Talk:Sigmund Freud

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Contents 1 Templates 2 Archives 3 Intro needs cleaning 4 Media? 5 Freud and the Irish 6 Critical Reactions 7 Comment 8 VERIFY §1. Improving the Verifiability of this Article 9 Sigmund Freud, agoraphobe? 10 Contemporary view 11 Rollback 12 Spelling in this article 13 Neurologist or psychiatrist? 14 See also and External links 15 POV 16 Major Works? 17 Hagiography 18 Chabad.org link 19 Part about crowd Psychology. 20 Pop culture 21 A small nonsense 22 Instincts 23 Freud wars 24 Cultural depictions of Sigmund Freud 25 Psychosexual development 26 unconscious 27 Bizarro Vandalism 28 Freud on women 29 Referencing 30 Infobox?

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[edit] Archives

• Talk:Sigmund Freud/Archive1 - '03-(Mar)'06

[edit] Intro needs cleaning

The current introduction needs overhaul; i.e. it has to be in the form of a readable short paragraph or two designed to introduce Freud to the common reader, rather than a list of bullets on the psychoanalytic school. Thanks:--Sadi Carnot 16:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Media?

Freud shows up a lot in movies and TV shows (like Bill & Ted), and I'm wondering if that would be worth adding to his wiki entry.

[edit] Freud and the Irish

Did he really say about the Irish: 'This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever'. (or words to that effect)? If he really did, does anybody know where and what the context was? El Gringo 01:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Critical Reactions

I would like to incorporate a brief overview of Wittgenstein's reaction to Freud, especially his denial of the existence of the unconcious. There is a whole book written about it, Wittgenstein Reads Freud: The Myth of the Unconscious by Jacques Bouveresse (the edition I'm reading is translated by Carol Cosman), and it provides a great viewpoint for some of the problems with Freud on the scientific and philosophical level. --Alex Kozak 23:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The section on critical reactions is so weak and devoid of actual analysis or argument that it's tantamount to praising the man with faint damning. Surely there are critical intellects out there who can do better than this couple of op-ed sound-bytes:

A paper by Lydiard H. Horton, read in 1915 at a joint meeting of the American Psychological Association and the New York Academy of Sciences, called Freud's dream theory "dangerously inaccurate" and noted that "rank confabulations … appear to hold water, psychoanalytically".

Anthony Grayling, Reader in Philosophy at the University of London, and a Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, writing in The Guardian in 2002, said "Philosophies that capture the imagination never wholly fade … But as to Freud's claims upon truth, the judgment of time seems to be running against him."

JA: Also, I'm requesting exact source and page citations in support of the statements made in that section. I don't doubt that they exist, but it's our duty to get the chapter and verse, and maybe some actual quotations of some actual arguments that will allow the reader to evaluate the contrasting claims. Jon Awbrey 05:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Exact citations have been added. Certainly, we can do better. I suggest that leaving in quoted opinions from qualified persons that specifically address the validity of Freudian "theory" is better than reducing the section to the vague assertions of "Some (?) have attacked Freud's claim of..."

Horton reference: http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=AbnPsyc.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=32&division=div1

Grayling reference: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,741510,00.html NuclearWinner 05:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The selection of Horton and Grayling as important Freud critics seems totally random, and, other than an absurd amount of specific information about when/where they said something, they seem entirely lacking in substance. There have probably been tens of thousands of critiques presented; why are we presenting these two short quotes that basically say "boo Freud"?

I think I'm going to cut these, 'cause they're just silly... Then I might try replacing them with some feminist criticism, which has been more important in the literature. I also tried to fix up the Popper section a bit. -BrownApple 23:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a lot of very serious Freud criticism that is not even mentioned. Eg, there is the book The Memory Wars, Freud's Legacy in Dispute, edited by Frederick Crews, that was published in about 1990. More criticism should be added. A lot of people think that Freud was a big charlatan, and that his theories have no merit. Roger 21:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

