|
|
|
[ Burying Freud Homepage | Freud's Seduction Theory Homepage ] Professor Tallis attacks Freud as a scientist and as a person. His attacks are probably accurate. It is hard to see how anyone with the slightest respect for the scientific method would not agree that Freud's speculations are not scientific hypotheses. They are speculations, based on minimal evidence, that try to explain certain aspects of human behavior. In most cases they are not capable of being disproven by experimentation, so cannot be considered scientific hypotheses. Yet models are not true or false . . . they are useful or not useful. The therapy, psychoanalysis, that is based on the model does not seem to be particularly useful. About 30 years ago the American Psychoanalytic Association gathered some data on the outcome of psychoanalytic therapy as conducted by its members. The unpublished copies of the report became known as the "Rainbow Report" as each chapter was duplicated on different colored paper. The report was never published because the results were so poor that it was decided that to publish it would present psychoanalysis in a bad light. In any case, psychoanalysis is essentially dead as a therapy. Despite the official "party-line" most of the people in 4 or 5 times a week analysis are candidates at psychoanalytic institutes, not individuals with serious psychiatric disorders. While some of the more speculative sorts of psychoanalysis (Lacan) are popular with critics of society, they seem to have little to offer those who care for people with psychiatric disorders. I suspect that 100 years from now both Freud and Marx will be looked upon as interesting cranks, whose popularity were fleeting, and who added little to the history of ideas. Best regards . . . Ivan Goldberg, MD
|
|||||||
[ Burying Freud Homepage | Freud's Seduction Theory Homepage ] Professor Tallis attacks Freud as a scientist and as a person. His attacks are probably accurate. It is hard to see how anyone with the slightest respect for the scientific method would not agree that Freud's speculations are not scientific hypotheses. They are speculations, based on minimal evidence, that try to explain certain aspects of human behavior. In most cases they are not capable of being disproven by experimentation, so cannot be considered scientific hypotheses. Yet models are not true or false . . . they are useful or not useful. The therapy, psychoanalysis, that is based on the model does not seem to be particularly useful. About 30 years ago the American Psychoanalytic Association gathered some data on the outcome of psychoanalytic therapy as conducted by its members. The unpublished copies of the report became known as the "Rainbow Report" as each chapter was duplicated on different colored paper. The report was never published because the results were so poor that it was decided that to publish it would present psychoanalysis in a bad light. In any case, psychoanalysis is essentially dead as a therapy. Despite the official "party-line" most of the people in 4 or 5 times a week analysis are candidates at psychoanalytic institutes, not individuals with serious psychiatric disorders. While some of the more speculative sorts of psychoanalysis (Lacan) are popular with critics of society, they seem to have little to offer those who care for people with psychiatric disorders. I suspect that 100 years from now both Freud and Marx will be looked upon as interesting cranks, whose popularity were fleeting, and who added little to the history of ideas. Best regards . . . Ivan Goldberg, MD
|
|||||||
