While Freud can be credited for opening up a field of research (‘deeper’ cognition), and for exploring subjects taboo for his time (sexuality) he can not be credited for establishing a scientifically sound construct of human psychology that perdures to this day and is acceptable today as a scientific field of inquiry.
Why not? Because…
Freud himself flip-flopped on the the cause of nueroses, as pointed out by Cecil’s article.
The vast majority of ‘Freudians’ are actually neo-Freudians. They dissent from their Father figure on many aspects of human psychology and they disagree amongst themselves. This tends to throw the whole construct of Fruedian psychology into doubt.
The overwhelming number of pshychologists today are not Freudian. They’ve managed to remove Freudian terms, such as ‘nuerosis’ from the Diagnostic Manual, since ‘nuerosis’ is a loaded term that assumes something which is unprovable (i.e., an unresolved latent sexuality issue).
And so… Freud pioneered a new field of research, but his own findings and theories are anachronisms in a modern, scientific field of psychology. Those who try to keep that dinosaur alive are practicing a psuedoscience.
[And BTW, we need to disentangle Freudian theories of psychology from the practice of intensive talk therapy, otherwise known as pschyo-dynamic counseling. Psycho-dynamic counseling can take place without resorting to pseudo-scientific theories of unresolved infantile sexual issues. It’s been shown, scientifically through brain scans, that talk-therapy does create changes in brain function, and thus can be useful therapeutically.]
Frequent reader, rare poster. (so rare I have just discovered my last account has apparently been termed from disuse) I have to toss in with the “annoyed” crowd. I’m not a fan of Freud’s theories myself, in fact I think a lot of them are bunk, but his general contributions to the field of psychology can’t be overstated. It virtually did not exist before he came along. And more useful contributors, like Jung and Roger, directly descend from his work.
Not to mention, he did make a few valid discoveries, especially psychosomatic disorders - which were virtually unimaginable before he came along.
As far as the unfalsifiability goes, I do agree that his arguments were mostly very needlessly circular. (in short: 1)Everyone has an Oedipal Complex. 2)If you say you do not, you’re in denial. See Point 1. ) I’m not going to debate that one. But as has been pointed out, the field of psychology in general is pretty resistant to rigorous application of the Scientific Method. (unless you want to go with pure medicine-based Psychiatry, an approach I disagree with)
And finally, I believe that calling him a Quack is just being fundamentally unfair. Was he wrong about a lot of things? Sure. Did he fudge his arguments a bit? Certainly. Was he actively out to gyp the public solely for his personal gain? I can’t see any evidence of that. At worst, I think one could accuse him of being a pioneer suffering from an excess of zeal. (and cocaine )
And BTW, B3feetback, I HAVE read Dianetics. What value that book has is solely in taking previously established techniques of psychology and changing the names to sound like they’re new. Like “auditing?” That’s pure Rogerian psychology. (I find Hubbard’s anti-psychology bias highly amusing considering he stole all his worthwhile ideas from them - trying to deny his sources, I wonder?) It may have some value to certain people as a self-diagnostic text, but there are far better sources to which one could turn - which don’t involve shelling out millions of dollars in the end.
Thank-you for the anecdotal evidence. Since anecdotal evidence doesn’t prove anything and is considered a fallacy of logic, here is the scientific evidence that shows dianetics doesn’t work. (From here..)
And yes, your jumping into this debate on Freud with witnessing about Dianetics is known as a hijack and a breaking of the rules (which requires witnessing on religious issues to go to MPIMS).
Peace.
If what I post is not true, may Xenu strike me dead.
Well, sorry for the hijack. Hadn’t realized that’s what it was.
One last thought before I gotta go. It does work and it helps people. There are some who’d rather this wasn’t the case, but so what? It keeps growing because it improves people.
I think it’s very fair, and absolutely necessary to apply “today’s standards” to pioneers in every field of knowledge, Monterey86.