This section begins with a reference to Mitchell which is confusing - Mitchell is essentially a Freudian, and real critics of F. would consider her little more than an apologist. The section sure enough goes on to adduce her as counter-criticism. While I'll readily acknowledge that I'm not familiar with all of Mitchell's work, the claim ascribed to her in the first paragraph seems like it must have been taken out of context, and even if it hasn't, I don't think it makes sense or does justice to either side to open the seciton with her. I'm also bothered by the last entry regarding Schneidt: his basically facetious sniping hardly represents a cogent critique of Freud, and is certainly not more worthy of inclusion than the work of the great many intelligent detractors whose objections aren't included. That said, I couldn't make the changes myself in good conscience since a) I'm new to the page and b) I'm pro-psychoanalysis. Any thoughts? Andrew 86.141.179.159 21:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Since this section had no references in it, I am restoring those that existed before. Please note that Horton and Grayling provide both early (1915) and recent (2002) evaluations of Freud. I consider their statements quite helpful in understanding criticism of this man and his work. NuclearWinner 20:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

Surely the bulk of this article belongs at Freudianism? Adam 01:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The bulk of the article seems alright to me... but I agree that the beginning should be refocused on Freud rather than the school that followed him. Part of the problem here might be that when we talk about "Freud," it's the standard interpretation of him that's most important, rather than his actual writings (which, rather than a coherent theory, were a jumble of related and sometimes contradictory ideas). Still, the intro should give us the received view of Freud, rather than the movement that followed.--BrownApple 08:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VERIFY §1. Improving the Verifiability of this Article

JA: I am creating this section as a place for discussing the continuing need to improve the status of the current article on Sigmund Freud with respect to the WP:POLICY of WP:VERIFIABILITY. I have started by placing {citation needed} tags on a number of statements that are missing source data. There is a vast amount of responsible scholarly discussion out there, and the article is in somewhat critical need of drawing on it, instead of resorting to one Blue Sky assertion after another. Jon Awbrey 12:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree- I have therefore delisted it as a GA plange 03:05, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sigmund Freud, agoraphobe?

[Category:Agoraphobic_celebrities] lists Freud. I've never heard this before. Can anybody confirm or deny this? (Cite, please.) Thanks. -- 201.78.233.162 19:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contemporary view

Shouldn't this:

Believing as he did that women are a kind of mutilated male, who must learn to accept their deformity (the lack of a penis) and submit to some imagined biological imperative, he contributed to the vocabulary of misogyny.

be changed to:

In uncritically accepting the view common at the time that women are a kind of mutilated male...

Or is there evidence that his views on this were more misogynist than "normal"? The article even specifically points out that Freud was an early champion of both sexual freedom and education for women (Freud, "Civilized Sexual Morality and Modern Nervousness"). --Espoo 10:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rollback

I rolled back a criticism of IOD because it violates NOR.Slrubenstein | Talk 11:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You have no idea what NOR is. --Espoo 11:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Please provide your source then. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:25, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely concur - if any content whatsoever is questioned, you must provide sources per WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:CITE, not argue about whether a highly experienced editor comprehends NOR. Your accusations of vandalism and addressing your post to Slrubenstein's understanding or lack thereof is not productive. Please provide your source(s), thanks. KillerChihuahua^?!? 13:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You should both read Wikipedia:No_original_research before claiming to know what you're talking about. Describing and summarising information in a primary source is not original research. All it requires is reading the primary source. Obviously neither of you have done that. In addition, the discrepancy in IOD between Freud's categorical "infantility" claim and the given personal examples is well known. This shows that neither of you have apparently read secondary sources about IOD either. The claim of original research is especially ludicrous in light of the page reference provided.

In addition, the revert by Slrubenstein was clearly vandalism-like for another reason: it removed all my three consecutive edits without even bothering to look at the first two; clearly a sign of not being an experienced editor. If someone does something like that despite a long time of experience, that is an even more clear sign of a lack of real experience. --Espoo 17:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I assure you both Slrubenstein and I, both experienced Administrators, have a full understanding of the policies. As it is clear you do not, please let us know what part seems unclear to you and I will be happy to explain it to you. You may wish to re-read WP:V as well: removing unsourced content is enforcing policy, not vandalism. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Describing and summarising information in a primary source is not original research. But describing your opinion of such, is. The best way to avoid original research is to describe the opinions of experts. So if you find a review or critique of that primary source that was reported by a reliable source, in which information in a primary source is described and/or summarized, you would be most welcome to add it to the article. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling in this article

