Time to take a position! I have taken a lot of time explaining Freudian theory in much detail. Was that time well-spent? Based on the text and the article you read, tell us if you think Freud was a "fraud" and I have misused the limited time we have in Psychology. Or do you think Freudian theory is relevant still today and should continue to be an important part of any Psychology curriculum.
Post by March 17.
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Nathan Doucette
ReplyDeleteI believe that the time we took to go over Freud was well spent. During that time I learned a lot and could understand what was being told to us. What we learned must be true because I personally can connect to those experiences and can think of times where what we learned is true. After reading An Unhappy Birthday to Sigmund the Fraud I was able to see the other side of the story. But I am still not convinced that Freud should be thrown under the bus. Even if this guy is right and Freud copied some other peoples work, he still came up with a good amount of information himself. And though this one guy does not agree maybe because he cannot personally connect, it does not mean that Freud's information is wrong. So i think that Freud should be still taught in school because his information is still relevant to people today. I agree that some things may be outdated because times have changed, but the information is still useful.
The time we spent in psychology talking about Sigmund Freud was well spent because if gave us a background on the study and we learned about where it all started. I don't agree with everything that Freud said, but some of it made sense to me and I can see how it could be true. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a "fraud" but some of his ideas seem a little ridiculous to me. Even though I don't believe everything he said about the psychosexual stages of development and the Oedipus Complex, I think it should still be taught because people believed it years ago and it was the basis of most people's psychological beliefs. However, I think we could come up with more accurate theories about human nature and tendencies.
ReplyDeleteLauren Doucette
ReplyDeleteAfter reading all three articles I have came to a conclusion that the Freudian theory is still relevant today and should continue to be an important part of the Psychology curriculum. Although I believe that some of his theories are far fetched and out there I do feel as though they are important to learn about. Not only are they interesting but I feel as though some stay true today. In the article “An Unhappy Birthday to Sigmund Freud” the author brutally attacks Freud and all of his theories he does not feel as though any of Freud’s theories are true. I do not agree with this, I believe that even though Freud had some “screws loose” he made sense although some things are a little much. In the other article, “What Freud Got Right” the author explains how his theories “happen to be the most coherent and, from the standpoint of individual experience, meaningful theory of the mind there is.” In the negative article it says how Freud didn’t actually come up with this material but Wagner did, however Freud is definitely given more credit and is considered one of the founder’s psychology. In conclusion I would definitely not consider him a “fraud” but I do feel as though some of his ideas are ridiculous. I believe that teaching Freud’s theories are an important aspect to the Psychology syllabus.
I think that the time we have spent on Sigmund Freud and his ideas about psychoanalysis was time well spent. Many of the ideas that Freud talked about or discovered were quite right, but there were also some that seemed completely wrong and very weird. Such as the idea that unconsciously every child wants to have some sort of sexual relationship with their parents. To a majority of people, they would be disgusted at the mere thought of that. There were also theories and other things that he got right. In my opinion, one thing he got right was the Oedipus and Electra complex. When you’re a child, a girl falls in love with their father and a boy their mother. So it would only seem natural to think that they would want to get rid of the other parent so they can be with them. In the article "What Freud got right," the author mentions what Freud called drives and many researchers have discovered that what he said about those drives is somewhat correct. The fact that the stuff he said at the beginning of the nineteenth century is still being applied to life today is something that I find amazing. Because no scientist or psychologist can always be 100% correct about the theories that they have made.
ReplyDeleteI feel that Freud’s theory is acceptable and should be mused by anyone who puts a thought towards the field of psychology. His theory is very insightful and I believe strongly with his words as I’ve said in past blog responses. He definitely said a lot of great stuff and I don’t think he should be “thrown under the bus.” In fact, I don’t believe that there should be a bus in the first place because it’s unfair to dismiss anyone’s personality theories since psychology is such an open-ended field of science. Which brings me to my next point.
ReplyDeleteTo be able to truly determine Freud’s place in the world, we need to know about other personality theories as well. Based on what we’ve done in class so far, I can say that he should always be considered and his ideas could very well be valid but we have to take other influential personality theorists into account as well. From what I can see in the class curriculum, we will be getting to that which I am excited for. So I can say at this moment that this was time well spent because Freud is the foundation of personality theories or at least the beginning of them. He is also a great building block of all psychology so it’s important to know of his theories. His exact words are a bit outdated since it was about 100 years ago that he was making broad statements about everybody but if you look outside of some of the confines of his particular life and it’s influence on his exact words, there is some gold in what he said.
