Was Freud associated with the nature or nurture side of the debate in psychology?

Question

Le essay

Answer 1

Nurture.

Answer 2

Nurture Side Of The Debate

Answer 3

Without getting into too much detail here, I would say that Freud's concepts were definitely based on nurture.

For example, you have no doubt heard of all the various basic Freudian "stages" of human development -- such as oral, anal, and genital stages, plus syndromes such as the Oedepis syndrome or Elektra syndrome.

These stages are all based on nurture.

If something goes wrong as the child is developing -- the parent proves inadequate, for example, to raise the child properly -- then a child can be "stuck" in one of these stages and suffer problems as an adult because of them. If nurture was NOT the case, then the mistakes of the parents would have no real impact; and these stages could not really exist.

Even psychotherapy often involved looking back at one's life or looking at one's fears and darkest dreams (sometimes stored in the unconscious) and determining how and where things went wrong, and how they might be fixed.

Biology (nature) was very out-of-vogue in the mid-century but slowly came back into prominence near the end of the last century, as we developed more understanding of biology and also could see the long-term effects of trying to socialize someone against their biological inclinations (such as the John Money cases, where boys were raised as girls and it became obvious that biological programming was stronger than the nurture factor in those situations).

And I think Freud helped contribute to the strength of the nurture position in the early 20th century, leading to that strong faith in behavioralism in the mid-century.

Answer 4

Freud's theories include the influences of both nature and nurture. He maintained that our behavior is governed by strong biologically-based drives, like sex and aggression ("nature"), but also that our experiences--especially our early experiences--have a very significant effect on many aspects of how we act and react ("nurture"). Our basic personality style thus results from an interaction of such biological and experiential factors.

Answer 5

He believed that nurture was a very strong (if not the strongest) influential factor when developing psychologically, especially when it came to psychological disorders. Some of his theories are out of date, but some of them can still be reliably applied today.

Answer 6

Try actually READING HIM and find out for yourself! Actually, the 'nature vs nurture' debate is sociological, not pyschological, and is 'far too new' to have been around when Freud was practicing. He was the person who said everything was 'sexually related' and Carl Jung was the one who said it was 'archetypally related' through myths, legends, and religion.

Answer 7

I think he was too obsessed with sex to focus on anything else....LOL