Post: #1

A hustler or the real deal?

Post: #2

not a hustler, just plain wrong.

(12-04-2014 02:32 AM)Pride male Wrote:  A hustler or the real deal?

Post: #3

Fraud.

Post: #4

Genius can be debated but not ignored.

From Wikipedia--
"Nonetheless, Freud's work has suffused contemporary Western thought and popular culture. In the words of W. H. Auden's poetic tribute, by the time of Freud's death in 1939, he had become "a whole climate of opinion / under whom we conduct our different lives".

Freud more or less completely originated the fundamentals of psychotherapy.

For codifying the defense mechanisms alone he'd be a towering genius

NO ONE would ever be saying "Don't get defensive" if he hadn't changed the world and the way all of us think to some degree.

We wouldn't be talking about "daddy issues".

Post: #5

Freud's contribution to psychology is immeasurable. He was not accurate in everything. His theory on psychosexual development has been replaced with others such as piget and erickson. However his ideas on the subconscious, defense mechanisms, and dream interpretation were ground breaking.

Post: #6

As I get older, everything Freud said seems to be coming true from my own anecdotal experience.

Post: #7

He is considered the father of modern for a reason. His ideas and influence still carry weight even if some of his theories are not accepted anymore by the community. In practice, traditional psychoanalysis is not practiced all that much. The two most influential psychotherapists of the 20th century were Carl Rogers and Albert Ellis.

Post: #8

As a fan of the radio show Loveline, I find many of Freud's theories to be prescient.

As an example, often callers will explain that they continue to hook up with guys who abuse them and/or are alcoholics, only to later reveal that their father was an abusive alcoholic.

The idea that what is traumatic during childhood becomes sources of attraction in adulthood seems to be connected to Freud's idea of sublimation. From Wikipedia "Freud argued that neurosis or perversion could be explained in terms of fixation or regression to these phases (of childhood) whereas adult character and cultural creativity could achieve a sublimation of their perverse residue."

Freud developed and popularized the idea of the unconscious holding sway over many of our decisions. His ideas of repressed memories are also interesting to observe on the show.

From TV Tropes:

Dr. Drew, when callers with depraved impulses swear up and down that their childhood was "normal," only to reveal some horrific trauma happened later in the call.

Caller: Well my sister used to like, molest me when I was five...
Dr. Drew: (screaming) Oh other than that everything's fine!

Somehow callers convince themselves that being molested had no effect on the fact that they became emotionally damaged adults who can't maintain a relationship without sabotaging it in some way.

Repetition Compulsion

This is Freud's idea first articulated in 1914. He wrote 'the patient does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed, he acts it out, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it....For instance, the patient does not say that he remembers that he used to be defiant and critical toward his parents' authority; instead, he behaves in that way to the doctor'.

Repetition compulsion is an attempt to rewrite history by reliving traumatic situations with people who resemble the our parents. When early parental relationships are fraught with frustration, disappointment, rejection, abandonment, neglect or abuse, children develop the ability to deny the reality of their situation, as well as their accompanying emotions. Instead, they cling to hope that, if only we can be good, perfect, smart, quiet, funny enough, etc., that will win over the person (a facsimile of a parent) and they will finally love us as we need them to. And so we try desperately to do so, over and over again with different people.

This theory has its own page on the Loveline Wiki(and gives credit to Freud).

Popular examples of repetition compulsion in Loveline calls include:

-Women who had violent alcoholic fathers growing up and dating/marrying men who were "normal" at the beginning of the relationship, only to have their drinking and violence get out of control at a later time.

-People who were sexually abused before puberty experiencing a rape in the teenage years.

-Rape victims who suddenly experience a surge in libido and become sexually compulsive .

-People who were physically abused in childhood engaging in rough or even sadomasochistic sex as adults.

-Women who were sexually abused who then grow up and date or marry men that later sexually abuse that women's children (Drew calls this behavior "inviting foxes into the hen-house").

-Women whose fathers left the the household for any reason (usually divorce) or were otherwise emotionally distant, then grow up and end up with emotionally unavailable men. This is possible with men too, but much less frequent due to mothers staying with their children much more often than fathers.

-People who's parent had an affair, who then date people that cheat on them.

-Children of teenage parents who become teenage parents themselves.


I really think that what we call the "hamster" is a combination of several Freudian theories.

Post: #9

First time I saw the word Freud I pronounced it as Frood. Anyway can anyone explain the Oedipus complex and whether there is any truth.

Post: #10

(12-04-2014 07:54 AM)Dantes Wrote:  However his ideas on the subconscious, defense mechanisms, and dream interpretation were ground breaking.

Yeah, Freud's defense mechanisms were extremely insightful. They seem to make sense intuitively, and they provide a way for us to think critically about the motives of people around us every day.

