From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 08/29/02-11:35:10 AM Z
I'm not terribly surprised that there are 30 institutes of
psychoanalysis in New York City or that most large cities have one or
two; that is consistent with my point that psychoanalysis forms a very
small island in the universe of mental health professionals
(psychologists and psychiatrists).
The fact that Freud's ideas have become part of the popular culture
doesn't change the fact that there's no evidence to support them, or to
support the hypothesis that they help people improve their lives or
understand the world better. As a wise person once said, it's not what
we don't know that hurts us, it's what we know that ain't so.
I didn't quite understand the red herring about other ridiculous therapy
techniques; there's no end of them, and there's no evidence to support
their use either. I'm not here to argue that every (or even any)
therapeutic technique other than psychoanalysis is valid and useful. But
since you bring up the recovered memory business, that was a direct
outgrowth of Freudian thinking.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree; further argument on the matter
seems fruitless.
Katharine Thayer
Judy Seigel wrote:
>
> On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Katharine Thayer wrote:
>
> > ... what year IS this, anyway? When we've got people arguing
> > that the "natural order of things" dictates a power inequality between
> > men and women, and other people defending Freud, who not only was
> > debunked but was debunked DECADES ago, I have to wonder if I somehow
> > woke up in the wrong century this morning. Freud hasn't been mentioned
> > in psychology graduate programs, except as a cautionary tale of theory
> > unsupported by data, since the 50s. The only people who still take Freud
> > seriously are lit crit and art crit types, except for small holdout
> > enclaves of psychoanalysts that have no importance or influence in the
>
> Oh lordy, I should have known someone would say that. For the record,
> there are at least 30 "Institutes" training psychiatrists, psychologists,
> social workers and similar "health professionals" in analytic, Freudian
> thinking -- in NEW YORK CITY ALONE. Every major city has at least one
> Psychoanalytic Institute, some have two or three.
>
> The leading teaching hospitals teach the concepts to their psychiatric
> residents, who are very hungry for them. The "debunking" of Freud is,
> like Mark Twain said of reports of his death, greatly exaggerated. I
> don't need to go on with chapter and verse, but point out that his
> "debunked" ideas actually are so well absorbed into the culture, most
> people don't even recognize them as Freudian. Like the lady said, you mean
> I'm talking prose ?
>
> CUT ... (how much has
> > all his years of psychoanalysis helped Woody Allen, for example?)
>
> We don't know how much it helped Woody Allen, because we don't know what
> he would have been like without it. But for the record, that was
> celebrity psychiatry, and treatment with such folks as "How to be your own
> best friend" types, who are themselves celebrities & make a cult of their
> patient circle, with patients jockeying for limelight and points -- is
> another form of patient abuse. However, you do not know who had a
> psychoanalysis who didn't make a public story out of it. Ethical analysts
> do NOT brag about their famous patients, and people in the public eye know
> better than to reveal it -- if this reaction is typical, as heaven help us
> it may well be.
>
> In the most respected analysts in the field will rarely speak in public,
> that is on TV, or otherwise take the limelight (tho they are known in
> professional circles). They take an "abstaining" position -- the
> treatment isn't about them, it's about the patient and the patient's
> fantasies about whatever, including them.
>
> Freud was a pioneer, he was wrong, or not right, or off on various things.
> But the serious workers in the field are still writing and refining and
> developing his ideas. The insights are also used by writers and thinkers
> in related fields --Peter Gay and Christopher Lasch come to mind, but my
> knowledge here is out of date -- I've been reading photo history for 20
> years instead.
>
> Other modalities come and go (remember recovered memory syndrome? Orgone
> Box? Rolfing?) for MANY reasons,including or especially as practice
> builders. You got a gimmick, the latest "advance"? That's like this
> year's diet. Or the new exercise stuff they do at my gym. Sometimes they
> help folks, sometimes a LOT, and we all need all the help we can get, but
> ... there are some problems for which "the talking cure" is still most
> effective -- and gratifying.
>
> so in
> > my opinion it doesn't make any sense to give credence to Freud and his
> > notions. At worst they've done great harm (for example when women who
> > were being brutally assaulted by their husbands sought law enforcement
> > help but instead of the husband being brought up on charges the women
> > were sent to psychiatrists who told them that they were "castrating"
> > their husbands by defying the husbands' rightful authority over them and
> > going to the police, and that they should go back home and stop being
> > masculine and castrating and upsetting the rightful balance of power);
> > at best they've created a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
>
> Any idea can be perverted... As we see every day in extremist cults,
> radical conservatives, and "dictatorship of the proletariat." In fact
> an idea retaining its meaning is more rare than not -- as discussions of
> evolution of religion show. Suffice to say, those concepts laid to
> Freudianism is junk psychology, if it happened, or even if it didn't,
> since it seems to have gained credence, at least in some quarters. But
> the cops AND police psychiatrists can pervert anything.
>
> I know one woman abused by her husband who wouldn't go to police because
> they'd arrest him, he'd lose his job, and she'd have to stay to testify,
> but was planning to "escape" to Florida. I also know a mother who
> panicked when her kid fell into a lamp and got a burn on his forehead --
> they called her in to school to prove it wasn't child abuse. Half cocked
> social workers have removed children from their homes on such rationales.
> Does that mean child abuse prevention is a crock?
>
> Not to mention that that "rightful authority" business sounds like some of
> those southern Baptists (is that them?), and they don't read Freud. Too
> bad.
>
> So let me recommend another book by Freud: Psychopathology of Everyday
> Life. A delight, reads like a murder mystery ... and rings true.
>
> I also quote Freud on what it takes to do a successful psychoanalysis --
> the patient must be rich, intelligent, and have not too much wrong with
> them. No wonder it's out of style.
>
> Judy
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