At home among the Puritans: Sigmund Freud and the Calvinist tradition in America

Sigmund Freud's system of ideas that he labelled "psychoanalysis" in 1895 was warmly received in America, particularly New England, between 1900 and 1915 at the same time that it was extensively rejected in Europe. The conventional explanation for Freud's popularity in the United States rests on the perception of this Austrian neurologist as the enemy of American Puritanism. In this context, Freud is perceived as optimistic and pragmatic.;Freud commented that America lacked any "deep-rooted" intellectual tradition that would challenge psychoanalysis. However, he did not consider that his views echoed the concerns of the 17th century American puritans whose vision of the vitiated state of humanity adumbrated Freud's psychoanalysis by three hundred years. When Freud's ideas were first read by New Englanders such as G. Stanley Hall and James Jackson Putnam, these men recognized a moral perspective that looked back to their own Calvinist heritage. However, neither embraced Freud for his traditional ideas. Instead, Hall and Putnam welcomed the European for his "scientific discoveries." This dissertation links many of Freud's "scientific" principles to an earlier worldview held by the Puritans.;The principles that Freud offered in his system of psychoanalysis deeply affirmed the Puritan view of mind and body. Calvinist and Freudian alike rejected the dualistic view that "the body is the prison of the soul." If Freud sought to cure the illnesses caused by repressing the "passions of the id," then he also acknowledged the existence of these unruly affections. Both the Puritans and Freud held that the sexual instinct is problematic and needs to be controlled, but not repressed.;In the 19th century Calvinism experienced a decline, especially with the rise of optimism expressed in Methodist Perfectionism and New England Transcendentalism. The complicated view of human nature that the Puritans had held found its expression in the male Romantic hero. To balance this dangerous but attractive personality, men looked to women to provide moral shelter from their storms of passion. Psychoanalysis revitalized the Puritan view of women. The Calvinist tradition provided a fertile intellectual soil in which Freud sowed his ideas.