Thread: Psychoanalysis

I'm just wondergin what everybody's opinion on Psychoanalysis is. It's a very interesting subject and there a lot of passionate arguments by those for and against it's practice.

For some people, Psychoanalysis seems to have worked. After undergoing 'treatment' they have worked their way out of their problems one way or another. However, this is by no means a universal outcome. Many critics argue that Psychoanalysist is more of a cult than a scientific movement.

I think that there's definitely something in that. In listening to Psychoanalysts debating with their critics, they come across more like Scientologists with Freud their Hubbard.

I do think Freud opened the doors to a new library of knowledge about the human psyche and his work is definitely not to be scoffed at, however, I don't think that Freud's ideas about the unconscious represent the key to solving all of humanity's psychological ills.

I don't want to write an essay here so what does everyone else think?

Originally Posted by The Viking

Call me a science nerd, but I think every single action we make can be boiled down to a) passing our genes on to new generations and b) ensuring the success of those genes. The (very few) people who don't are simply victims of a poor hand of cards, and will be swept out of the gene pool in time.

That'd be a bit of a blow to any notion of free will wouldn't it?

Originally Posted by Trionix

Nice article in New Scientist, about the two camps of thought regarding the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:

Psychiatry's civil war - health - 14 December 2009 - New Scientist

From what I can gather, it seems like psychotherapy can and does do a lot of good for a lot of people, but owing to the fact that exceptions to the rules prevent it being considered a precise science, and that there's massive corruption with regards to pharmaceutical companies, it gets a bad rep. That's not even to mention the responses from people who've been accurately diagnosed but refuse to accept it, so embark on a campaign of defamation against the entire practise (of whom there appear to be far too many).

It's certainly interesting. I would argue that one of the possible reasons for so many people being 'accurately' diagnosed but refusing to accept is down to the fact that said diagnosis can often be of a condition which is nothing more than a normal human emotional state. Spitzer himself has said as much and he was the head of the board which brought out the DSM-III. He'd admitted they'd made a mistake but then once the ball's rolling it's hard to stop it, especially when you add drug companies into the equation.

Perhaps the human mind likes to see it's problems as an illness that has a definite cure. It certainly simplifies things a lot when you can take pills for a stress-related illness. But with that comes aother problem I have with drug-promotig psychotherapy and that's that the treatment is often less of a cure and more of a coping mechanism. Say what you want about psychoanalysis but at least they're trying to find a cure to your problems!

Tri, I'm surprised you haven't read more into psychoanalysis. Jung and Freud did a lot of great work and the mai principals of psychoanalysis have been used to cajole and control people in capitalist societies very successfully.

Check out this docu which you've probably already seen anyway.
The Century Of The Self - Part 1 of 4 - By Adam Curtis
The Century of the self 2 of 4
The Century of the Self 3 of 4
The Century of the self 4 of 4