Sigmund Freud

[Noot]

As a psychology major who subscribes to the behavioral model, you can imagine what adjectives I could come up with for Sigmund Freud.

All I will say (as others have already debunked him) is that he held Psychology back for at least 50 years. There has been no progress at all in the past 15 years, because psychologists have to go back and dispel the workings of Freud.
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~~Harmonian Tenhei Star~~

It's hard to bargle naudle zauss with all these marbles in my mouth.

[Horned Loa]

Hahahah, I was waiting for you to post something. Well maybe people don't think as much of him as I originally though huh. O well. Was fun seeing it for myself though. Any further comments would still be welcome though.

[Sualtam Lugh]

I've done a few projects, and assignments in my time based on dreams, interpretations of dreams, and Freud himself. I don't believe people think of him as a fraud, in the grand scheme of things. While it is true that he would revise his ludacris theories, his work wasn't complete hogwash. When I think of what a psychiatrist/therapist/psychologist (All different prefessions based on the same line of work) does, when they deal with dreams, and patients, and interpreting them, the main point is to get the a message out of what is being done, and making the patient understand said messages. In the end of it all, it doesn't exactly matter if it was misinterpreted a little (Freud is famous for having been "in love with his mother", in a sense. That was based off of his own work, and his 5 stages of Development. They build your character, depending on how you progress in said stages.) as long as the patient is in a state of understanding.

Also, it was said that his work is discredited, and shuned, which is partially true. I'm sure you've all heard of Carl Jung. His work on dream interpretation, is also still sometimes used. It's not focused on the sexual content of anything and everything, but rather.....*ugh......gotta go look this up.* . His work, and his theories, were devised off of many of Freud's, which in science, is normal. He agreed with the meaning of things in dreams, but not that they all are derived from sexual cravings. So rather then the three types of conciousness that Freud devised (As aforementioned, Id, Ego, Superego (The Uncontrollable pit of lust, the sane, normal side, and the "conscience"), Jung devised the collective unconcious, which was a universal concious, if that makes sense to you. My point about Jung? Well, not all of Freud's work went to the pits, and I say this because Jung is respected, just like Freud. Discreditation to a lot of Freud's work stands, but still, if he wasn't wrong, that would be one thing we didn't know.

As for Freud's theories, other then his 5 stages of development (Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latent, and Something else, I can't remember right now), I find these things applicable in myself. Now if that was the point of his work, to match them to peoples, I am guilty of being "Orally Fixated". www.about.com has a wonderful chart of where you may fall under. I have almost all the symptoms of being Orally Fixated, and one of the reasons, according to Freud, is that I wasn't breastfed as a child. Sure, this is only one case, but you can see why I don't think Freud was completely off his rocker.

Rather then reading the whole thread, and then posting, I like to get right to the point. I saw mention of the Oedipus Complex, The desire to kill thy father, and take mother as your own. That takes place in the Phallic Development stage. Girls, instead of lusting for their mother, has the Electra Complex, aka Penis Envy. You guys have talked about Oedipus, and I don't think I need to elaborate on Penis Envy, but this is where Freud's theories get cooky.

I think that's enough writing for me.

[Noot]

All I'm going to say is that if you're totally flagged up and need serious help from a therapist, and he's going to tell you what Pamela Anderson in your dream is supposed to symbolize, you're only delaying real help.

However, I also think therapy (psychoanalytic therapy) has a placebo effect to begin with and for that reason it's still alive and well today. The fact that you're there in an office with a man who has a ton of certificates on his wall is usually enough to make you feel just a bit better. What they say in the session sometimes doesn't help as much as simply being at the session. Strange, huh?

And Pyroflame, what does a "collective conscious" look like? Where is it in the brain? How big is it? Can it be removed for study? Any reports of "inflammation of the collective conscious"? Just wondering.

Hypothetical constructs can be useful, but they must be explained in the scientific method. If you can't measure it, you can't use it in your theory. Freud and Jung have littered the field of psychology with their babble and we are struggling to undo the damage.
_________________
~~Harmonian Tenhei Star~~

It's hard to bargle naudle zauss with all these marbles in my mouth.