anyone still believe freud?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by ubermich, Jun 28, 2002.

  1. ubermich amnesiac . . . Registered Senior Member

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    i know psychology has basically tossed this guy out the window. but speaking from personal experience, i think hes dead on the money. albeit i dont have a normal relationship with my parents at fucking all, but i think i speak for everyone when i say that those most intimate primary relationships shape our every belief.

    psychology has turned a 180 on this. but i dont see why psych today is mutually exclusive with freud . freud just looked at the emotional/experiential causes. psych today looks at genetic/hard environmental factors.

    case in point: anxiety disorders. psychiatry once believed freud like a bible, lumping everything all of these into neuroses based on childhood problems. "dont try to fix it" they said. now theyve realized psychology isnt a science, its a medicine. so theyve shifted to looking for genetic factors--stuff that ties OCD/trich/tourettes for example--and uses that information to create new drugs and behavioral therapies to help people cope. theyve stopped looking at childhood/memory and focused on biology. i think thats a mistake.

    psych has gone the way of hard science. from exploration of causes to finding solution to problems. y are these mutually exclusive?

    anyone know what im talking about?
     
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  3. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    Freud is dead!

    That's not entirely accurate.

    Freud is dead because his "subconsciousness" -the central term in all forms of psychoanalysis- is question-begging, to say the least. In fact there are several theoretical problems (like dualism) associated with the notion of the subconscious.
    Freud was not a experimental scientist, whereas "psych today" is.
    Not all fields o f psychology are looking at the factors you mention. It really deends on what field you're talking about and what experimenter.

    (you can read more on wwwh.philosophyforums.com)

    Edit: mistyped Freud and subconsciousness. two key terms, I'd say... please forgive my lousy typing. I'm terrible at it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2002
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  5. NenarTronian Teenaged Transhumanist Registered Senior Member

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    Freud was a cocaine addict

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    lol. But i think some of the stuff he came up with is at least as valid as the stuff we say today about psychology.
     
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  7. Xenu BBS Whore Registered Senior Member

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    Yes Freud is dead, he died from cancer because he smoked about 20 cigars a day.

    On a non-physical level, Freud is still very much alive. There are still a good number of psychologists who take a psychoanalytic approach, or at least a blend of it. One of the reasons why I was sick of my schooling before was because almost every freakin' class had a section on the guy.

    If you look at his time period, of what was happening around him, you might understand why his ideas are important. Almost all of his ideas were breakthroughs. I personally think that some of his ideas were alright, but psychodynamics as a therapy is absolute garbage.

    The biology aspect of psychology is growing, but other areas aren't necessarily being weeded out. For example, Cognition is still large and growing. Most of the other schools are still pretty wide spread, except for the two ancient ones, structuralism, and functionalism. As the biological side of psychology grows, people are going to find that it will not explain as much as they thought it would and will resort to other schools of thought - just like the "behaviorism epidemic" in the early part of this century.

    The Unconscious (or subconscious - it seems these are used quite interchangeably) is alive and well in psychology. It's definitely a basic building block for cognitive psychology - although the meaning has changed quite a bit. In cognition it's more of just "underlying processes", rather than "something that expresses hidden desires". It has mutated but the credit still goes to Freud.

    I think Freud's biggest downfall is some of his more zanny sexual ideas, such as the Oedipus complex and penis envy. I mean how PC is "penis envy" nowadays?
     
  8. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    The term "subconscious" is NEVER ever used in cognitive psychology. I can know, I am a cognitive psychologist (Master's deg).
    You're right: the unconscious is a term referring to subliminal (sub=below + liminus=thresthold) informational processes, or -more often- used to processesthat do no need conscious processing.
    But because cognitive psychology does not want anything to do with Freuds work (oter than his work on slips of the tongue), "subconscious" is banned.

    Shows how little most understand of science: the theoretical problems (logical inconsistencies, and even sheer impossibilities) should have been his downlfall, not his Oedipal complex.

    In fact I think most people like the idea of being "only partly in control" (the Ego)....life becomes easier like that.
    "Don't blame me for jerking off: it's my Id"
     
  9. Xenu BBS Whore Registered Senior Member

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    I don't even know if Freud used "subconscious" either. It seems that the many texts that I read about Freud always used "unconscious" too. However, I have read very little of what Freud actually wrote. Nonetheless it's all semantics anyway.

    Yes, it's quite a shame how popularities of theories come from "what's fashionable" rather than "what's most scientific". I bet Thomas Kuhn has a lot to say about this.
     
  10. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    "I bet Thomas Kuhn has a lot to say about this."
    most probably.

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  11. lotuseatsvipers CloseMindedBob Registered Senior Member

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    Freud is just pop-psychology now. turn on howard stern (one of the biggest idiots in radio, but at least hes funny sometimes) and he spouts all this freud shit, I hear it everywhere, not from just him. I think its really humorous to say the least.

    But I have read some of his books, civilization and its disconent and future of an illusion (both of which i HIGHLY recommend), and they have very little or nothing to do with the classic Freudian thought you hear in pop culture(or maybe pop culture just has no idea what Freudian thought actually is??). they are mostly attacks on relgion, and other pathologies. READ THEM! ...or dont, whatever

    the way he analyzes is just amazing, a definite genious (those of you obsessed with neitzche would def like those books).
     

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