Posted: Mar 29, 2010 1:10 pm
Mr.Samsa wrote:Lazar wrote:
Im not as hard on Freud as Samsa is.
To be honest, my descriptions of him on the forum aren't exactly identical to what I really think of him. I think that he has been unfairly demonised by some people and that some of the criticisms against him were a result of him changing his position due to the academic backlash to his more valid ideas. For example, Freud was one of the first people to suggest that "hysteria" in women was due to lasting effects of child abuse. When he suggested this, he was basically attacked by his peers which forced him to change his position to include the idea of false memories, sexual repression, the Oedipus complex etc (and in addition to the backlash, his cocaine addiction probably helped his imagination). So the vague notion of traumatic experiences producing mental disorders was essentially correct, and his more crazy and damaging theories were a result of peer pressure at the time.
However, I'm always wary of lending credibility to his position as currently, in my opinion, he already receives much more respect than he deserves. So I'd much rather come across as overly critical and bring people's opinion of him down to a more accurate level, rather than be seen as supporting him whereupon I inadvertently add to his support and thus further perpetuating myths such as Freud being the grandfather of psychology, or him being a vital figure in establishing psychology as a science.
(Good rant on evo psych though. That's another field that really needs to be brought down a notch or two!)
Thousands of years ago, when I did my nursing training in a psycho ward, Freud was very popular and of couse it was also the reason that most people refused to have therapy. His theories didn't do very much to convince people to get themselves attended to for depression for instance, and it was only when people attempted suicide that they actually got some sort of treatment.
Is electro-shock therapy still used these days? In those days people practically had their brains fried with that treatment.
Of course living in a country that was run by Christian Nationalists, religion was the only approved treatment for psychological problems. I suppose there aren't many of you who remember when mentally handicapped people were kept locked away in "asylums" and Down's Syndrome was called Mongoloidism. Disorders like dyslexia and autism were regarded as 'retarded' and gifted people who had autism were called "idiot savants."
we've come a long way with psychology in 50 years.