrated celebrity experienced only fifty years ago. Every piece of information is carefully selected, constructed, presented. Some of us have become extremely well versed in the strategies and techniques while others founder. Some strategically observe and cautiously, conservatively release well timed, infrequent, declarations of self and family. Others disseminate on a hourly basis and on multiple platforms. These are different styles of public relations used in the persona campaign.

What is the purpose of all this campaigning? Are we merely sharing with others, socializing with our communities, and participating in the conversation? Do we need digital, social networking to satisfy those needs? Does it have to be so fast, so frequent, and so profuse? Or are we acting as a sort of salesperson, peddling ourselves on the character market, hoping to reap the riches of social acceptance, admiration, and even that most prized evidence of our personal value--being envied?

It seems we are all selling something on the Internet, and I gather that something is ourselves. Or maybe a carefully crafted, strategically conceived, self-assuring idea of ourselves. The goal seems to be the same for each of us, regardless of the campaign strategies. We all have a deep need to feel significant.