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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 no

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?

inimino 10y ago
There's a lot of nonsense thrown around about Freud. If you're interested, there's nothing better to just read the man himself. You can form your own opinions and you'll get a lot more out of it than reading someone's inevitably biased commentary.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  Given that most of us here probably don't have any sort of medical training, are our own opinions likely to be worth anything?
  - inimino 10y ago
    Medical training is not necessary to understand Freud. If you think your opinion is worthless, how would you choose which "expert" to trust?
tboyd47 10y ago
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 theories he's so famous for. Freud is still regarded as the father of modern psychology, perhaps because he was the first to actually sit down with his patients and take them seriously. Here's an article that tells the story in detail: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1984/02/freud-and-the-seduction-theory/376313/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1984/02/freud-an...
- ihaveahadron 10y ago
  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.
lukeasrodgers 10y ago
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).
digler999 10y ago
> And, since it's Freud, one that won't turn my stomach? Ah, a primitive emotion - fear - protecting you from the psychosomatic response (nausea) emanating from the id, the reptilian section responsible for protecting you from primal dangers (attack/rape). That was a lame attempt to be meta, but I think one of his junk theories was the oedipus complex[1], the theory that children sexually lust for a parent. I think that one has mainly been discounted, but as another poster said, Freud sort of blew the lid off all the rapey things that were going on (people came to him with "hysteria", which was probably PTSD and anxiety, he asked them about their history, most of them were raped/molested/traumatized, and decided these rape victims needed a clean, palatable theoretical explanation instead of condemning their attackers). Not all of his stuff was junk, though. His drive-defense model is still partially in use today (just google psychological defenses, see the list of them on wikipedia). What bugs me about Freud critics is they appear to bash him as if he's out there now, still practicing. He came up with this stuff 100 years ago, and just like pioneering medical doctors from 100 years ago (who aren't criticized even a fraction of Freud), his research is obsolete and has been replaced by more refined and sophisticated models. I dont know why so many people wont accept that: we dont remove an appendix the way we did in 1912, just as we dont treat depression the way Freud did. And we dont condemn 1912's surgeons as fools for not knowing what we know today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  The reason people keep beating up on Freud is that a great many intellectuals and people in the humanities still worship him.

inimino 10y ago

There's a lot of nonsense thrown around about Freud. If you're interested, there's nothing better to just read the man himself. You can form your own opinions and you'll get a lot more out of it than reading someone's inevitably biased commentary.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
Given that most of us here probably don't have any sort of medical training, are our own opinions likely to be worth anything?
- inimino 10y ago
  Medical training is not necessary to understand Freud. If you think your opinion is worthless, how would you choose which "expert" to trust?

tboyd47 10y ago

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 theories he's so famous for. Freud is still regarded as the father of modern psychology, perhaps because he was the first to actually sit down with his patients and take them seriously. Here's an article that tells the story in detail: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1984/02/freud-and-the-seduction-theory/376313/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1984/02/freud-an...

ihaveahadron 10y ago
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.

lukeasrodgers 10y ago

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).

digler999 10y ago

> And, since it's Freud, one that won't turn my stomach? Ah, a primitive emotion - fear - protecting you from the psychosomatic response (nausea) emanating from the id, the reptilian section responsible for protecting you from primal dangers (attack/rape). That was a lame attempt to be meta, but I think one of his junk theories was the oedipus complex[1], the theory that children sexually lust for a parent. I think that one has mainly been discounted, but as another poster said, Freud sort of blew the lid off all the rapey things that were going on (people came to him with "hysteria", which was probably PTSD and anxiety, he asked them about their history, most of them were raped/molested/traumatized, and decided these rape victims needed a clean, palatable theoretical explanation instead of condemning their attackers). Not all of his stuff was junk, though. His drive-defense model is still partially in use today (just google psychological defenses, see the list of them on wikipedia). What bugs me about Freud critics is they appear to bash him as if he's out there now, still practicing. He came up with this stuff 100 years ago, and just like pioneering medical doctors from 100 years ago (who aren't criticized even a fraction of Freud), his research is obsolete and has been replaced by more refined and sophisticated models. I dont know why so many people wont accept that: we dont remove an appendix the way we did in 1912, just as we dont treat depression the way Freud did. And we dont condemn 1912's surgeons as fools for not knowing what we know today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex

woodandsteel 10y ago
The reason people keep beating up on Freud is that a great many intellectuals and people in the humanities still worship him.