In his controversies with Herrick and with Hull, we have seen how Lashley maintained a strictly biological approach to psychology, an approach that emphasized the hereditary shaping of behavior and rejected environmental influence. We have seen how he fashioned an image of himself as a “pure” scientist, focused on facts and “basic research,” equally unconcerned with theory and with social applications. We have seen how his biological approach and his self-proclaimed neutrality worked hand in hand as he argued against the reformist orientation of Progressive psychobiology and the environmentalism that underlay behaviorism. While both psychobiologists and behaviorists envisioned their science as a means of social engineering, as a tool for the rational management of people, Lashley avoided most of this rhetoric of control. He seems to have believed that the purpose of science should not be social betterment; and the absence of such betterment rhetoric from his work has allowed his neutral image to flourish.

In this chapter, I will show that Lashley's purist, biological standpoint led him not only into the two controversies already discussed, but also into a longstanding opposition to Freudian psychoanalysis. This opposition figured prominently during his tenure at Harvard (1935–1942), and led to the debacle that forced his withdrawal from active membership in the Harvard psychology department.