I thought we were using UK Eng here, until I saw that 'defence mechanisms' was spelled the US way. I started changing it (the wiki article is called Defence mechanisms FWIW) and then I thought I might offend someone by doing that. So, are we writing in UK or US English here? --Guinnog 16:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was UK also, defence is UK, defense is US, and apparently the Canadians use either, is that not correct? KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Think so. Would make sense as Freud lived in the UK and published from there, presumably in UK Eng. I'll copyedit it so the whole article is in the same spelling vaariant when I get the chance. Just didn't want to tread on anybody's toes, espececially not on the 4th of July! --Guinnog 16:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Hah. I hadn't realised he was only in London for a year and a half; thought it was longer. Serves me right for not reading the article carefully! --Guinnog 16:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

OTOH he never lived in the States. I support UK spelling. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, done. Spelling should be consistent within an article. --Guinnog 12:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

JA: Go with the spelling in the Standard Edition. Unless of course there are US and UK variants of the SE, in which case flip a koine. Jon Awbrey 13:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neurologist or psychiatrist?

The article says he was a neurologist, but it is in Category:Austrian psychiatrists. Apokrif 16:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

psychoanalyst would be most accuratewhicky1978 ^talk 03:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Freud always referred to himself as a physician

[edit] See also and External links

These sections are both massive, but I wanted to see if anybody wanted to comment on them before I cut them down some. On the former, it treats the article as a category; the latter, a collection of external links. Both are meant to include only essential information not found elsewhere in the article. Any input on shortening these down some? Tijuana Brass^¡Épa! 16:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

Despite the valid and sweeping criticisms of Freud's approaches from the mainstreams of both psychology in general and therapeutic psychiatry, i.e. from the fields in which the article claims a god-like status for the man, the article remains largely hagiographic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.43.35.97 (talk • contribs).

No one, not even his strongest critics, denies that Freud was a tremendously influential figure, and I don't see anything in this article that amounts to "worship." If there are particular phrases that gave you that impression, you should certainly temper them.

As far as "valid and sweeping criticisms of Freud," you're certainly right that Freud has fallen out of fashion and is often dismissed as unscientific. But the article addresses these points. I'm going to remove the POV, but add it back if you strongly disagree.--BrownApple 23:25, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I do, however, think the intro could use a rewrite... including an earlier mention of how unpopular Freud is in modern psychology. --BrownApple 23:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major Works?

First of all, I added Woodrow Wilson to the list of "People on whom psychoanalytic observations were published but who were not patients". However, I didn't add the book that Freud co-wrote with William Bullitt about Woodrow Wilson to the list of "Major Works" because not many people know or have read this text, and it doesn't really pertain to his main theoretical contributions as defined by this article. But my non-inclusion, and indeed the list of "Major Works" begs the question of what is "major". Sure, the list as written includes the texts that one would find published seperately from the SE, and that one might assign for a intro course on psychoanalysis. But then when one reconsiders, are they? Hardly anyone reads Hysteria for an introduction to Freud, yet surely it is important as his first. On Narcissism is an important essay, but relatively short and never published on its own as far as I know. And why is Jokes in there at all, except that it is often quoted in quote books? What about Uncanny, The Unconscious, or Dora, some of the most important works in my opinion? What good is to list some, but not all? Would it perhaps be better to have a link to the contents of the SE? I think that directing the reader to some specific titles might be a good idea, but could we call the section something else other than "Major Works", because I think it is important to an understanding of Freud's corpus that sometimes the most important bits are found in the shortest essays and fragments. Anyway, something to ponder. --Adam Rothstein 01:22, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hagiography

That the article is hagiographic, is probably inevitable, since Freud lived in an age that had the utmost respect for great men and geniuses. But this is unneccesary:

"Freud himself, and psychoanalysis generally, have proved sufficiently unheimlich (disturbing)^[1] to many readers that something of a cottage industry in exposés of Freud's alleged personal faults has grown up, mostly in the USA, and especially starting from the 1980s. For example:"