I believe it is an important part of any psychology curriculum. It’s astonishing how remarkably true his theory seems if you really think about it. I think it’s important to study his theory because I think we can all admit that what he was saying is true. There are many personality theories out there and although I know nothing about the others, I want to say that this one seems legitimate and could very well be the answer.
I would definently have to agree with everyone so far in saying that the time we have spent on Freud was well spent and worth wild. He is a man that his ideas are still around today and I feel that most of them make a lot of sense. Obliviously it’s hard to think that you would want to kill your mom or your dad so you could marry the other. The thing is that in the case such as Mr. Yips kids asking him when he is going to die that theory is shown. Also at that time in your life you fall in love with your parents because they are the only people you see all that time that take care of you and love you. It only makes sense for that to occur. Also in the article it states that people make their lives a soap opera and I totally understand that too. Many things happen in peoples’ lives are very simple but people twist them to make them sound like the world is against them or that the story was five times different from what really happened. We make up this fantasy world in our heads. A lot of thinks that Freud stated make a lot of sense and he was worth talking about.
ReplyDelete[Yo, I just posted in Parts 2 and 3]
ReplyDeleteA single application of Occam's razor shears off volumes of Freudian nonsense, as Scruton wittily demonstrates. The German designs fantastic theories to shock rather than to explain. Empirical support comes from Greek plays, not regression analyses. And so on.
I feel guilty jumping to a conclusion without reviewing the literature. But do scientific studies exist on how we want to kill our fathers? On how, if we are weaned early, we become clean freaks? Have quantitative tests been devised for these questions, with randomly assigned control groups and honed statistical methods? I'm too lazy to look, but I put a high probability on "no". (Still, it would be interesting to be proven wrong, if these studies actually exist.)
There are more scientific paradigms about - evolutionary ones, for instance. Still, any class on the history of psychology must cover Freud. He's also had a great impact on the popular consciousness - a topic worthy of sociological study. I'm attempting to read Rieff's The Triumph of the Theraputic, although I hardly understand it.
But perhaps Freud's theories are defensible on pragmatic grounds. They might work in the therapist's office, even if they are nonsense. Devise a quantitative test. If Freudian therapy benefits patients, it should be used - but only if there are no better alternatives.
I truly believe that the time that we spent talking about Freud was definitely worth while. Even thought most of his theories seem a bit bazaar, it is still interesting to hear about the types of theories that he had back when he was doing his experimentation. At the beginning of our class discussion about Freud, we all looked at him as crazy, but I think that after a while we finally realized that most of us did somewhat take part in some of his theories when we were younger. I am not saying that I totally 100% agree with all of his thoughts, but some of them are very unique and make you think a little bit. According to the article, a lot of people view Freud as a waste or wrong, but I think that some of his ideas are somewhat logical and make the psychology class interesting. If we hadn't learned about Freud we would have missed out on a lot of the more crazy viewpoints of historical psychologists, and in my opinion Freud's views are part of history.
ReplyDelete-Shirley Pouliot
ReplyDeleteI read the article "What Freud Got Right". I think that all the time spent on freud was time well spent because freud really did come up with things that we really do see it all connecting somehow. Like when we dream it reall is part of our "seeking" emotion and that if you actually researched someone dreaming you can see that almost all are dreams are because of anxiety and that what we dream is always what we actually dream, except of something else that we have some sort of anxiety on thats going on in our lives. Without freud we wouldnt of had this "platform" persay, that we could further grow our research and progress to find out more about dreams and our libido(or pleasure). I think that we shouldnt throw freud under the bus to much because although its hard to kind of believe what he is saying and most of his thoughts are a little out their i really do think that his thoughts are logical and he really passionatly had these theories that he believed were real and every human experienced them. I think that the hole thing about the dreams is really and freud is deffinetly right because if you think about it we mostly do always dream about something that is bothering us we just dont realize it until we actually think about it. His theory like when you are younger and you want to marry your parents its crazy if you think about it because you think that is disgusting and you would never want to do that but when your little you really did say that stuff and you really did want to marry your mom or dad because they were you care givers and you loved them. I think that without this information and theories that Freud had come up with and strongly believed, scientist today would have nothing to work off of and to expand from to better understand the mind.
