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Why are we still talking about Freud? Some researchers studied how to be happy. Unsurprisingly they also found no support for Freudian ideas that were popular

by dguest 3y ago

Why are we still talking about Freud? Some researchers studied how to be happy. Unsurprisingly they also found no support for Freudian ideas that were popular 30 years ago. The Cambridge University PR office still leads by stating Freudian ideas as the "accepted narrative". Maybe they are? But this is the least novel result of the study, and yet it's in the headline. Obviously we shouldn't shoot the messenger: science writers are just going for clicks like most of the internet. But wow, Freud dug us quite a deep hole to climb out of.

scns 3y ago
It is so easy being smarter than Plato/Kant/Freud. You just need to be born later. Still they are a valuable part of the evolution of the human mind IMHO. Some of his thoughts still make sense, even if they are not falsifiable.
barrysteve 3y ago
Because Freud fills his niche perfectly. People who want to refer to his ideas, his character, his writing, can do so.. What bothers me deeply is that all the first-order/top-level work was done in the past and we're not really exploring that space anymore. The science may disprove Freud, and unfortunately we have still not progressed past his niche and character as an intro to psychology. Freud didn't dig a hole, he left a high quality signpost to the future. We need a better signpost but people are using Freud 'cause recent second-order psych and statistics is sexier.
derbOac 3y ago
Maybe there's a generic term for this (objects or figures held up for attack as a way of signaling group membership), but in the behavioral sciences and psychiatry there's a lot of strawman figures or ideas that get held up by authors as an object of derision, as a way for the authors to assert being part of "real science". This takes a lot of forms, but Freud is one of these figures. Others involve references to mind-body dualism ("this is a brain-based phenomenon, not a psychological one", which is ironic in a lot of ways), there a lot of others. The behavioral sciences often are ridiculed by other sciences, sometimes rightly so, but sometimes by people who are unaware of the complexities involved in certain topics, or who are otherwise just being narcissistic bullies; so people trying in good faith to do research sometimes use targeting figures like Freud to signal their "science credentials." This case leaves me scratching my head a bit because the idea of suppressing negative thoughts sometimes being a bad thing isn't just a Freudian idea (what Freud was actually saying, and how different modern theories are from those of Freud, is a whole topic onto itself). CBT, which is often held up as some kind of gold standard of empirically supported therapy, has this idea of a hierarchy of beliefs, some a person might be aware of, and others of which the person only holds implicitly. These "core beliefs" go unaddressed, sometimes through active avoidance, which leads to problems (or so the theory goes). Or from a purely behavioral perspective, someone has some fear that leads to elaborate avoidance behaviors, which cause impairments — the treatment being exposure to the feared stimulus. The framing of this is odd because I don't think any good therapist would say that avoiding negative thoughts is always good or always bad. It depends on the situation. Sometimes someone needs to just shift attention from unproductive rumination. But sometimes people do have a lot of issues that go unaddressed, and that avoidance becomes unhealthy because it leaves a whole belief system or set of interpersonal problems unresolved, or snowballs out of control. None of this is necessarily Freudian or not Freudian, and framing it as such says more about the concerns of the authors than anything about the theories used in modern therapy or the implications of the study results.

by dguest 3y ago

scns 3y ago

It is so easy being smarter than Plato/Kant/Freud. You just need to be born later. Still they are a valuable part of the evolution of the human mind IMHO. Some of his thoughts still make sense, even if they are not falsifiable.

barrysteve 3y ago

Because Freud fills his niche perfectly. People who want to refer to his ideas, his character, his writing, can do so.. What bothers me deeply is that all the first-order/top-level work was done in the past and we're not really exploring that space anymore. The science may disprove Freud, and unfortunately we have still not progressed past his niche and character as an intro to psychology. Freud didn't dig a hole, he left a high quality signpost to the future. We need a better signpost but people are using Freud 'cause recent second-order psych and statistics is sexier.

derbOac 3y ago

Maybe there's a generic term for this (objects or figures held up for attack as a way of signaling group membership), but in the behavioral sciences and psychiatry there's a lot of strawman figures or ideas that get held up by authors as an object of derision, as a way for the authors to assert being part of "real science". This takes a lot of forms, but Freud is one of these figures. Others involve references to mind-body dualism ("this is a brain-based phenomenon, not a psychological one", which is ironic in a lot of ways), there a lot of others. The behavioral sciences often are ridiculed by other sciences, sometimes rightly so, but sometimes by people who are unaware of the complexities involved in certain topics, or who are otherwise just being narcissistic bullies; so people trying in good faith to do research sometimes use targeting figures like Freud to signal their "science credentials." This case leaves me scratching my head a bit because the idea of suppressing negative thoughts sometimes being a bad thing isn't just a Freudian idea (what Freud was actually saying, and how different modern theories are from those of Freud, is a whole topic onto itself). CBT, which is often held up as some kind of gold standard of empirically supported therapy, has this idea of a hierarchy of beliefs, some a person might be aware of, and others of which the person only holds implicitly. These "core beliefs" go unaddressed, sometimes through active avoidance, which leads to problems (or so the theory goes). Or from a purely behavioral perspective, someone has some fear that leads to elaborate avoidance behaviors, which cause impairments — the treatment being exposure to the feared stimulus. The framing of this is odd because I don't think any good therapist would say that avoiding negative thoughts is always good or always bad. It depends on the situation. Sometimes someone needs to just shift attention from unproductive rumination. But sometimes people do have a lot of issues that go unaddressed, and that avoidance becomes unhealthy because it leaves a whole belief system or set of interpersonal problems unresolved, or snowballs out of control. None of this is necessarily Freudian or not Freudian, and framing it as such says more about the concerns of the authors than anything about the theories used in modern therapy or the implications of the study results.