That’s the whole point of the scientific method, the test of falsifiability, and (not to put to fine a point on it) the Renaissance. Just think where we would be today if doctors clung to the theories of Galen out of a pointless reverence for his status as a pioneer.
Freud was not a white knight. But his work did finally bring psychology out into the open and place it into the public consciousness in a way that the work of his predecessors did not. (Honestly, how many of us have read our William James? Or Burton?) For his work establishing psychology as a legitimate science, Freud does deserve a fair amount of respect. But that respect must come with the stricter tests of his hypotheses that modern science demands. Copernicus’ theories were refined by Kepler. Kepler’s theories by scores of later astronomers. This is how knowledge progresses, people.
As these tests are made, we discover more and more holes in the original theories. What do you expect to happen? Why should we expect Freud to be right about every thing? To hold him up to such impossible standards places us in the ridiculous position of Medieval scholars who blindly worshipped at the altar of Aristotle just because he was Aristotle.
That said, I wholeheartedly agree that the Freudian fascination with human sexuality is a dangerous delusion that keeps us narrowly focused on one element of human behavior. Just because most people seem preoccupied with sex does not necessary mean that it is the true basis of all human behavior. Likewise, the repression of sexual desire is not necessarily the primary cause of all unhappiness. I was sexually abused as a kid. And yeah, it messed me up for a long time, in a lot of ways. But that trauma was only one of a number of events that had profound effects on the development of my personality. I would be willing to bet you that the children who have been most directly effected by 9/11 (through the loss of a loved one, for instance) will deal with traumas and fears no less damaging than ones rooted in sexual dysfunction.
I find it hard to believe that in all the Freud arguments I’ve heard over the years it is rarely, if ever, pointed out that human beings are capable living lives that allow us to be more than just mating machines occasionally capable of abstract thought. Just accept the fact the Freud was slightly obsessive about this one topic, post an asterisk next to his name in the record books if it makes you feel better, and let’s get one with our lives.
PS. AS for me, to hell with Dianetics AND The Interpretation of Dreams. I swear by Karen Horney’s (a.k.a. the diva of Neo-Freudians) Neurosis and Human Growth. Hey, it worked for me!
If Freud is a “quack” then Dianetics is the entire fucking duck. :rolleyes: It keeps growing because they scam all the money out of their victims, which they then use to entice more suckers. Sometimes I think Germany is doing the right thing here…
However, I do think that “quack” is too strong a term to use for Freud. “Unscientific” or “outdated” might be better.
You misunderstand my point, what I was trying to say was that to fairly judge Freud (or anyone), you need to take everything in the context of the body of knowledge and general environment at time.
Much has discovered about psychology since his death and blaming him for not understanding those things is not fair.
It’s fair point out his mistakes in retrospect, but you have to give him credit for being a trailblazer.
Somtimes pioneers are full of crap. For example, the pioneer in the field of SIDS based his work on a group of six cases which all turned out to be infanticide. The mother apparently suffered from a form of postpartum depression, she reportedly saw her babies as competing for her husband’s affection.
What became of that pioneering doctor? He’s now in charge of a SIDS research institute and refuses to admit that he made six mistakes 40 years ago.
No, it’s nothing like that. Da Vinci produced plans; those plans can be verified. They may or may not work, but they can be tested to find out whether or not they work.
Cecil isn’t calling Freud a quack for being wrong. Freud could be completely right and Cecil would still call him a quack, because Freud presented a theory of mental health for which there was no means of checking if the theory was right or wrong other than by asking Freud.
Jerry
Favorite Freudian Joke:
A boy turns 16, and his father decides it is time the kid gets laid. He gives the kid $50 and tells him to go out and find a prostitute and have sex. So the kid takes the $50, leaves, and comes back later that night.
Don’t say things like “are you sure you understand …” and then misrepresent my posting.
At no time did I say that people thought that the earth was flat. They didn’t.