Post: #11

To understand Freud's influence on America and western society in general, watch The Century of the Self. We watched this in its entirety in my senior seminar marketing capstone.

http://vimeo.com/91200667

Post: #12

Real deal, but hustled in his practice since he was a professional who had to earn his living rather than being part of the landed gentry. I think he would have been a little more interesting if he had been able to forget about money and concentrate on ideas only. A bit along the line of English gentlemen scientists. Like Darwin for example.

If you asked me to give an opinion 10 years ago I would have also said that it was a pity that Freud didn't know more about Darwinism than he seemed to have. I am a big fan of modern "Evolutionary Psychology" and used to think that it would have been better if Freud had used this as a foundation as well. But I have changed my mind. Just like Freud looked at ancient mythology and picked out themes based on the assumption that the ancients where oblivious to psychological theories and the unconscious, I think it is useful for us to now reread Freud using an Evolutionary Psychological framework he didn't have available. It generates more interesting ideas than a purely Freudian or purely Evolutionary Psychological approach would by themselves.

As for whether he is "right or wrong", I don't know. The problem with psychology is that it is, obviously, not the same kind of science as Physics, Chemistry and such. I like to think of psychological forces as just that, forces. And in life there are multiple forces acting pulling an individual in all directions at once. Think of a sphere suspended in space with "lines" radiating in all directions exerting force on the sphere. The direction the sphere moves is all that is visible, but just because it is moving in a particular direction does not mean that there are no other forces acting, or that it is "wrong" to posit such forces. It is just that at this time other forces predominate. And while for practical purposes we usually think about things digitally. i.e Only two opposite forces acting, in real life there are many more than two. It makes Psychology difficult, and means it is inevitable that there will be disagreement. But Freud was one who took on the difficult challenge and I don't respect public intellectuals who like to lambaste him, but have no useful input themselves.

Post: #13

Freuds theory is technically a religion, but practical experience proved many things to be quite accurate.

From contemporary perspective, we would call him a red pill thinker, but in reality, it was mainstream back then. Not only his observations on psychology, but society too. Freud believed society cannot remain civilized without a leader as a collective super-ego, without which society degenerates into a brutal competition between an alpha male which protects sexual market, and his subjects which try to overthrow him.

Post: #14

(12-05-2014 07:27 AM)Pride male Wrote:  First time I saw the word Freud I pronounced it as Frood. Anyway can anyone explain the Oedipus complex and whether there is any truth.

In short,

The type of women you are attracted to is a caricature of your mother. The opposite occurs with women.

All things considered, the "types" of women I attract tend to have very similar qualities of my mother. Not to mention the women that find me attractive tend to find similarities and mirror opposites of their fathers.

We're all just looking for our parent to give us what we craved as children in current relationships.

Post: #15

(12-09-2014 01:03 PM)frenchie Wrote:  

(12-05-2014 07:27 AM)Pride male Wrote:  First time I saw the word Freud I pronounced it as Frood. Anyway can anyone explain the Oedipus complex and whether there is any truth.

In short,

The type of women you are attracted to is a caricature of your mother. The opposite occurs with women.

All things considered, the "types" of women I attract tend to have very similar qualities of my mother. Not to mention the women that find me attractive tend to find similarities and mirror opposites of their fathers.

We're all just looking for our parent to give us what we craved as children in current relationships.

This is a good opportunity to apply an evolutionary psychology framework to Freud.

Another way of looking at the Oedipus Complex, from a genetic point of view, is that you and your mother obviously share a of of genes. Using the selfish gene approach to selection it's obvious that you'll be attracted to women somewhat like your mother since genes "want" to reproduce themselves. In this view it doesn't have to have anything at all to do with your or your mothers behavior. Or at least only indirectly. That's one force. Another force moves you in the opposite direction due to the deleterious effects of inbreeding. Normally things balance out, but sometimes circumstances can swing things one way or the other.

Not to gross you out, but Oedipus type situations are alive and well in the modern world. e.g, Adopted children who meet siblings, and even parents, for the first time as adults are often very sexually attracted to them. This is basically due to one force, that has been labeled "genetic sexual attraction" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_sexual_attraction) being present, and another called the "Westermark Effect" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect) being absent due to not growing up with their biological parents and siblings.

This is a time bomb waiting to happen with the increase in children being born s a result of sperm donors. As we can probably all figure out here all women are likely to choose pretty much the same kind of man when selecting a donor. This has definitely resulted in a small number of donors being the biological father of very large numbers of children. Clinics supposedly try to prevent this, but in practice their efforts are likely quite weak. These children are, or will be, meeting each other at bars, clubs etc. etc. If genetic sexual attraction is a real force, which both Freud and contemporary Evolutionary Biologists will say it is, we will end up with quite a lot of half-siblings hooking up without knowing it....

But back to the main topic. Freud approached things mainly by observing behavior (in practice or in literature) and forming theories based on the existence of an unconscious, while Evolutionary Psychologists look at behavior and ask what genetic benefit there is (to the gene itself, not the individual). It's interesting to look at things from both points of view. First ignoring genes and next ignoring the unconscious.