It's enough that these are "biographical critiques", it is unneccesary to point out in the introduction that these books have no merit and that writing them is morally wrong. Juryen 09:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chabad.org link

I am again going to remove the chabad.org link, for these reasons:

1. While it is "neutral and accurate material", it is not sufficiently relevant. WP:NOT tells us: "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information." The article in question is a biography; as such it properly discusses the contributions of the subject individual, in this case Freud's theories. It also properly summarizes the most significant criticisms of his theories (in the absence of a separate in-depth article on Freudian theories). It is not the place for all criticisms and comments on psychoanlysis or even all moderately significant ones worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. Such intermediate material is more properly linked to other articles, such as psychoanalysis.
2. There are thousands or possibly 10s of thousands of "neutral and accurate" things on the web related to Freud; we're not going to include them all. Do we want every online doctoral thesis attached to this article? No; that's not what an encyclopedia is or does.
3. What is being linked to is a search engine result, not specific material. The search engine is returning at least one article arguably worthy of linking to psychoanalysis, but it is also returning utterly irrelevant results, such as " How Scientific is Torah?, which contains no references to Freud and just one weakly tangentally related bullet point: Torah understands the human psyche as being multi-layered and multifaceted -- there isn't just one person inside. Welcome to modern psychology. Linking to search engine results violates WP:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided #10
4. Finally, just because a religion has a perspective on an issue is not a sufficient reason for Wikipedia to link to some treatise about it. We need not link to Amish screeds in the electricity and television articles, Mormon and Muslim tracts in the brandy, wine, bourbon, and chardonnay articles. If we go down that road, then the next thing that will happen is that we'll have the laws of countries and states and counties and the rules and scriptures of every creed and sect stuck into the alcohol article.

When we edit in Wikipedia we establish limits and draw boundaries, and I'm firmly convinced that adding the chabad link to this article is across the line. studerby 22:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

You made some good points about it being in the psychoanalysis article. I will move the relevant link to that article. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 22:19, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Part about crowd Psychology.

When it says an individual "ceases repressing his instincts" surely it'd be suppressing not repressing your instincts because we all make concious efforts not to do what some of our instincts tell us. - clembo

[edit] Pop culture

This article badly needs a "sigmund in pop culture" section! --62.251.90.73 20:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I started one... so now the article is only badly in need of a bigger/better "sigmund in pop culture" section!

[edit] A small nonsense

This, under "The unconscious", might make sense to someone, but not to me: "Perhaps the most significant contribution Freud has made to to Mount Ayr Community was unconscious." Please rewrite this so it is (a) in English and (b) does not reference "Mount Ayr Community" - whatever that is - without apparent relevance. A suggested rewrite: "Perhaps the most significant contribution Freud made to western culture was the concept of the unconscious." yoyo 07:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Instincts

Someone just deleted a lot of text on instincts, without comment. Is it wrong? Why? If you cannot explain, then please put it back. Roger 16:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Freud wars

Hello everybody. I am french. The French version of the article on Sigmund Freud is the place of a war of edition baited between the various participants. The stake of the fight is the disclosure of most recent criticize on Freud and the psychoanalysis, as those which develop Jacques Bénesteau, in its book “Lies freudiens, history of a secular misinformation” and Mikkel Borch-Jacbosen in “the Freud file. Inquire into the history of the psychoanalysis”. But it is true that in France the position of the psychoanalysis is still very dominant and that the subject is thus very “hot”. How do you see the things, as Anglo-Saxons? What do you think of criticisms which currently develop in France? (Oxcart 16:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)).

I'm not sure quite what you're asking, but Freud in the U.S. has certainly fallen out of fashion in both academic and therapeutic psychology. Many people still draw from his ideas, explicitly or implicitly, and I'm sure there are a few people who would be interested in the debate you're talking about... But it's certainly no "hot topic" here.

Cognitive psych and neuropsych are "hot"--the really active areas of research and debate. Freud is quite passe.