I believe that talking about Freud was not a waste of time, because he is an essential part of the history of psychology. Although he is a part of history, this does not mean that his theories are still valid. A similar example of this is when students learn about J.J. Thompson and the plum pudding model in chemistry. Thompson had a theory that made sense at the time, based on what knowledge he had gathered. The theory held up, and was used for quite some time. Eventually, Ernest Rutherford proved Thompson wrong, but we still learn about both theories in class. The same goes for Freud. Freud lived in a different time period and had different views and opinions on why people behaved in certain manners. Not everyone still approves of Freud's theories, and some of them are quite strange. The article brought up a good point about the erogenous zones; it stated that Freud covered all of his bases by using almost every single body part as an erogenous zone. This causes us to wonder about what theories are still valid considering the drastic changes throughout our society since Freud’s times.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Colin when it comes to using Freudian analysis in a therapist’s office. If there is no better method of analyzing someone’s subconscious or to understand why the have recurring or disruptive behavior, then using Freud’s theory as a last resort is fine. One thing that I don not like about Freud is that he defined certain behaviors as “normal”. Everyone is different, and just because someone likes to be clean and organized does not necessarily they were weaned form the bottle at a young age. The same goes for the phallic symbol. I don’t believe that chewing gum or chewing on the end of a pencil is a direct representation of not completing the oral stage properly. I think that Freud associated everything back to the penis, when it wasn’t necessary. Also, he always had a cigar in his hand, yet denied that it was his particular oral fixation. Although this is covered by his theory that people deny everything relating to that, I believe that it was just a way for him to classify normal people from people with quirky or different traits.
All in all, Freud did make groundbreaking discoveries and greatly impacted psychology. But times have changed, and so has many of the ways that people grow up. We now have children growing up with two moms or two dads, as well as children growing up with only one parent. How does Freud explain the Oedipus complex for them? His theories may have had up back then, but I don’t believe they are the mast reliable source of psychoanalysis nowadays.
-Brittany Condon
As stated in the article “What Freud Got Right,” Freud’s theories and psychoanalytic techniques may not all be scientifically proven or sound, but are good starting points for further research into those areas. Like Darwin, Freud’s technology was not as developed as that of today; therefore, he was forced to used anecdotal evidence to support his conjectures. This may be why he developed some strange theories. The Oedipus complex, for example, is one part of his psychoanalytic theory that I am skeptical of. Case studies helped lead Freud to this conclusion of incestuous desires, which are not always valid or do not produce results applicable to an entire population. Freud’s Electra and Oedipus complexes are his most questionable theories.
ReplyDeleteMany of Freud’s theories seem relevant today, at least to some degree. Dreaming appears to be a legitimate “road to the unconscious” rather than just a primitive, meaningless bodily function, and Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams is considered one of his greatest contributions to psychology. Though he overemphasizes sexuality, especially in youth, I think Freud is correct in many aspects of his psychosexual stages of development. The idea of pleasure-seeking being an intrinsic drive as part of the id seems the most logical out of most of Freud’s theories. The struggle between the id and the superego is also a plausible concept, as our own instinctual desires often clash with society’s rules and morals. Freud’s personality theory and his analysis of dreams are significant to psychology’s history, and should prevent Freud from being totally discounted as a sex-crazed fraud.
After reading "What Freud Got Right" and learning in class about Freud, i believe it was time well spent. I learned a lot about how the mind works and why we do some of the things we do and all of this is thanks to Sigmund Freud. I think that Freuds theories still work in todays society. I think that Freuds theories are very interesting and I enjoy learning about them in class. I don't agree completely with all of them but for the most part they make sense to me and i try to relate my life to them. After reading the article i don't think that we would be able to study psychology if it weren't for Sigmund Freud because he was the first one to come up with these theories and because of todays scientific advances, we are able to find more information which makes it easy for us to look down upon him. So in my opinion, I think Sigmund Freud is a very interesting and important topic to learn about in psychology and I think it should be kept in the curriculum.
