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Freud’s Discontents

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Re: Freud’s Discontents

#21

Post by tboyd47 »

pococo wrote: post #5

Excuse my ignorance, but why does everyone seem to hate on Freud, considering he has had a tremendous influence on modern psychology? Honest question.

I think the hate is justified, to an extent. Freud's influence is not due to his theories, but his invention of the "talking cure." His original theory of deep-seated psychosis was more in line with the modern view: that it usually springs from traumatic sexual violence experienced in infancy or childhood. But this put him between a rock and a hard place: either go forward with his research and lose his academic career, or join the rest of society in blaming the victims. Freud chose the latter, and put such a convincing intellectual spin on it that he even earned a reputation as a scientific genius.

Re: Freud’s Discontents

#22

Post by lolc »

I have on my bookshelf "Unauthorized Freud". The book is not favorable to his work. Rather, he is described as a fraud.

Now where he was right for the wrong reasons, we could see him like we see Galilei today: As a popularizer of new ideas. There is no need to go further than that.

Re: Freud’s Discontents

#23

Post by haliax »

edblarney wrote: post #14
Pigo wrote: post #4

> Instead of believing that pathologies could be described or drugged away, Freudians wanted us to work through them. If this is true, then it's definitely a practice that needs to be focused on again. I've had nothing but bad experiences with various medical professionals throwing drugs at me the moment I mentioned personal difficulties. The anti-depressants kept me in a bad place for a long time, when I think I mos…

"I definitely don't remember anyone trying to work on anything with me." This is too bad. We really have to much faith in 'pills' when they are obviously just a temporary fix for something underlying. I had a physical ailment that was hard to diagnose, the doctors could be bothered. Finally I 'fixed myself' simply by sleeping normal hours, quitting the red-bull, and quit my job and took some time away from stress. Th…

> We really have to much faith in 'pills' when they are obviously just a temporary fix for something underlying.

This is a pretty broad statement, how do you justify the implicit claim that no psychiatric illness is due to a chemical imbalance in your brain rather than a deep seated psychological issue?

Re: Freud’s Discontents

#24

Post by ihaveahadron »

tboyd47 wrote: post #18
tehwalrus wrote: post #7

I've heard that Freud's methods were poor and his brain science was junk; but I can't actually name any particular bad theory or experiment. This article did not enlighten me, at least in the first ten minutes reading it. Anyone know of a good guide? And, since it's Freud, one that won't turn my stomach?

It wasn't his methods. His idea of curing by talking is now standard practice, but was revolutionary for that time. The problem was that it put him on the path to exposing the widespread incest and rape that was going on in his society. Freud initially believed his patients, but wasn't prepared to face the consequences, so he changed his tune, and this reversal led him to come up with the far-out psychosexual theorie…

His theories probably aren't useful at all today, but he had some ideas that were good that people for whatever reason can't get today.

Re: Freud’s Discontents

#25

Post by woodandsteel »

Freud made many important contributions. He invented psychotherapy, and many of his ideas about human nature, such defense mechanisms, are quite insightful. Perhaps most important is that he was the first to try to think in detail about the psychological development of the infant and child.

Freud has gone out of date in part because the science has just moved beyond some of his key ideas. His theory is based on a set of ideas about the mind of the infant that were largely speculative. In recent decades a real empirical science of infant psychology has developed, and it turns out baby's minds are quite a bit different than Freud thought.

Psychotherapy has also become much more effective, thanks to methods like cognitive behavioral therapy. In addition, in America the practice of Freudian psychoanalysis was usually restricted to psychiatrists, which made it unavailable to most people. Non-analytic psychotherapy is practiced by psychologists and counselors, and so is far more available.

Another factor in this country is that Freud's gloomy and rather authoritarian Middle European philosophy just doesn't fit with the general optimism of Americans.

Re: Freud’s Discontents

#26

Post by lukeasrodgers »

tehwalrus wrote: post #7

I've heard that Freud's methods were poor and his brain science was junk; but I can't actually name any particular bad theory or experiment. This article did not enlighten me, at least in the first ten minutes reading it. Anyone know of a good guide? And, since it's Freud, one that won't turn my stomach?