In the United States and I think the UK, Freud continues to influence some therapists, especially via some very critical revisions e.g. ego psychology (Hartman, Rapaport), self psychology (Kohut) and attachment theory (Winnicot) - they all start with a Freudian vocabulary and share one of his major claims, that the unconscious exists, but depart from him in other significant ways. As the above anonymous user says, outside of this circle psychologists and psychiatrists are pretty dismissive of Freud; I think this is a reflection of the dominance of positivism in American academia (see Gill and Holtzman, eds. 1976; Peterfreund and Schwartz, 1971; Schafer 1976; Grunbaum 1985; Greenberg 1971 - I think one should draw on these books in writing a good article on positivist reworkings and critiques of Freud). However, when you move outside of the academic disciplines of psychology and psychiatry to other fields - to a limited degree anthropology, more comparative literature studies, and feminist theory, Freud remains very very important. The reasons should be obvious - Freud's Interpretation of Dreams opens up new ways of reading texts and understanding the way meaning is expressed and repressed in texts; his de-privileging of genital sexuality and his writings that provide evidence of the social construction of reality (even if Freud himself did not acknowledge this clearly) has been very influential in feminist theory - although again, by people who, while acknowledging Freud's insights in certain areas, are very critical of other things he wrote. Many of them are also explicit that their own critiques of Freud signify not a rejection of Freud (say, in the way an experimental hypothesis can be falsified) but rather to the enduring power of Freud's thought. Thus, in the Freudian Body Leo Bersani characterizes Freud's writings as among the most profound attempts "to give a theoretical account of precisely those forces which obstruct, undermine, play havoc with theoretical accounts themselves" (1986:4) - thus, Bersani argues that one must look for ways in which Freud's own writings obstruct and undermine his attempt to articulate his own consciousness, and that the discovery that Freud's own words at times do obstrcut and undermine themselves actually demonstrates the power of his mosty important ideas. I have not read Borsch Jakobsen's latest book to which Oxcart refers, but my sense is that he does something very similar in the Freudian Subject - clearly he demonstrates that Freud's theory lacks a meaningful concept of "the subject" and that every attempt by Freud to identify a subject of use the idea of "subject" in his analysis breaks down - but I think for Borsch jakobsen this does not invalidate Freud, on the contrary he concludes that Freud has made a major contribution to our ability to talk about ourselves in ways that reveal that the "subject," while a very useful grammatical category, has no ontological reality and on the contrary obscures our attempts to understand ourselves. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Sigmund Freud

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 17:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Psychosexual development

I am the person who replaced a passage under the section "Psychosexual development" on 30 October 2006. It was removed within hours. (To back up the replacement paragraph I did link to a lengthy article from "History of Psychiatry", one which would have taken some time to examine with any closeness.) I would like to reinstate a revised version of what I wrote, this time following what is already present, to indicate there is a different view of events arrived at by numerous researchers who, unlike those who recycle the received story as told by Freud in his later career, have closely examined the original documents. To quote one of the most recent of these revised versions, Kurt Eissler writes (2001, p. 115) of Freud’s clinical methodology in the seduction theory period that its deficiencies "reduce the probability of gaining reliable data to zero". Close readings of letters and papers from that period indicate that patients did not report sexual abuse in early childhood as Freud later claimed; he arrived at his (preconceived) 'findings' by analytic inference, heavily dependent on the symbolic interpretation of patients' symptoms. Nor did Freud's claims involve the culpability of fathers. This innovation only came into his published accounts as late as 1925.

The issue here is whether Wikipedia is to be a vehicle for the received story that held for most of the twentieth story, even though that story is based on Freud's inconsistent retrospective accounts of the episode that varied in accordance with the latest stage of his theorizing. Naturally, as a Freud researcher with several publications to my name, I think that Wikipedia articles should include recent, well-documented, research that challenges received opinion.

The most detailed presentations of the above conclusions are in the following articles:

Schimek, J. G. (1987), "Fact and fantasy in the seduction theory: a historical review." Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 35, 937-65.

Esterson, A. (1998), "Jeffrey Masson and Freud's seduction theory: a new fable based on old myths." History of the Human Sciences, 11 (1), 1-21: http://www.esterson.org/Masson_and_Freuds_seduction_theory.htm

Esterson, A. (2001). "The mythologizing of psychoanalytic history: deception and self deception in Freud’s accounts of the seduction theory episode." History of Psychiatry, xii, pp. 329-352: http://www.esterson.org/Mythologizing_psychoanalytic_history.htm

Several other authors have arrived at essentially the same conclusions in the following publications:

Cioffi, F. (1998 [1974]), "Was Freud a liar?", reprinted in Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 1998), 199-204.

