History vs. Sigmund Freud Todd Dufresne
Working in Vienna at the turn
of the 20th century,
he began his career as a neurologist
before pioneering the discipline
of psychoanalysis.
He proposed that people are motivated
by unconscious desires
and repressed memories,
and their problems can be addressed
by making those motivations conscious
through talk therapy.
His influence towers above that of all
other psychologists in the public eye.
But was Sigmund Freud
right about human nature?
And were his methods scientific?
Order, order.
Today on the stand we have… Dad?
Ahem, no, your honor.
This is Doctor Sigmund Freud,
one of the most innovative thinkers
in the history of psychology.
An egomaniac who propagated
pseudoscientific theories.
Well, which is it?
He tackled issues medicine
refused to address.
Freud’s private practice treated women
who suffered from what was called
hysteria at the time,
and their complaints hadn’t been taken
seriously at all.
From the women with depression
he treated initially
to World War I veterans with PTSD,
Freud’s talking cure worked,
and the visibility he gave his patients
forced the medical establishment
to acknowledge their psychological
disorders were real.
He certainly didn’t help all his patients.
Freud was convinced
that our behavior is shaped by
unconscious urges
and repressed memories.
He invented baseless unconscious
or irrational drivers
behind the behavior of trauma
survivors— and caused real harm.
How’s that?
He misrepresented some of his most
famous case studies,
claiming his treatment had cured patients
when in fact they had gotten worse.
Later therapists influenced
by his theories
coaxed their patients into “recovering”
supposedly repressed memories
of childhood abuse that never happened.
Lives and families were torn apart.
You can’t blame Freud for later
misapplications of his work—
that would be projecting.
Plenty of his ideas were harmful
without any misapplication.
He viewed homosexuality
as a developmental glitch.
He coined the term penis envy—
meaning women are haunted for life
by their lack of penises.
Freud was a product of his era.
Yes, some of the specifics were flawed,
but he created a new space
for future scientists to explore,
investigate, and build upon.
Modern therapy techniques
that millions of people rely on
came out of the work he started
with psychoanalysis.
And today everyone knows
there’s an unconscious—
that idea was popularized Freud.
Psychologists today only believe
in a “cognitive unconscious,”
the fact that you aren’t aware
of everything going on at a given moment.
Freud took this idea way too far,
ascribing deep meaning to everything.
He built his theories on scientific ideas
that were outdated even in his own time,
not just by today’s standards—
for example, he thought
individual psychology
is derived from the biological inheritance
of events in ancient history.
And I mean ancient—
like the Ice Age or the killing of Moses.
Freud and his closest allies actually
believed these prehistorical traumas
had ongoing impacts on human psychology.
He thought that the phase
of cold indifference to sexuality
during pubescence was literally
an echo of the Ice Age.
With fantastical beliefs like these,
how can we take him seriously?
Any renowned thinker from centuries past
has ideas that seem fantastical
by today’s standards,
but we can’t discount
their influence on this basis.
Freud was an innovator
linking ideas across many fields.
His concepts have become everyday terms
that shape how we understand and talk
about our own experiences.
The Oedipus complex? Ego and id?
Defense mechanisms? Death wishes?
All Freud.
But Freud didn’t present himself as a
social theorist—
he insisted that his work was scientific.
Are you saying he… repressed
inconvenient facts?
Freud’s theories were unfalsifiable.
Wait, so you’re saying he was right?
No, his ideas were framed so that
there’s no way to empirically verify them.
Freud didn’t even necessarily believe
in the psychoanalysis he was peddling.
He was pessimistic
about the impact of therapy.
What! I think I need to lie down!
Many of Sigmund Freud’s ideas
don’t hold up to modern science,
and his clinical practices don’t meet
today’s ethical standards.
At the same time, he sparked
a revolution in psychology and society,
and created a vocabulary
for discussing emotion.
Freud made his share of mistakes.
But is a thinker responsible
for how subsequent generations
put their ideas to use?
Do they deserve the blame,
credit, or redemption
when we put history on trial?