Why do schools of thought fail? Neo-Freudianism as a case study in the sociology of knowledge

A full account of the social production of knowledge requires an understanding of how schools of thought fail, as well as succeed. This paper offers a sociology of knowledge analysis of the collapse of neo‐Freudianism as a separate school of psychoanalysis and influential intellectual current. While the existing literature stresses personal conflicts between Karen Horney, Erich Fromm and Harry Stack Sullivan as a major cause of the failure of cultural psychoanalysis, my analysis highlights the sect‐like nature of Freudian institutes, the professionalizing dynamics of American psychoanalysis, the contribution of the celebrity‐dominated book market and culture, and the highly controversial nature of Erich Fromm's writings and intellectual activity. Neo‐Freudianism is conceptualized as a hybrid system that is a combination of a literary phenomena, intellectual movement, faction of a sect, theoretical innovation and therapy. This analysis of hybrid intellectual systems raises larger sociology of knowledge questions about schools of thought and intellectual movements. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.