Schatzman, M. (1992), "Freud: who seduced whom?", New Scientist, 21, 34-7.

Israëls, H. and Schatzman, M. (1993), "The Seduction Theory", History of Psychiatry, iv, 23-59.

Esterson, A. (1993). Seductive Mirage: An Exploration of the Work of Sigmund Freud. (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court).

Scharnberg, M. (1993). The Non-Authentic Nature of Freud's Observations, Vol. 1, The Seduction Theory. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International).

Webster, R. (1995). Why Freud Was Wrong. (London: HarperCollins).

Eissler, K. R. (2001). Freud and the Seduction Theory. (New York: Int. Univ. Press).

Esterson 08:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a contentious discussion and I respect your research. I have one main suggestion for now: it does not belong in the sections that provide a general exposition of Freud's work and thought. To do so, while complying with NPOV (which would mean including defenses of Freud and alternate debates) would make this an similar sections overwrought. I suggest that part of the article just explain the development of Freud's ideas through his published work, and then a separate section go over various debates over (including critiques of) different dimensions of his work. Your research would be perfectly appropriate there. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Slrubinstein: I appreciate your feedback. I have a couple of problems with your suggestion. One is that I do not know how to make a new section heading. (A new section such as you suggest would be valuable, but might be interminable!) You write that my proposed comments do not belong in the sections that provide a general exposition of Freud's work. But it is in such a section that someone has posted statements about Freud's supposed *clinical experiences* that I believe are documentably erroneous. This comes high up on the Freud webpage, and most people are not going to scroll right through the very lengthy webpage to get to a section containing rebuttals of the statements in question. So I propose to interpolate an alternative view in parentheses, and if this is removed I'll think again about what to do (in which case, please tell me how to make a new section!).

Incidentally, the account of how Breuer treated 'Anna O.' is a travesty of what he actually did (leaving aside the published case history, the historian of psychoanalysis Henri Ellenberger discovered Breuer's original case notes around 1970, so we have good information on this). I would like to post an alternative view of this treatment (though in this case the current statement is such a travesty that it ought not be there at all). Advice please! Esterson 10:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I've had second thoughts, as I realized that the seduction theory episode rightly belongs in the "Early Work" section, which currently stops at Breuer's treatment of 'Anna O'. The seduction theory episode belongs to this early work section, as it lies (just) in the pre-history of psychoanalysis proper. So I've added a passage in which I present the received account, followed by an account of the revised version now accepted by several Freud scholars who have based their views on the original documents, rather than on Freud's late retrospective reports.Esterson 11:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I can help you make section headings, but basically you use any number equal signs. My suggestion: take note of the "table of contents" of the article. Then, hit the button to edit the whole page - this will reveal all the codes, and you can see how the section heads that constitute the TOC are formatted (the TOC is automatically generated based on how people use those equal signs - where they put them and whether it is two, three, or four in a row). You write "that I believe are documentably erroneous" and this reveals two big issues you need to work on. first, review our NPOV policy carefully. You cannot put your own POV in the article, and we need to identiy any and all views as just that, views. Certainly, there is a major view that freud's clinical work is invalid - if you look a section or two above us in this talk page you will see I provided a number of citations (but not full references) on just this point. Still, this remains one view. Read our policy page on verifiability too: we care about verifiability, not truth. It doesn't matter how strongly you believe this view to be true, what we care about is only whether it is a verifiable (see the policy) view or not. And you surely know others disagree with you and hold opposing views. In Wikipedia their views are valid too, as long as they are verifiable, and it is not our job to weigh the evidence or argue for or against any view. Also, look at our No original research policy. You are wise to provide all the citations you provided; I just want to emphasize that what you think just doesn't matter (what I think doesn't matter either). I continue to feel strongly that debates over controversial issues belongs in a latter section. it is enough to say that "Although Freud's claims were at the time, and continue to be, controversial (see (name the section) below), this section provides a summary of Freud's own account of his work..." You communicate that this is Freud's point of view, and that others exist which are treated later in the article. This should satisfy everyone and conform to our policies. regarding Anna O. - you CANNOT post your own account of any travesty. If someone else has written about this in a verifiable and reliable source you can include it. Please consult our core policies. Good luck, Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] unconscious

