Doubts about my future profession - Please Input

[The Johnny]

The first time i visited a library out of my own free will was at 11, among the things i looked for where psychiatric manuals (Im assuming it was the DSM-IV), and it seemed so weird to me, like some kind of alchemical book of the mind, A+B=X (behaviour A and behaviour B, equal disorder X) i didnt make much of it, but it just felt weird, speaking of humans and the mind as if it were a zero-sum phenomenon, so to speak.

Over the years that ive read and commented with people about psycho-analytic books and theories ive heard criticisms ranging from calling it a cult, that its a pansexualist reductionism, that its a fraud, that it is anti-scientific and that its threading quilts out of air.

Im decently read and "hip" to it, but i also am not even close to having read all the works of say Klein, Freud, Fromm and the likes of them, but all the nay-sayers that have actually stopped to have a real conversation about it end up acknowledging their criticisms were ideological.

So P.D. i ask of you, can you help me poke holes in psycho-analysis?

[Doktor Howl]

can you help me poke holes in psycho-analysis?

Kind of a Freudian question, isn't it?

[Kai]

The first time i visited a library out of my own free will was at 11, among the things i looked for where psychiatric manuals (Im assuming it was the DSM-IV), and it seemed so weird to me, like some kind of alchemical book of the mind, A+B=X (behaviour A and behaviour B, equal disorder X) i didnt make much of it, but it just felt weird, speaking of humans and the mind as if it were a zero-sum phenomenon, so to speak.

Over the years that ive read and commented with people about psycho-analytic books and theories ive heard criticisms ranging from calling it a cult, that its a pansexualist reductionism, that its a fraud, that it is anti-scientific and that its threading quilts out of air.

Im decently read and "hip" to it, but i also am not even close to having read all the works of say Klein, Freud, Fromm and the likes of them, but all the nay-sayers that have actually stopped to have a real conversation about it end up acknowledging their criticisms were ideological.

So P.D. i ask of you, can you help me poke holes in psycho-analysis?

Well, acknowledging that psychiatry, psycho-analysis and mental health therapy are supposed to be methods for making a person functional in society, rather than an accurate model of the mind, is a good first start.

[The Johnny]

Im serious Dok, id like to further my knowledge... people from my classroom would be easily agreeable, skeptics ive had serious discussions with and ended up agreeing have been sociology, medic and music students, each with different angles of questioning, it would be nice to see which angles fellow discordians would take.

[Requia ☣]

So P.D. i ask of you, can you help me poke holes in psycho-analysis?

I'm not really willing to go into the whole of psychoanalysis, but lets take a specific example from it.

Freud claiming that young boys of a certain age are all in love with their mothers (sexually that is), but that they don't act on these feelings because they're afraid their father will cut their penis off in revenge if he finds out.

There's no evidence that this is true, and when pressed on the matter a good Freudian will say that there is no evidence because the boys are afraid of their fathers and hiding their feelings/fears as a result, bringing the whole idea into the realm of unfalsifiability.  Also for some reason older children that have outgrown this stage have for some reason universally forgotten about it.

[The Johnny]

The first time i visited a library out of my own free will was at 11, among the things i looked for where psychiatric manuals (Im assuming it was the DSM-IV), and it seemed so weird to me, like some kind of alchemical book of the mind, A+B=X (behaviour A and behaviour B, equal disorder X) i didnt make much of it, but it just felt weird, speaking of humans and the mind as if it were a zero-sum phenomenon, so to speak.

Over the years that ive read and commented with people about psycho-analytic books and theories ive heard criticisms ranging from calling it a cult, that its a pansexualist reductionism, that its a fraud, that it is anti-scientific and that its threading quilts out of air.

Im decently read and "hip" to it, but i also am not even close to having read all the works of say Klein, Freud, Fromm and the likes of them, but all the nay-sayers that have actually stopped to have a real conversation about it end up acknowledging their criticisms were ideological.

So P.D. i ask of you, can you help me poke holes in psycho-analysis?

Well, acknowledging that psychiatry, psycho-analysis and mental health therapy are supposed to be methods for making a person functional in society, rather than an accurate model of the mind, is a good first start.

