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?

J: Order, order. Today on the
stand we have… Dad?

D: Ahem, no, your honor.

This is Doctor Sigmund Freud,

one of the most innovative thinkers
in the history of psychology.

P: An egomaniac who propagated
pseudoscientific theories.

J: Well, which is it?

D: 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.

P: 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.

J: How’s that?

P: 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 child abuse

that never happened.

Lives and families were torn apart.

D: You can’t blame Freud for later
misapplications of his work –

that would be projecting.

P: 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.

I mean, seriously?!

D: 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.

P: 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?

D: 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?

Arrested development? All Freud.

P: But Freud didn’t present himself as a
social theorist –

he insisted that his work was scientific.

J: Are you saying he… repressed
inconvenient facts?

P: Freud’s theories were unfalsifiable.

J: Wait, so you’re saying he was right?

P: 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.

J: 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?