Concerning this paragraph:

Nevertheless, as psychologyst Jacques Van Rillaer, among others, pointed out, "contrary to what most people believe, the unconscious was not discovered by Freud. In 1890, when psychoanalysis was still unheard of, William James, in his monumental treatise on psychology, examined the way Schopenhauer, von Hartmann, Janet, Binet and others had used the term "unconscious" and "subconscious"".^[2] Moreover, the historian of psychology Mark Altschule wrote in 1977: "It is difficult - or perhaps impossible - to find a nineteenth century psychologist or medical psychologist who did not recognize unconscious cerebration as not only real but of the highest importance." ^[3]

I think there is a misunderstanding here. Of course all doctors and philosophers of the mind recognized that there are mental processes of which people are unaware - for example, we are unaware of synaptic activity that is essential to conscious thought. But this is not what Freud meant by "unconscious." That other people used the word to refer to other things in no way makes Freud's use of the term unoriginal. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

So what was original about Freud's use of the word unconscious? Please be specific, and then see if the article covers that. A lot of people do believe that Freud discovered the unconscious, and the article correctly says that the belief is false. Freud did not discover the unconscious. Roger 20:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

For Slrubenstein: I inserted the paragraph you have quoted because at least the features of Freud's conception of the unconscious mentioned in the preceding paragraph are unoriginal:

Freud, however, suggested that such declarations of free will are in fact delusions; that we are not entirely aware of what we think and often act for reasons that have little to do with our conscious thoughts. The concept of the unconscious as proposed by Freud was groundbreaking in that he proposed that awareness existed in layers and that there were thoughts occurring "below the surface."

Please see for example Allen Esterson's "Freud returns?" [1]:

I never cease to be astonished at the confidence with which erroneous assertions about Freud are made in articles such as “Freud Returns” in the May 2004 issue of Scientific American, written by Mark Solms, psychoanalyst and neuroscientist. For instance, Solms writes: “When Freud introduced the central notion that most mental processes that determine our everyday thoughts, feelings and volitions occur unconsciously, his contemporaries rejected it as impossible.” This piece of psychoanalytic mythology has been shown to be false by historians of psychology since the 1960s and 1970s, yet it is still being propagated in popular articles by pro-Freud writers like Solms. Schopenhauer had posited something akin to the notion Solms ascribes to Freud before the latter was born. Francis Galton, writing in Brain in 1879-1880, described the mind as analogous to a house beneath which is “a complex system of drains and gas and water-pipes…which are usually hidden out of sight, and of whose existence, so long as they act well, we never trouble ourselves.” He went on to discuss “the existence of still deeper strata of mental operations, sunk wholly below the level of consciousness, which may account for such phenomena as cannot otherwise be explained.” (Incidentally, Freud subscribed to Brain at that time.)

Schopenhauer wasn't dealing with brain processes or "synaptic activity that is essential to conscious thought" (which I wouldn't place with mental processes anyway) and I believe that Galton wasn't either (but for this issue I defer to prof. Esterson himself, who honoured this very article with his contribution before); besides, Galton should be a prime example of positivist scientist, so I would be cautious in stating that positivism "subscribed to the belief that people could ascertain real knowledge concerning themselves and their environment and judiciously exercise control over both." (That's why I added "According to a widespread version of history of psychology" and "allegedly"; the meaning of "dominant" was clear to me even before). But I hope that prof. Esterson could help us with this issue too. For authors who wrote even before Schopenhauer please see Jacques Van Rillaer from Catherine Meyer (edited by) (2005). Le livre noir de la psychanalyse: Vivre, penser et aller mieux sans Freud. Les Arènes. P.218:

An essential historical factor of the conceptualization of an opposition between the conscious and the unconscious is without doubt the development of the consciousness of the self, which took place since the Renaissance. Toward 1600, Europeans had become more and more conscious of themselves as persons. However, they had to admit that the self, which asserts itself, watches and analyzes itself, is not sovereign: the self is not autonomous. This new awareness of the self went hand in hand with the awareness of the mental processes which go beyond it: some "passions" - which sometimes dominate it -, some memories and thoughts - which guide it without its knowing. Since the seventeenth century, some philosophers and moralists have developed a scheme of interpretation of hidden or unconscious motives. One of the pioneers of this tendency is La Rochefoucauld. His celebrated collection of Maximes begins with this thought: "Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise". The central theme of his oeuvre is the unveiling of egocentric plans of human conducts.

