Frued and Psychosexual development

Octavian-White

Hello all!

This is my first time on the site and this is my first post so be kind . Id love to hear peoples views on fraud’s theory "the Oedipus complex", I personally found the entire thing rather far fetched and even an attempt by Freud to self diagnose his own incestual feelings towards his mother. This is just an opinion and I’m not discrediting all of Freud’s work but merely stating that if this theory is so obviously flawed wouldn’t it put his other work and research under the microscope?

Octavian

Odysseus

Hi Octavian, well from a psychoanalytic veiwpoint the Odeipus Complex is the core of a whole theory of the unconscious. May I ask have you read Freud, or just read someone talking about his work. I would suggest you read his three essays on the theory of sexuality. It also depends on which psychoanalytic school you read, for example followers of Anna Freud, Winnicot or Klein would differ on the theory though its still there, whereas say followers of Lacan would differ on the theory from a completly different viewpoint. My own experience is what Freud talks about is something I encounter in my work, that's not a case of taking Freud as been totally right all the time, in fact in his case histories he makes lots of mistakes, showing us how psychoanalytic work should not be done.

Octavian-White

I’ve read a little of Freud (not nearly as much as i would like). But found some of his more popular (which tend to be his more controversial it seems ) quite interesting so i looked a bit further into them than i would others. While I’m on the topic I don’t suppose anyone could recommend any good reads regarding Freud? I’ve recently come across one of Freud’s papers called "On Coca" which I found very enlightening. Has anyone read it? I cant seem to find it anywhere.

Odysseus

Octavian-White wrote:

While I’m on the topic I don’t suppose anyone could recommend any good reads regarding Freud? I’ve recently come across one of Freud’s papers called "On Coca" which I found very enlightening. Has anyone read it? I cant seem to find it anywhere.

The Cocaine Papers are very difficult to get as they are not published in the standard edition. They were left out as they were considered to be part of his pre-analytical period, however, they are very interesting to read and really give an insight into his interest in cocaine. I managed to obtain a copy a few years ago, and as I work in the addiction field I found well written.

As regards to Freud you could try Intorductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis which is in two parts, which give a general overview of the history and development over his theories.

2Scoops

Well, psychology has moved on a lot from Freud in fairness! His ideas were not all accurate but he made an awesome and important contribution to psychological theory. His work is still studied for historical reasons perhaps moreso than for its accuracy.

Myksyk

On the other side of the fence, have a read through Richard Webster's "Why Freud was wrong" or Frederick Crews' works (The Memory Wars or Unauthorised Freud [I think]). I also really liked the Borch-Jacobsen book "Remembering Anno O" which is a strong indictment of some of the 'work' that informed Freud's early theorising.

There's no doubt that Freud had an astounding influence on western society in the first half of the century. I would argue that most of that influence has been distracting at best and immensely damaging at worst.

Gibs

Octavian-White wrote:

Hello all!

This is my first time on the site and this is my first post so be kind . Id love to hear peoples views on fraud’s theory .....

Octavian

I love your spelling of his name Was that deliberate or perhaps a freudian slip?:p

If you would like to get a good overview of some current thinking on the subject, you can find a special edition dedicated to Freud and his influence in the British Psychological Society's monthly publication, "The Psychologist", here. The link should get you to the index page and you can then download all of the relevant articles about Freud for free.

Incidentally, except for the most recent 6 months, anyone can download any article from the archives of The Psychologist. Just go to this link

Odysseus

Myksyk wrote:

There's no doubt that Freud had an astounding influence on western society in the first half of the century. I would argue that most of that influence has been distracting at best and immensely damaging at worst.

Out of interest what makes you say that?

Myksyk

Odysseus wrote:

Out of interest what makes you say that?

Hi Odysseus. I've never been convinced of the analytical take on the human condition. I think Freud, Breuer et al developed a perilously sandy theoretical foundation on which to develop any practical therapeutic applications. The theories which were developed then and which have influenced the development of other like-minded ideas are often so broad and unparsimonious as to allow almost endless and usually baseless interpretations of human experiences.

This would be all well and good, if not particularly enlightening, if the ideas had only been confined to strictly analytical circles. But the general ideas stemming from the Freudian camp had such currency and went unquestioned for so long that they influenced whole other spheres of thought about human problems. For example, psychoanalytical ideas usually form some indistinct base for all sorts of questionable therapies from primal scream to repressed memory therapy and hundreds in between.

The story of repressed memory therapy in the States is a good example of the harm that a therapy, firmly based on Freudian or perhaps pseudo-Freudian ideas, can do. I would suggest reading Mark Predergast's 'Victims of Memory' book to get an idea of how the ideas propagated by Freud and his contempories have been used to justify senseless and dangerous therapies for decades (I'm not suggesting that all analytical therapies are dangerous ... tho I would question their comparative usefulness judged against more recent evidence-based approaches).

For what it's worth I also think that the general idea implicit in psychoanalytical schools of thought that people are almost intrinsically messed up psychologically and that everyone would benefit from therapy to be a particularly unwarranted and insidious idea.

Ooops ... I'm ranting.

Odysseus

Thanks for you reply Myksky I had a long post written out but was logged out by the time I tried to post it. I'll get back to you when I have a tad more time. Cheers.

Myksyk

I hate when that happens!!

Octavian-White

Id have to agree that Freud (or Fraud whatever you prefer ) although a major pioneer of sorts for psychology was also questionable in his practices. He admits himself that on several occasions his bad use of judgment may have cost his patients, and also when reading through his case studie's there seems to be a common underlining self analytical trait where he diagnoses himself again and again through his patients, an example is Sergei Pankejeff (aka wolf man) for one.

Of course this is just an opinion. What do you guys think?

Octavian

summerdays

Any of Adam Phillips' books are a great introduction to psychoanalysis and he's currently the editor of the new penguin edition of Freud he's a great place to find an accessible entré to the work.