Was Freud Right?
A century has passed since Freud started publishing the works that established his reputation as a scientist, healer, and sage. Although his standing as a clinical scientist and biologist of the mind has always been precarious among those capable of judging scientific competence, his admirers were by no means confined to the laity. According to one esteemed professor, "in 1938 the secretaries of the Royal Society brought Freud their official charter to sign, thereby joining his signature with Newton's and Darwin's" (Tallis). For better or for worse the unconscious will survive the attacks of doubters who would prefer to believe that only what can be scrutinized by the scientific method is real. In 1896 Freud found the key to his own system of analyzing human behavior; undoubtedly, replacing hypnosis with free association, otherwise known as Dream Analysis. Freud, along with Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto and Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity revolutionized modern western thinking. Like wise, Freud was on the leading edge of psychoanalysis; however, Freud's attempts to simplify human behavior must be questioned. One way Freud attempts to simplify extremely complex behavior is through dream analysis. Sigmund Freud rev
Freudians often lament their critics who suggest that psychoanalysis is more art than science. As one contemporary illustrated, "it is the insistent return of the repressed that can explain numerous phenomena normally overlooked, not only our dreams but also what has come to be called the Freudian slip" (Module 2). However, as one author points out, "the interpretation of dreams illustrates humans trying to understand themselves. Freud's disciples who are sufficiently committed to read his clinical papers and published books suggest there is much independent corroborative evidence. What is at stake in all of these attacks? "Freud is less and less idolized; after all, psychoanalysis nowadays plays a minor role in the mental health professions" (Lear 7) . According to the Freudian school of thought, less well-adjusted individuals who remain fixated on earlier libidinal objects and are driven by abnormal reaction-formations: "There is some repression forcing the 'repudiated [symptom]' to get [its] way by certain roundabout paths. the physician always gives the patient conscious anticipatory ideas" (Tallis); this may have been Freud's own slip of the tongue or pen! Although Freud's theories have been roundly criticized for their circularity, "no historical account is immune to skeptical challenge and no historical-casual claims can be verified in the same way as a casual claim in physic. Meaning is like that, humans are inherently makers and interpreters of meaning" (Lear 6). We must not get stuck on the Freud bashing, for Freud was on the leading edge of psychoanalysis; however, Freud's attempts to simplify human behavior must be questioned. it is hard to assess the validity and utility of insight in to unconscious motives. On the other hand, no one suggests giving up on history or the other interpretive sciences. Incidentally, it was Freud's own analyses and circularity that simply muddled his own conjectures of what was going on in a patients unconscious. olutionized the study of dreams with his work 'The Interpretation of Dreams'.
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Acceptance Essays
