I have a large collection of Philip K. Dick novels that I’ve been working my way through. Two of the most recent titles were Clans of the Aphane Moon and Martian Time-Slip. Both of these novels have psychology as a major plot device and take a… how shall I say, fanatically Freudian approach to it. For instance, a character is described as having “oral/sucking” personality (I don’t even know exactly know what that means). Another character is described as having “sadisitc/emasculating” personality, a decription far out of proportion to the actions of that character by today’s standards.
Was Philip K. Dick use of psychology accurate for his era? Was he parodying the field of psychology? In a phrase, WTF?
IMO, both. Psychology in the '50s/'60s was a lot more Freudian; some of his ideas had been discredited but not all. There were still people who talked about oral/sucking personality (which means that their psyche is still stuck in the infancy stage, or some crap like that) and blamed all a person’s problems squarely on their mother and all that other stuff that comes with the pseudoscience of Freudianism. So it makes sense that when PKD used shrinks in his book, they would tend to be of the Freudian school instead of taking a more biochemical approach which was still mostly unheard of then. He does go overboard with it sometime, though, even for the '60s, which is why I think a lot of it is parody. For instance, I took Clans of the Alphane Moon as a drawn-out satire of the damaging effects of psychiatric diagnoses and the standardization of psychiatric treatment, sort of taking Freudianism to its logical conclusions.
So while some of PKD’s psych-talk seems like obvious parody of Freudianism (Dr. Glaub in Martian Time-Slip is another thing that comes instantly to mind), he probably believed a lot of it himself. After all, he saw his own analyst several times a week, and was a product of his culture.
It also seems that in his books, a good portion of his mentally ill characters seem to be misdiagnosed or overly diagnosed by today’s standards. I don’t know how many times I saw a slightly maladjusted guy get diagnosed with schizophrenia or a “manic-depressive-type personality” and start in instantly with heavy anti-psychotics and a long course of Freudian therapy. I love PKD, he’s my favorite writer, but some of his books haven’t aged very well at all.
Thanks for your reply. It kind of goes along with my thinking – some of it is parody but quite a bit is supposed to be “on the level” or a depiction of normal psychiatric practice. And as you said, it hasn’t aged well in some cases.
It is interesting to read from across such a large cultural gulf. I have a lot more PKD to go though! (When I worked for a book retailer I got the whole set free when Vantage reprinted them in matching editions, ah, those were the days). I