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I would not call him genius. Alfred Adler perhaps was. Freud was a misogyn and a drug addict, and he proposed a lot of theories that leave modern people scratc

by manmal 9y ago

I would not call him genius. Alfred Adler perhaps was. Freud was a misogyn and a drug addict, and he proposed a lot of theories that leave modern people scratching their heads. Eg he attributed almost all mental problems to sexuality, coined the ridiculous Oedipus complex, and once called girls „strange little beings without a penis“. Sure, the field was at the very beginning, but why did he always have to bring penises into play? He happened to found the first thought school for explaining mental illnesses, but most of his ideas have since been accepted to be wrong or way too crude.

coldtea 9y ago
>Freud was a misogyn and a drug addict, and he proposed a lot of theories that leave modern people scratching their heads. All three are totally orthogonal to someone being a genius -- and at least the second is a very puritan concern to level at someone regarding their contributions to science/culture/etc. >Eg he attributed almost all mental problems to sexuality And a heck of a lot (of the soft kind, not physiological issues) can be attributed there -- especially since the only real mechanism behind humanity's (and any animals) continued existence, and the closest thing to an "end purpose" for any individual, is reproduction. >coined the ridiculous Oedipus complex Nothing ridiculous about it -- and it was not for some irrelevant chance that those kind of relationships and dynamics were studied and concerned civilizations for millennia (including, but not limited nor starting from, the ancient Greek play on Oedipus).
- phkahler 9y ago
  >> >coined the ridiculous Oedipus complex >> Nothing ridiculous about it Except that Freud suffered from it himself - he had a thing for his own mother - and then projected his shame onto patients to such an extent that he thought it was the foundation of everyones problems. The challenge with analysis is that it needs to be done by the patient. Only they can see/hear whats going on in their head.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    > The challenge with analysis is that it needs to be done by the patient. Only they can see/hear whats going on in their head. Based on my limited personal experience as a patient, this is quite insightful. No medication could solve my issues with depression. What did turn my life around was when I was finally able to get a hold on the cycles that my mind goes through on a regular basis and terminate the feedback loop that leads to despondency for me. Counseling was only useful for me in that it allowed me to consult with someone with much more experience in the field to make sure my own observations of self matched the outward reality. In my early twenties I believe I experienced a taste of what schizophrenia is, although I was never diagnosed with it. My mind would make connections between ideas that seemed extremely important at the time, but between which no connections actually existed. I developed a habit of taking notes when I get excited about an idea and then going back in a day or two to review them to see if it still makes sense. In the vast majority of cases they don't.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - oolaf 9y ago
      When and how did the behavior described in your last paragraph end?
- manmal 9y ago
  Your arguments are rather philosophical than based on hard facts (IMO that’s a big problem with a lot of psych research, giving the field a bad rep). Those ideas have been discarded via proper scientific studies, and research has long moved on. Psychoanalytics who hold onto Freud need their patients to come to them for years or even decades - I think this also tells a lot about the efficacy of applying Freudian theories clinically. Behavioral therapy works way better and faster, and it does so by integrating our knowledge about how the brain works.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >Your arguments are rather philosophical than based on hard facts (IMO that’s a big problem with a lot of psych research, giving the field a bad rep). On the other hand, I find arguments based on hard facts naive and ignoring that the interpretation of facts (and the framework for understanding them) is what makes them usable for anything, not their inherent quality.

by manmal 9y ago

coldtea 9y ago

>Freud was a misogyn and a drug addict, and he proposed a lot of theories that leave modern people scratching their heads. All three are totally orthogonal to someone being a genius -- and at least the second is a very puritan concern to level at someone regarding their contributions to science/culture/etc. >Eg he attributed almost all mental problems to sexuality And a heck of a lot (of the soft kind, not physiological issues) can be attributed there -- especially since the only real mechanism behind humanity's (and any animals) continued existence, and the closest thing to an "end purpose" for any individual, is reproduction. >coined the ridiculous Oedipus complex Nothing ridiculous about it -- and it was not for some irrelevant chance that those kind of relationships and dynamics were studied and concerned civilizations for millennia (including, but not limited nor starting from, the ancient Greek play on Oedipus).

phkahler 9y ago
>> >coined the ridiculous Oedipus complex >> Nothing ridiculous about it Except that Freud suffered from it himself - he had a thing for his own mother - and then projected his shame onto patients to such an extent that he thought it was the foundation of everyones problems. The challenge with analysis is that it needs to be done by the patient. Only they can see/hear whats going on in their head.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  > The challenge with analysis is that it needs to be done by the patient. Only they can see/hear whats going on in their head. Based on my limited personal experience as a patient, this is quite insightful. No medication could solve my issues with depression. What did turn my life around was when I was finally able to get a hold on the cycles that my mind goes through on a regular basis and terminate the feedback loop that leads to despondency for me. Counseling was only useful for me in that it allowed me to consult with someone with much more experience in the field to make sure my own observations of self matched the outward reality. In my early twenties I believe I experienced a taste of what schizophrenia is, although I was never diagnosed with it. My mind would make connections between ideas that seemed extremely important at the time, but between which no connections actually existed. I developed a habit of taking notes when I get excited about an idea and then going back in a day or two to review them to see if it still makes sense. In the vast majority of cases they don't.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - oolaf 9y ago
    When and how did the behavior described in your last paragraph end?
manmal 9y ago
Your arguments are rather philosophical than based on hard facts (IMO that’s a big problem with a lot of psych research, giving the field a bad rep). Those ideas have been discarded via proper scientific studies, and research has long moved on. Psychoanalytics who hold onto Freud need their patients to come to them for years or even decades - I think this also tells a lot about the efficacy of applying Freudian theories clinically. Behavioral therapy works way better and faster, and it does so by integrating our knowledge about how the brain works.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Your arguments are rather philosophical than based on hard facts (IMO that’s a big problem with a lot of psych research, giving the field a bad rep). On the other hand, I find arguments based on hard facts naive and ignoring that the interpretation of facts (and the framework for understanding them) is what makes them usable for anything, not their inherent quality.