opinions on Freud?

Question

Just got in from studying pyschology, and ahve just been listening to my tutor goin on about how Sigmund Freud was mad himself, and all his theories were rubbish. I'm baffled, i thought he was a legend in the world of pyschology!!! Is he really that bad?

Answer 1

Check out this commentary:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11904222/site/newsweek/

Freud is still relevant. Your tutor seems unqualified to comment on him if he believes Freud was mad, as there is no evidence to support that. Freud's theories were just that, theories, and led to scientific research that would not have occurred without that impetus. And it turns out that although he was not completely correct in many of his assumptions, he was certainly more right than wrong.

If Freud's theories were rubbish, then so were Newton's, Aristotle's, and those of all the giants of the past.

Answer 2

Freud came up with his psychological ideals and concepts during the Victorian era where people were sexually repressed so his ideals are outdated and really only applied to the time he was living in. Even then some of his ideas have been found to be untrue or silly but a lot of ideas from that long ago have been proven or discovered untrue so it just goes with the time.

There are a great many more psychologists now who know far more than Freud did. We have MRI's, hypotheses that can be tested, and years more experience than Frued did. He tried to help people and is well known for being the father of psychology.

In a way, he started a very important movement toward understanding more about people and how they think and behave (psychology) which is now a much more highly developed and researched field so of course some of his ideas may seem crazy now. I respect him for his intentions of trying to get to the underlying causes of things that were bothering people.

Answer 3

Freud was the first of his kind. He was very convincing and, at that time, psychology was still quite embryonic. People believed in his theories. Freud 'got the ball rolling' and made people think about human behaviour. He inaugurated alot of ideas and systems which are still relevant in today's psychological beliefs and experiments. It can be said that Freud was a little 'obsessed' with the sexual side of things. And maybe he was a little eccentric, but so are many of the intelligent people in this world. It seems that eccentricity is an important element in our creativity and intelligence that gets powerful results. Freud has been such a major influence, not only in psychology, but psychotherapy, mental health, scientific study etc etc. Hail Freud, he is a legend to be respected and admired!!!!!

Answer 4

Freud is the man! I think he is definatly the Father of Pyschology. Anyone who doesn't believe who you are depends on your first 5 years of life, needs to really observe life and see that it's true. I won't get into it because I'll be here forever. Freud was a crazy, anyone who has achieve such greatness has to be a lil mad. Look at Einstein...do you know people thought he was "mad"...Mad Scientist...were you think that expression came from.

Answer 5

There will be people who think he was great, people who think he was ok, and people who think his work was nothing but crap. It's the same for every psychologist, philosopher, scientist, etc. I for one think Freud was great and has been quite influential in the field of psychology and though I respect the right to another opinion I believe someone who says all of his theories were rubbish is ignorant to his work. They may just know a select portion of his theories or may have been exposed to the stereotypical, narrow-sighted, take of Freudian psychology, which usually arises from his views on psychosexual development and those expressed in Totem and Taboo. His psychosexual psychology views are often considered to be phallocentric and many rejected his claim of the universality of the Oedipus complex, a theory he discussed in Totem and Taboo. In actuality Freud played a large part in the development of the idea of the subconcious mind, divided the psyche into ego, super-ego, and id and discussed defense mechanisms one's ego uses to settle conflicts between the super-ego and id, and also wrote influential works in the field of social psychology. If you're interested in his works I would recommend Group Psychology and Ego Analysis.

Answer 6

A lot of students of psychoanalysis became divided over Freud and Jung - probably the second-most influential. Apparently, Jung thought the unconscious harbored useful creative energy resulting in brilliant musicians, inventors, artists and other visionaries. Freud, on the other hand, interpreted dreams strictly as repressed desires.

Jung thought Freud's view of dreams was too narrow and pessimistic. Jung was mentored by Freud but they had a falling out over these differences.

Answer 7

Ahh Sigmund Freud the father of psychoanalysis. Best known for his theories on the unconscious mind, and the redefinition of sexual desire. Many people today like to discredit his work. Though I find these are the people who care more about political correctness, and less about human nature. I think the man was brilliant. Was he 100% correct in all his theories? no, but it was he who was first to refute and criticize his own work, which allowed him to go back to the drawing board, or the couch if you will, and restudy his patients. His psycho-sexual development theories were fascinating, and I would say extremely accurate. I would have loved to have had the opportunity to chat with this man....I find his work to have been most innovative, creative, and alluring.

Answer 8

Freud was the father of psychotherapy. He basically invented the entire notions of the ego, the id, the superego and the unconscious and developed the means of conducting therapy. If your tutor suggested he was neurotic, he would be right. We all are. If he said 'insane' and that his theories were 'rubbish', he shouldn't be allowed to be a tutor. Remind him about the fact that Freud discovered the unconscious and see how he responds, but seriously I would start looking for a tutor who knows his *** from a hole in the ground.

Answer 9

Freud had some odd ideas, as well as some brilliant insights.

Lots of his work has been superseded (We all see further by standing on the shoulders of Giants)

For instance: feminists have argued that at worst his views of women's sexual development set the progress of women back decades, and that at best they lent themselves to the ideology of female inferiority. Believing as he did that women are a kind of mutilated male, who must learn to accept their "deformity" (the "lack" of a penis) and submit to some imagined biological imperative, he contributed to the vocabulary of misogyny. Terms such as "penis envy" and "castrating" (both used to describe women who attempted to excel in any field outside the home) contributed to discouraging women from obtaining education or entering any field dominated by men.

Now that's not right, is it?

The trick is to use your own insight/knowledge/guess work to decide what YOU think.

Listen to all the arguments, ask questions, & then judge for yourself.

Above all enjoy

Answer 10

i love this guy, i think he was a pioner in psychology or the times he was in, i love everything of his from the oidipus and electra complex to his views on sleep and dream. and phobias. iv used him so many times in my notes and presentations...

i hate the fact people say "oh well you cant falsify him can you" so what??? if you do psychology then you will know by now that there is nevr a real answer to anything so why is his theory always degraded?

he was a very intelligent guy and im shocked that academics all over the world critisie him

frued was a guy who was just preaching to the wrong time era, a time when no one could accept his views because they were living in a very conservative time were even the mention of sex could get you ignored by society...

his views were unfairyly critisized as he use small sample sizes, he used mentally ill veitnamese women in the development of one of his theorys and he used one small case study on one of his friends children (they communicated via letters) but apart fom that i give full credit to the guy...

plus if he wasnt that good why are people STILL being treated using his methods???

frued is a real credit to psychology...

(yes i do aknowledge other approaches and yes i do appreciate them too...but this is about frued...)