Being functional and being sane overlap somewhat, but they arent the same thing.

The model of the mind part is a bit sketchy, because one cant, lets say, do a vivisection of the untouchable mind; but as far as ive seen, libidinal development is useful, the psychic apparatus too along with the pleasure and reality principles, but theres things like the death pulsion that im not so sure about.

[The Johnny]

So P.D. i ask of you, can you help me poke holes in psycho-analysis?

I'm not really willing to go into the whole of psychoanalysis, but lets take a specific example from it.

Freud claiming that young boys of a certain age are all in love with their mothers (sexually that is), but that they don't act on these feelings because they're afraid their father will cut their penis off in revenge if he finds out.

There's no evidence that this is true, and when pressed on the matter a good Freudian will say that there is no evidence because the boys are afraid of their fathers and hiding their feelings/fears as a result, bringing the whole idea into the realm of unfalsifiability.  Also for some reason older children that have outgrown this stage have for some reason universally forgotten about it.

Between birth and the 3rd year approximately, in which the child's world revolves around the mother and its nurturance; then since the child is less vulnerable and can do basic functions on its own, the mother can do other things than just nurture it, then the child is supposed to become envious of all the time not spent on him, which includes attention spent on the father rather than him, between third and fifth year theres supposed to be a competition for the attention of the mother, but realizing that he cant compete with the father, instead of competing with him, he rather tries to be like him. So in a certain sense its a symbolical castration, giving way to latency from about fifth and a half year to twelveth, where impulses are repressed and sublimated towards hobbies and learning.

I would need to find that specific paragraph to see if he did indeed said sexual desire for the mother, or if its libidinal energy investment in a cathexis sort of way.

Evidence for this infatuation of children for their mother would be from observation as well as the interaction with the father, and although a deep interview would be hard if not impossible to realize, theres proyective tests that children can draw, such as Family Drawing, which im sure theres other ones too.

And speaking of outgrowing the infatuation with the mother and forgetting about it, its explained with the mechanism of repression and it becomes taboo. Ever notice how one recurrent insult is "fuck your mother" or "motherfucker"? And also, can you imagine your parents making out/having sex? Does it disgust you?

[Jasper]

If you're interested in doing psychological therapy, but unwilling to believe what a pervert from Vienna essentially fabricated a century ago, you might be interested in another branch of psychotherapy such as humanistic or cognitive behavioral therapy. 

[The Johnny]

If you're interested in doing psychological therapy, but unwilling to believe what a pervert from Vienna essentially fabricated a century ago, you might be interested in another branch of psychotherapy such as humanistic or cognitive behavioral therapy. 

Im not sure if i expressed myself clearly, i think these "fabrications from a Viennese pervert" are mostly valid.

So i ask you: Why is he a pervert? Why would being a pervert invalidate his ideas? And, what did he fabricate?

[Doktor Howl]

If you're interested in doing psychological therapy, but unwilling to believe what a pervert from Vienna essentially fabricated a century ago, you might be interested in another branch of psychotherapy such as humanistic or cognitive behavioral therapy. 

Im not sure if i expressed myself clearly, i think these "fabrications from a Viennese pervert" are mostly valid.

So i ask you: Why is he a pervert? Why would being a pervert invalidate his ideas? And, what did he fabricate?

Valid?  Are you suggesting that this is a science?

[The Johnny]

If you're interested in doing psychological therapy, but unwilling to believe what a pervert from Vienna essentially fabricated a century ago, you might be interested in another branch of psychotherapy such as humanistic or cognitive behavioral therapy. 

Im not sure if i expressed myself clearly, i think these "fabrications from a Viennese pervert" are mostly valid.

So i ask you: Why is he a pervert? Why would being a pervert invalidate his ideas? And, what did he fabricate?

Valid?  Are you suggesting that this is a science?

Yes, social science. Although it doesnt use quantitative methods, theres the qualitative ones.