--Analytikone 20:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC) I think there are two issues here: first, whether these pre-Freudian views are identical with Freud or not, and second, whether they were dominant. What is original to Freud is his writings on the mechanisms of repression which he linked to libido. There are no dobut antecedents to Freud's thought in Western thought, but none of them ever achieved the influence or degree of institutionalization of Freud's thought. By the way, James rejected the arguments about an "unconscious" posited by earlier thinkers (of course, he wrote before Freud). Slrubenstein | Talk 11:38, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

For completeness I've added the direct citation for the Altschule quote. Esterson 16:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

A couple of comments about the "Unconscious" to add to those above. It was received wisdom throughout the second half of the twentieth century (partly through the propagation of the idea by psychoanalytic commentators) that the notion of unconscious wishes, motivations, and so on, owes its origins to Freud. That the notion of unconscious processes in this sense predates Freud (indeed has been implicitly understood by authors of literary and philosophical works for centuries) is indicated by the passing explicit reference to unconscious motivations by the Victorian English novelist Anthony Trollope, e.g., in "Framley Parsonage" (1860), in terms that indicate it was a commonplace at that time.

It is also the case that, over and above the concept of unconscious processes in this sense, Freud postulated a psychoanalytic dynamic Unconscious that incorporates characteristics that are, of course, justifiably attributed to Freud. Putting it succinctly, if over-simply, what make the Freudian notion different is that the Unconscious for Freudians seems to be an *entity* with a life of its own virtually unbeknown to the conscious mind of the individual. From the point of view of Freudian theory, this entity, the Unconscious, is the source of all manner of emotional and behavioural characteristics for every individual.

The definitive work for understanding the developments leading up to Freud's conceptions of unconscious processes is Henri Ellenberger's "The Discovery of the Unconscious" (Basic Books, 1970). Esterson 16:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

N.B. For the record, I (Allen Esterson) am not a professor (see above)! Esterson 16:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

SUBLIMATION. (someone who edits on here a lot could do me a favour and make this a heading, etc.)

The example given of sublimation isn't the best kind of example, and is confusing. A better example would be 'doing clay modelling to satisfy an impulse to play with faeces'. Any ideas?

Alex

Esterson writes, "Putting it succinctly, if over-simply, what make the Freudian notion different is that the Unconscious for Freudians seems to be an *entity* with a life of its own virtually unbeknown to the conscious mind of the individual." and I think this hits the nail on the head. Are you satisfied that the article communicates this point clearly? Slrubenstein | Talk 16:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bizarro Vandalism

Someone's figured out how to put text into Wiki and not have it show up on the edit page to delete. End of the first paragraph - I'm pretty sure Freud wasn't an alien, nor was he that horny. Kensai Max 01:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Where? I don't see anything. Is it gone? Sofeil 12:18, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Freud on women

• Freud on Women: A Reader (editor) (Norton, 1992, ISBN 0-393-30870-7), written by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.72.4.143 (talk • contribs).

• I'm going to add this to Books about Freud and psychoanalysis. Sofeil 19:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you. Austerlitz 88.72.1.147 21:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing

The referencing of this article seems a little non-traditional. Usually the "Notes" section and the "References" section are seperate, but it looks like they're mixed together in this article. I'm going to make a ==Notes== section and move the note there. Sofeil 19:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox?

Did this article never have an infobox for Freud, or did it get deleted? Robert K S 08:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it has (many biographical pages don't have infoboxes yet) but we should add one. should we use a scientist infobox, a philosopher infobox or a generic biography infobox?Acornwithwings 03:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)