However, if the circumnavigation of the earth seems to be able to be bluntly proven (even though no-one would attempt it for centuries), I could have used another example - people used to think that it was impossible that the earth moved or rotated, since it seemed obvious that beings would fall off. This is only “obvious” if you have no concept of the force of gravity. My point was that falsifiablilty is only relative to the background of current knowledge, and is therefore itself a relative concept. In order to have the theoretical force that Popper claimed for it, it has to be absolute.
However, and this was the real point of my posting, I was disputing Cecil’s assumption that falsifiability is a central tenet of scientific procedure, and that any theory that doesn’t take it into account is inherently unscientific.
Falsifiability should also not be confused with the idea of stating a theory in a way that can be tested. However, while this is a safer (and more modest) requirement, it has the drawback that it makes certain forms of science impossible by definition. Sociology in particular cannot function in this way, since every social formation is unique and unrepeatable, and cannot be objectively observed. This is true for all the human sciences.
The rational basis of scientific progress is hard to defend because all observation is theory-dependent. What counts as evidence for or against a theory is therefore determined in some respects by the theory itself. Consequently, scientific proof appears circular. This has led some philosophers to claim that the impetus for scientific process cannot come from science itself, but must be due to external pressures, such as social change, resource availability, and so on.
Tell me, is Dianetics concerned with body thetans and the reactive mind? Is it concerned with how one may remove the thetans by remembering past events while holding two tin cans attached to an E-meter? Is it at all like the current teachings of the criminal syndicate known as the Church of Scientology?
If so, it has obvious paralells in what Freud taught. Here’s a basic rundown:
[ul]
[li]Thetan: Repressed memory.[/li][li]Reactive mind: Subconscious.[/li][li]Clearing session: Psychoanalysis.[/li][li]Clear: Mental health (i.e., freedom from repressed memories).[/li][/ul]So, what’s the difference in theoretical basis? What does Hubbard have that Freud does not, apart from Xenu and a whole raft of other bad science fiction, not to mention a criminal syndicate?
Sorry to hijack again, but 2 things from this thread cracked me so bad I actually think my asshole got wider.
What has interested me in this debate is the bone thrown out by DSYoungEsq, who talks about the quantum processes and inner workings of the brain (researched by John Hopfield) which can help determine/analyse human behaviour patterns. This idea fascinates me (sorry, but I been reading a lot of works written by Roger Penrose, so I’m a little bit of a nut).
In fact, an article by R. Denker in a 1946 issue of the New York State Journal of Medicine found a 90% recovery rate over the course of 5 years for severely neurotic patients who received no therapy at all. (A 1976 report by Bergin found only a 0-46% overall recovery rate of neurotics receiving no therapy, but it’s clear that at least some neuroses go away on their own.)
That is exactly what falsifiability is. A falsifiable theory is one that can at least conceptually, be subject to testing–to potential falsifiability. If it cannot ever be tested, then it cannot be falsified, even “in theory”. It is not science, it is Received Speculation.
You couldn’t use this example, either. You merely point out that the theory that the Earth rotates would contradict the theory that the Earth has no gravitational field, whcih means that atr least one of the theories isn’t true. So?
For the record, the theory that the Earth rotates can be falsified by flying up high enough and observing it rotate/not rotate, or else you could try and see the effect of the Earth’s rotation using Foucault’s Pendulum, etc.
Yep, it amounts to making stuff up.
If it cannot, then it ain’t science. In many cases, my impression is that it isn’t.
You needn’t be able to create a new society to test a sociological theory, though. A possible test of a sociological theory is a survey, the results of which sociologists try to predict. If they’re wrong, their theory is falsified. Predicting the results of an election seems like a neat test, too. So it doesn’t have to be quackery or literature.
To a very little extent, on evidence of my toaster usually working. Do you claim that my observation of a toast is theory-dependent?
It is my impression that these people don’t understand science, either.
)
Insolence & arrogance, I tell you!