ReplyDeleteThe Freud unit was definitely well spent time. To have a good understanding of other psychological theories it is important to understand what the basis for them is. Freud had a big influence on later psychologists and his contributions can still be seen today. Some aspects of the theory Freud proposed are definitely controversial and some are outdated. This does not mean that the theory should be completely ignored. The article “Psychoanalytic Theory Wins Backing” shows the contributions that Freud has made to modern psychology. The article talks about how modern studies have shown that the psychoanalysis that Freud pioneered can be an effective treatment to some mental disorders. This treatment method is based on Freud’s work with patient and psychiatrist relationships and has proved to be and effective course of treatment for some patients. This shows that Freud’s theory is not just some outdated ranting. It is still applicable today if it is adapted to the modern times.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "What Freud Got Right", I do believe that the field of psychology has gained much from what Freud discovered. I learned from the article that modern psychologists are looking deeper at what Freud studied and are finding support for some of his theories. That certainly counts for something. Many people dismis Freud because of his sex-driven theories and misogenous thoughts, but we have to take his ideas with a grain of salt. Freud lived a very long time ago, during a time when women were not treated as they are today and psychology was a new science.
ReplyDeleteI especailly found interesting in the article that scientists have discovered that, "Dreams, it seemed, originate with the libido--which is just what Freud had believed." In the long run, Freud is not a waste of time to study, becasue he had the guts to set out theories that were incredibly far-fetched. Interestingly enough, those same theories are seeming more and more likely today. Just as the article suggested, Freud sparked these theories, and now it's our job to develop them further.
john tangherlini
ReplyDeletei believe that all the time we spent in class on Freud was well worth it. most of everything we discussed was relevant to todays times. personally i think eveyone can connect with his theory in one way or another. i read an unhappy birthday to sigmund the freud and while reading that you get to see why people might not think that is theory is relevant today and his life theory was copied from other i dont think that has anything to do with what a great sucsses he was. he still came up with some good thoughts and ideas. freud should deffinately be taught in schools but his material might be alittle outdated
The time spent discussing Freud's theories was definitely necessary as this is a psychology course and Sigmund Freud is one of the early pillars of psych. Just as I said in my last post, I believe a lot of his assertions to be astoundingly accurate for such an early time period. However, there are a few things I disagree with Freud on such as the impossible position in which he places women. We are the less moral characters according to him and we hold penis envy for our male counterparts. I cannot fully agree with all of his points but it was interesting to learn about and I think we spent just the right amount of time going over his work.
ReplyDeleteJulie Do
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I thought the time that we had in class spending it on Freud was useful and necessary. After all he is the father and foundation of psychology isn't he? Even though he did come up with some wacky concepts some of it does make sense. If you actually took time and think about it, apply it to yourself or others, it fits. For example, his theory on the developmental stage ( oral, anal, etc.) is true. Kids do like putting things in their mouths, so it makes sense. Also, his theory on the anal retentive, anal expulsive, and all that I think is right. Freud had left us with a pretty good baseline to go by in psychology and hopefully we can take that and build on it to learn and discover more.
After learning about Freud and all his theories, I feel that he did contribute a lot of information to the study of psychology. In his theories, a lot of the general ideas do make sense, however they may seem to make sense for the time that Freud was living. For the first few developmental stages, his ideas made sense. As we get older however, times have changed, and people don't necessarily have the same situations that Freud would have thought. Overall I feel Freud's ideas were good to have learned for his general ideas. Even though they are outdated, they can be changed to fit the future. It is important to learn from the past, and his ideas have made a good base for the future of psychology.
ReplyDeleteFreud is the father of psychology. He invented psychoanalysis. This is just like in chemistry, you learn all the old theories, like the old atomic models for example, to learn the information current scientists base their information off of to come up with the current theory. Knowing the theories of the past is almost always essential to understanding the theories of the present. His theory was certainly interesting and I enjoyed the classtime we spent learning it so I am not going to complain, but I dont think it was necessary to spend all the time we did on Freud. I think his theory could have been summed up in one or two classes and then we couldve moved on to more current and widely accepted theories.
ReplyDelete