Psychoanalysis
- Thread starter Asexperia
- Start date
Not every science can utilize math so readily.
It's a part of psychology as a whole.
It's a part of psychology as a whole.
Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
You answered other, what?
Science ++
Are you really interested or do you want a simple classification?
That list looks like a simple classification, and this is not a simple subject.
Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
I'm interested in what category psychoanalysis fits.
Too bad. It doesn't.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I'm inclined to think that psychoanalysis is bullshit, by and large.
But one could probably make an argument for it being any one of your 1 through 5.
1. Freud evidently intended that it be science, and some people still consider it science today. It's ostensibly based on evidence, Freud's conclusions drawn from his various analyses, and the experiences of his followers with their own patients.
2. I'd probably be more comfortable calling it pseudoscience though. I don't think that most of mainstream psychology takes it very seriously. My reason for thinking that psychoanalysis is pseudoscience is that the link between the theories and the evidence upon which they supposedly rest is pretty vague and indistinct, unless a whole lot of imagination is employed.
3. Its greatest popularity today is among literary theorists. They find that psychoanalysis provides them with an interpretive framework from which to 'analyze' works of literature and society more generally.
4. Well sure. Hypotheses are what most of science is when you get down to it. Freud and his successors observed lots of things with the people that they were psychoanalyzing. And in the manner of a literary theorist, they interpreted that information in terms of their hypothetical mental structures and forces. Then in rather circular fashion, they took the fact that they had doe so as scientific evidence of the truth and suitability of their hypothetical interpretive framework.
Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
Psychoanalysis put aside the conscious processes of the subject. It predicts that neurotic symptoms are the consequence of repression of instinctual desires in childhood.
Neurotic symptoms are not the result of repressed desires but of the lack of channeling of anxiety and depression. Those symptoms can be consciously managed with the help of the psychologist.
Neurotic symptoms are not the result of repressed desires but of the lack of channeling of anxiety and depression. Those symptoms can be consciously managed with the help of the psychologist.
You seem to draw a great many inferences from a very small conceptual base.
What is your definition of psychoanalysis? Do you differentiate it from psychotherapy in general? Do you limit the functional definition to the methods of a single practitioner, or a particular school - or what?
What constitutes a "neurotic symptom"?
What is "channeling"? Why should it happen? How is it done? What are the underlying causes of "anxiety" and "depression"?
However, one cannot help but wonder whether all of those psychologists and therapies would be available today, without the pioneering work of Freud, Adler and Jung. It's facile - not to mention pointless - to dismiss the early theorists in a field for not making it complete and perfect in the process of inventing it.
What is your definition of psychoanalysis? Do you differentiate it from psychotherapy in general? Do you limit the functional definition to the methods of a single practitioner, or a particular school - or what?
Where did you get that? Have you any idea how many types, schools and methods of psychotherapy exist in the present moment - never mind how many others have gone in and out of favour over time? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_psychotherapies
Where is this "prediction" written?
What constitutes a "neurotic symptom"?
Thus spake -- who, exactly? On what evidence? What makes you think either of those causes is exclusive of the other, or, indeed of one or more other causes?
What is "channeling"? Why should it happen? How is it done? What are the underlying causes of "anxiety" and "depression"?
Indeed. In some, many and possibly most patients, some, many, and perhaps most undesired feelings, urges and behaviours can be "managed" by some form of cognitive therapy under the guidance of the appropriate psychologist, plus the appropriate dosage of the appropriate medication, for that particular patient with those particular symptoms - always keeping in mind that "manage" does not mean "alleviate" or "cure".
However, one cannot help but wonder whether all of those psychologists and therapies would be available today, without the pioneering work of Freud, Adler and Jung. It's facile - not to mention pointless - to dismiss the early theorists in a field for not making it complete and perfect in the process of inventing it.
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Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
- Jeeves said: Where is this "prediction" written?
- There are a lot of bibliography that confirms it.
- Jeeves said: What constitutes a "neurotic symptom"?
- It is the one that does not have a physical cause, but emotional.
- Jeeves said; What is "channeling"?
- It is the recognition and externalization of emotions.
- There are a lot of bibliography that confirms it.
- Jeeves said: What constitutes a "neurotic symptom"?
- It is the one that does not have a physical cause, but emotional.
- Jeeves said; What is "channeling"?
- It is the recognition and externalization of emotions.
Cite three. I've never read a single 'prediction' as applied to anyone's psychotherapy.
What, like anger, affection, amusement, joy....?
I thought that was called "expression". Last heard "channeling" meant a psychic or medium:
— a person's body being taken over by a spirit for the purpose of communication
Asexperia
Registered Senior Member
1- Freud believed dreams represented a disguised fulfillment of a repressed wish. He believed that studying dreams provided the easiest road to understanding of the unconscious activities of the mind. ... According to the idea that Freud proposed, the dream is considered the guardian of sleep.
Psychoanalytic dream interpretation - Wikipedia
2- Sucking itself is defined as a sexual autoerotic pleasure, "as a sample of the sexual manifestations of childhood" (p. 179).
Sucking itself is defined as a sexual autoerotic pleasure, "as a sample of the sexual manifestations of childhood" (p. 179).
3- Freud described it as such: "The importance of free association is that the patients spoke for themselves, rather than repeating the ideas of the analyst; they work through their own material, rather than parroting another's suggestions".[2]
Free association (psychology)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There are many more predictions
The question is: are they true predictions?
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So he did...or rather, that was one of many things he believed. Why you're harping on it a hundred years later is unclear.
However, if you know anything at all about the times and culture and class-structure in which his patients developed the problems for which they sought his help, you won't be surprised that they had a lot of desires they were forbidden to discuss or even think about.
Guess what! It still is. Which is why so many mental health practitioners advise their patients/clients to keep a dream log.
And your problem with either or both of those observations?
Have you read any of the case studies to which those observations refer?
Neither of the opinions you cited qualify as predictions.
Probably hundreds.