[Doktor Howl]

If you're interested in doing psychological therapy, but unwilling to believe what a pervert from Vienna essentially fabricated a century ago, you might be interested in another branch of psychotherapy such as humanistic or cognitive behavioral therapy. 

Im not sure if i expressed myself clearly, i think these "fabrications from a Viennese pervert" are mostly valid.

So i ask you: Why is he a pervert? Why would being a pervert invalidate his ideas? And, what did he fabricate?

Valid?  Are you suggesting that this is a science?

Yes, social science. Although it doesnt use quantitative methods, theres the qualitative ones.

So you're suggesting that Freud's methods are predictable in all cases?  What?

[Jasper]

Yeah, hate to say it but his work isn't systematically consistent with it's axioms, or even logically deduced to begin with, so you must have meant "true" instead of valid.  

And it's not true because it makes several theoretical claims (eros/thanatos for instance) to explain its findings which aren't very defensible.  It's more art than science, and I dislike it because it's the reason studies of the mind have such a hard time being treated like proper science.

And calling psychoanalysis "science" of any kind is ridiculous.  It is not at all based in empiricism.

[Kai]

The first time i visited a library out of my own free will was at 11, among the things i looked for where psychiatric manuals (Im assuming it was the DSM-IV), and it seemed so weird to me, like some kind of alchemical book of the mind, A+B=X (behaviour A and behaviour B, equal disorder X) i didnt make much of it, but it just felt weird, speaking of humans and the mind as if it were a zero-sum phenomenon, so to speak.

Over the years that ive read and commented with people about psycho-analytic books and theories ive heard criticisms ranging from calling it a cult, that its a pansexualist reductionism, that its a fraud, that it is anti-scientific and that its threading quilts out of air.

Im decently read and "hip" to it, but i also am not even close to having read all the works of say Klein, Freud, Fromm and the likes of them, but all the nay-sayers that have actually stopped to have a real conversation about it end up acknowledging their criticisms were ideological.

So P.D. i ask of you, can you help me poke holes in psycho-analysis?

Well, acknowledging that psychiatry, psycho-analysis and mental health therapy are supposed to be methods for making a person functional in society, rather than an accurate model of the mind, is a good first start.

Being functional and being sane overlap somewhat, but they arent the same thing.

The model of the mind part is a bit sketchy, because one cant, lets say, do a vivisection of the untouchable mind; but as far as ive seen, libidinal development is useful, the psychic apparatus too along with the pleasure and reality principles, but theres things like the death pulsion that im not so sure about.

Come again? All I heard was gibberish interspaced with conjunctions, pronouns and the verb "to be".

[Doktor Howl]

The first time i visited a library out of my own free will was at 11, among the things i looked for where psychiatric manuals (Im assuming it was the DSM-IV), and it seemed so weird to me, like some kind of alchemical book of the mind, A+B=X (behaviour A and behaviour B, equal disorder X) i didnt make much of it, but it just felt weird, speaking of humans and the mind as if it were a zero-sum phenomenon, so to speak.

Over the years that ive read and commented with people about psycho-analytic books and theories ive heard criticisms ranging from calling it a cult, that its a pansexualist reductionism, that its a fraud, that it is anti-scientific and that its threading quilts out of air.

Im decently read and "hip" to it, but i also am not even close to having read all the works of say Klein, Freud, Fromm and the likes of them, but all the nay-sayers that have actually stopped to have a real conversation about it end up acknowledging their criticisms were ideological.

So P.D. i ask of you, can you help me poke holes in psycho-analysis?

Well, acknowledging that psychiatry, psycho-analysis and mental health therapy are supposed to be methods for making a person functional in society, rather than an accurate model of the mind, is a good first start.

Being functional and being sane overlap somewhat, but they arent the same thing.

The model of the mind part is a bit sketchy, because one cant, lets say, do a vivisection of the untouchable mind; but as far as ive seen, libidinal development is useful, the psychic apparatus too along with the pleasure and reality principles, but theres things like the death pulsion that im not so sure about.

Come again? All I heard was gibberish interspaced with conjunctions, pronouns and the verb "to be".

That makes it all sciency.

He should have worked quantums in there, somehow, though.