I think it may be hard to point to bad "experiments" of Freud's, since he didn't conduct psychology experiments the way we think of today, i.e. the gold standard being double-blind randomized controlled trials. In part, this is because it's somewhere between difficult and impossible to do this kind of research in a clinical setting. In part, his lack of solid experimentation was due to the immaturity of the field and the difficult of ever doing rigorous experiments in therapeutic psychology; in part, he was just not a great scientist, anyone who argues otherwise is just engaging in apologetics.

I think that calling his brain science "junk" however (which I'm not accusing you of, just repeating your characterization, which is definitely a position some people hold) is a bit uncharitable, partly because in retrospect all of the nascent "brain science" from that time was pretty junky, but also because he was aware and often explicit that his writings were highly theoretical and speculative, e.g. his writings on the death drive, and his writings on politics and civilization were often cases of him just following lines of thought to see where they went. I think some people take Freud too seriously here (though he also sometimes took himself too seriously).

Re: Freud’s Discontents

#27

Post by lukeasrodgers »

My one quibble with this article, which I think is otherwise spot on in many regards, concerns this claim: "It is more common now to regard humanity as lucid about its interests, and rational in its fulfillment of them (a few behavioral foibles aside)."

There is a strong trend in psychology (both pop and scientific) at the moment to focus on all the ways in which we (or, by an odd synecdoche, "our brains") are irrational (e.g. Dan Ariely).

If you contrast this viewpoint, which I think is increasingly common if not already quite prevalent, with say the viewpoint of intellectuals in the 18th century on "man's nature" I'd say we have a comparatively strong belief in the deep and wide-ranging irrationality of humanity, both when it comes to ends and means.

Re: Freud’s Discontents

#28

Post by nicops »

lukeasrodgers wrote: post #27

My one quibble with this article, which I think is otherwise spot on in many regards, concerns this claim: "It is more common now to regard humanity as lucid about its interests, and rational in its fulfillment of them (a few behavioral foibles aside)." There is a strong trend in psychology (both pop and scientific) at the moment to focus on all the ways in which we (or, by an odd synecdoche, "our brains") are irrati…

The irrationality studied by Dan Ariely et al it's not comparable _at all_ with the freudian irrationality. The former brings to the forefront our fauly heuristics and biases. The later is about how culture and our psyche actively makes us ignorant of parts of ourselves that are inconvenient, and that can come out in bursts of irrational, unstable, "crazy" behavior.

Re: Freud’s Discontents

#29

Post by Pigo »

haliax wrote: post #23
edblarney wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I definitely don't remember anyone trying to work on anything with me." This is too bad. We really have to much faith in 'pills' when they are obviously just a temporary fix for something underlying. I had a physical ailment that was hard to diagnose, the doctors could be bothered. Finally I 'fixed myself' simply by sleeping normal hours, quitting the red-bull, and quit my job and took some time away from stress. Th…

> We really have to much faith in 'pills' when they are obviously just a temporary fix for something underlying. This is a pretty broad statement, how do you justify the implicit claim that no psychiatric illness is due to a chemical imbalance in your brain rather than a deep seated psychological issue?

I didn't feel like the statement carried an implicit claim that no one has schizophrenia, or other cut-and-dry physical problems. Maybe I just read it that way, but I couldn't disagree more if that's what they meant.

I had a childhood friend who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and recently died from an over-dose of heroine. He was diagnosed in his late 20's, not sure when he started suffering, but I've wondered if he'd done better if he'd gotten help sooner.

Re: Freud’s Discontents

#30

Post by edblarney »

haliax wrote: post #23
edblarney wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I definitely don't remember anyone trying to work on anything with me." This is too bad. We really have to much faith in 'pills' when they are obviously just a temporary fix for something underlying. I had a physical ailment that was hard to diagnose, the doctors could be bothered. Finally I 'fixed myself' simply by sleeping normal hours, quitting the red-bull, and quit my job and took some time away from stress. Th…

> We really have to much faith in 'pills' when they are obviously just a temporary fix for something underlying. This is a pretty broad statement, how do you justify the implicit claim that no psychiatric illness is due to a chemical imbalance in your brain rather than a deep seated psychological issue?

I didn't mean it so broadly, obviously there are some people who need pills. But I'm inclined to believe that anti-depressants, sleeping pills, and things like ritalin etc. are far, far overprescribed.
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