Somatization is based on Freud and Freud has been said to be heavily influenced by cocaine. So can we say that the belief of psychogenic illness is at least partially based on cocaine?
It is believed by many scholars that Freud compulsively abused cocaine over a period of 12 years. During that time many fundamental theories upon which Psychoanalysis is based were developed.
A brief timeline:
1865 Freud enters Leopoldstadter Gymnasium School.
1873 Freud decides to study medicine at the University of Vienna. Reads
Oedipus Rex for final school examinations.
1881 Freud graduates as doctor of medicine.
1884 Freud starts researching clinical uses of cocaine.
In his first publication he wrote:
Coca is a far more potent and far less harmful stimulant than alcohol, and its widespread utilization is hindered at present only by its high cost.
Long-term use of coca is further strongly recommended and allegedly has been tried with success – in all diseases which involve degeneration of the tissues...
After experimenting with "Coca" he decides to move away from traditional neurology to study the human mind instead.
1885 Freud studies under Charcot at the Salpetriere Hospital, Paris. Charcot provides new insight into hysteria and uses hypnosis.
1886 Freud sets up private practice.
1887 Freud treats nervous diseases in his practice. Introduces hypnotic suggestion.
1895 Freud has to have his nose opened up surgically because it was so congested from cocaine abuse that he was unable to breathe.
1895 Publishes "Studies on Hysteria" with Josef Breuer. Introduces the idea that the symptoms of hysteria were symbolic representations of traumatic memories, often of a sexual nature.
Breuer's work with Bertha Pappenheim provided the founding impetus for psychoanalysis, as Freud himself would acknowledge. In their preliminary (1893) paper, both men agreed that “the hysteric suffers mainly from reminiscences. Freud however would come to lay more stress on the causative role of sexuality in producing hysteria, as well as gradually repudiating Breuer's use of hypnosis as a means of treatment.
1896 Freud claims to have stopped his cocaine consumption.
1896 First use of the term 'psychoanalysis'.
1897 Freud's self-analysis begins, leading to the abandonment of the trauma theory of neurosis (developed with Breuer), recognition of infantile sexuality and the 'Oedipus complex'.
1897 One of his patients, Emma Eckstein nearly dies following a nasal surgery recommended by Freud.
Emma was believed to suffer from nasal reflex neurosis. Either Freud or his friend Wilhelm Fliess had discovered that applying cocaine to the inner parts of the nose would lead to instant relief from neurotic symptoms like depression or anxiety. They theorized that the nose was involved in causing neurosis and removing a part of the nose surgically would lead to permanent improvements of the mental state.
1899 Publishes his important work 'The Interpretation of Dreams'. The book was based on his most important dream where he meets one of his patients, Emma Eckstein at a party in midst of syringes and cocaine.
The two most important paragraphs in the timeline in my opinion:
1895 Freud has to have his nose opened up surgically because it was so congested from cocaine abuse that he was unable to breathe.
1895 Publishes "Studies on Hysteria" with Josef Breuer. Introduces the idea that the symptoms of hysteria were symbolic representations of traumatic memories, often of a sexual nature.
I don't know if the surgery happened before or after "Studies on Hysteria" was published.
another rather interesting claim:
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/25/142782875/a-tale-of-two-addicts-freud-halsted-and-cocaine
DR. HOWARD MARKEL: Freud loved the way cocaine made him feel. And he was very interested in its psychological components. For one, it did make him feel better when he was sad.
He also was amazed at how it made him talk about things endlessly that he thought were locked away in his brain. Sound familiar? That’s talk therapy, but without the toxic side effects of cocaine. But he got to like it a little bit too much.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Did any of his writings, the dreams, the sense of euphoria, all the things that he got from using cocaine, did any of those lead to anything that we now see in psychiatry today?
DR. HOWARD MARKEL: Well, it did. It did. To begin with, the idea of talk therapy where you talk freely or free associate from one thing to another, may have been inspired by the cocaine unleashing his tongue or his repressed memories. But most importantly, cocaine haunts the pages of “The Interpretation of Dreams.”
MARKEL: Well, it's a complicated answer. It's yes and no. I mean, there are points in Freud's early cocaine abuse where he was amazed at how loquacious it made him, how it freed up ideas that he thought were locked within his mind. Sound familiar?
FLATOW: Yeah.
MARKEL: And of course, that's what - a safer version of that is free association, where you're simply talking about things and going from topic to topic, to try to delve what's in your unconscious or subconscious mind.