Posted: Aug 18, 2018 5:21 am
Rationally Speaking: Rationally Speaking podcast: Freudianism as Pseudoscience, With Assorted Comments on Masturbation and Castration... noting Rationally Speaking | Official Podcast of New York City Skeptics - Current Episodes - RS67 - Freudianism as Pseudoscience, With Assorted Comments on Masturbation and Castration... by Massimo Pigliucci and Julia Galef.
MP noted that problems started early. Like what they meant by libido or sex drive. A 1914 critic noted that when challenged, Freudians claim that terms like libido are symbolic, referring to things like love. But in their writings, Freudians use such terms with their common meanings.
Seems to me like a certain sort of religious apologetics.
JG notes something similar about quantum woomeisters and MP does likewise about postmodernism. He then noted a similar criticism in 1926.
MP then noted some good things that Freud had done. He was willing to talk about sex and that he was willing to listen to his patients as opposed to giving them orders or advice.
Then WWI, where many soldiers suffered from "war neurosis": shell shock or post-traumatic stress disorder. Some psychiatrists considered it a clear counterexample to Freud's theory that it was due to sexual repression. He claimed that self-preservation was due to narcissism, a redirection of one's sex drive to oneself. JG and MP then asked why Freud did not consider the tools of the soldiers' trade: guns and trenches. Guns as like penises, trenches as like vulvas, and I add bunkers as like wombs. So hiding out in trenches and bunkers is like returning to the womb, a Freudian concept.
MP noted William James's comment that Freud's theory of narcissism was like "a bog of logical liquefaction into the midst of which all definite conclusions of any sort can be trusted ere long to sink and disappear."
Then Freud's theory of castration anxiety, that boys and men all have a great fear of castration, though often an unconscious one. Curiously, Freud didn't think that there was much that could be done preemptively. Likewise, one Freudian could not imagine a boy not wanting to kill his father and marry his mother.
Then penis envy. How women supposedly envy men for having penises, or else envy men's superior social status, or whatever other metaphorical interpretation. It was a big issue in Freudian psychoanalysis in the early decades of it, but it has been absent more recently. New evidence? Reassessment of existing evidence? The revival of feminism.
Homosexuality? Originally a disease, now no longer. Due to it becoming more socially acceptable.
Masturbation? A Bad Thing, because it drains mental energy. Not changed, because of a lack of a big pro-masturbation lobby.
JG started enjoying postmodernism much more when she stopped treating it as having truth value and started treating it as poetry. She suggested that one could take a similar approach to Freudianism.
Then one of Freud's patients describing how he'd give a lot of dream associations with Freud selecting out the ones that fit his theories. Sort of like how psychics often work.
The Skeptic's Dictionary compares Freudianism to Scientology -- a very good one, since they both believe in psychological-only causes involving troublesome past events. Freudianism posits family conflicts in childhood as a big source of trouble, while Scientology moved from trouble in the womb (LRH's original theory) to trouble in past lives.
Both also have in common personality cults of their founders and treating their founders' writings as sacred books.
Freudian psychoanalysis - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com
MP noted that problems started early. Like what they meant by libido or sex drive. A 1914 critic noted that when challenged, Freudians claim that terms like libido are symbolic, referring to things like love. But in their writings, Freudians use such terms with their common meanings.
Seems to me like a certain sort of religious apologetics.
JG notes something similar about quantum woomeisters and MP does likewise about postmodernism. He then noted a similar criticism in 1926.
MP then noted some good things that Freud had done. He was willing to talk about sex and that he was willing to listen to his patients as opposed to giving them orders or advice.
Then WWI, where many soldiers suffered from "war neurosis": shell shock or post-traumatic stress disorder. Some psychiatrists considered it a clear counterexample to Freud's theory that it was due to sexual repression. He claimed that self-preservation was due to narcissism, a redirection of one's sex drive to oneself. JG and MP then asked why Freud did not consider the tools of the soldiers' trade: guns and trenches. Guns as like penises, trenches as like vulvas, and I add bunkers as like wombs. So hiding out in trenches and bunkers is like returning to the womb, a Freudian concept.
MP noted William James's comment that Freud's theory of narcissism was like "a bog of logical liquefaction into the midst of which all definite conclusions of any sort can be trusted ere long to sink and disappear."
Then Freud's theory of castration anxiety, that boys and men all have a great fear of castration, though often an unconscious one. Curiously, Freud didn't think that there was much that could be done preemptively. Likewise, one Freudian could not imagine a boy not wanting to kill his father and marry his mother.
Then penis envy. How women supposedly envy men for having penises, or else envy men's superior social status, or whatever other metaphorical interpretation. It was a big issue in Freudian psychoanalysis in the early decades of it, but it has been absent more recently. New evidence? Reassessment of existing evidence? The revival of feminism.
Homosexuality? Originally a disease, now no longer. Due to it becoming more socially acceptable.
Masturbation? A Bad Thing, because it drains mental energy. Not changed, because of a lack of a big pro-masturbation lobby.
JG started enjoying postmodernism much more when she stopped treating it as having truth value and started treating it as poetry. She suggested that one could take a similar approach to Freudianism.
Then one of Freud's patients describing how he'd give a lot of dream associations with Freud selecting out the ones that fit his theories. Sort of like how psychics often work.
The Skeptic's Dictionary compares Freudianism to Scientology -- a very good one, since they both believe in psychological-only causes involving troublesome past events. Freudianism posits family conflicts in childhood as a big source of trouble, while Scientology moved from trouble in the womb (LRH's original theory) to trouble in past lives.
Both also have in common personality cults of their founders and treating their founders' writings as sacred books.
Freudian psychoanalysis - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com