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?
Quotecan you help me poke holes in psycho-analysis?
Kind of a Freudian question, isn't it?
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 01:05:29 AM
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.
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.
Quote
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.
Quote from: Kai on November 02, 2010, 01:20:13 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 01:05:29 AM
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.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 02, 2010, 01:36:21 AM
Quote
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?
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.
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 03:27:17 AM
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?
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:33:19 AM
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 03:27:17 AM
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?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 02, 2010, 03:34:49 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:33:19 AM
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 03:27:17 AM
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.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:40:05 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 02, 2010, 03:34:49 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:33:19 AM
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 03:27:17 AM
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?
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.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 01:37:55 AM
Quote from: Kai on November 02, 2010, 01:20:13 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 01:05:29 AM
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".
Quote from: Kai on November 02, 2010, 03:47:53 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 01:37:55 AM
Quote from: Kai on November 02, 2010, 01:20:13 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 01:05:29 AM
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.
:lol:
I think PD's advice is loud and clear Joh'Nyx: Find some material by authors throughout the years who have disagreed with Freud.
I'm not well educated in psychological theory or practice, but I've heard from quite a few sources that his ideas have been either rejected wholesale or heavily modified by just about everyone.
And, if you think about it, this guy was a pioneer in his field, working in the cultural context of turn-of-the-last-century Europe. If his work hadn't been taken apart and re-examined and found to be wanting in certain areas after all this time, I think I'd be pretty suspicious.
If I knew more about the subject I'd recommend some authors. Hopefully some other posters can help with that.
Maybe because you dont know the terminology its the reason why it sounds like gibberish.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:55:12 AM
Maybe because you dont know the terminology its the reason why it sounds like gibberish.
If you can't explain yourself to a layman, either
1. You don't understand the work, or
2. It's crap.
Quote from: Cainad on November 02, 2010, 03:52:29 AM
:lol:
I think PD's advice is loud and clear Joh'Nyx: Find some material by authors throughout the years who have disagreed with Freud.
I'm not well educated in psychological theory or practice, but I've heard from quite a few sources that his ideas have been either rejected wholesale or heavily modified by just about everyone.
And, if you think about it, this guy was a pioneer in his field, working in the cultural context of turn-of-the-last-century Europe. If his work hadn't been taken apart and re-examined and found to be wanting in certain areas after all this time, I think I'd be pretty suspicious.
If I knew more about the subject I'd recommend some authors. Hopefully some other posters can help with that.
Seriously. How is it that Freud is accepted wholesale by some people? I mean, biologists generally revere Darwin and his work, but we don't exactly still argue about pangenesis now do we? We have mendelian genetics.
In the same sense, why are we still arguing about Freud's silly hypotheses that are much like pangenesis was for Darwin: forward thinking, and dead wrong.
And the only "terminology" you've used is "death pulsion". Which is termed "death drive", since pulsion isn't properly a word.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:55:12 AM
Maybe because you dont know the terminology its the reason why it sounds like gibberish.
That sounds suspiciously like occult studies, like something masons might say.
Quote from: Kai on November 02, 2010, 04:00:08 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:55:12 AM
Maybe because you dont know the terminology its the reason why it sounds like gibberish.
That sounds suspiciously like occult studies, like something masons might say.
Or Wiccans, for that matter.
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 03:42:36 AM
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.
I meant true, not valid, but now that you bring it up, whats the incongruence between the works and the axioms?
So which studies of the mind would you call as proper science? Neurology?
Are you saying psycho-analysis is just speculation? What about all the case studies that have been made?
And you didnt respond my previous questions.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:01:15 AM
So which studies of the mind would you call as proper science? Neurology?
Yes.
What you're doing may be useful, but that doesn't make it science.
No, I didn't.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:01:15 AM
Are you saying psycho-analysis is just speculation? What about all the case studies that have been made?
QuoteWell, 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.
IOW, yes I am. It's an art, not a science. Not that it's not USEFUL. I definitely wouldn't say that therapy isn't useful. It's just not science. There's no replication, the experiments are completely flawed in their design, and the conclusions and inferences are often based on completely made up evidence based in the cognitive biases of the therapist. If it is science, it's really really REALLY bad science. So no, it's not science. I don't think you actually have the balls to back up your claims in the manner that even social science demands.
Quote from: Cainad on November 02, 2010, 03:52:29 AM
:lol:
I think PD's advice is loud and clear Joh'Nyx: Find some material by authors throughout the years who have disagreed with Freud.
I'm not well educated in psychological theory or practice, but I've heard from quite a few sources that his ideas have been either rejected wholesale or heavily modified by just about everyone.
And, if you think about it, this guy was a pioneer in his field, working in the cultural context of turn-of-the-last-century Europe. If his work hadn't been taken apart and re-examined and found to be wanting in certain areas after all this time, I think I'd be pretty suspicious.
If I knew more about the subject I'd recommend some authors. Hopefully some other posters can help with that.
That's something ive considered, mostly ive read about issues from different perspectives, but not texts specifically oriented towards criticisms.
Psycho-analysis is more than Freud, but a lot of the criticisms are indeed targeted at him, for he's the only author the mainstream culture knows about. As i stated in the OP, i have heard a lot of cheap-shot criticisms, but nothing substantial.
I wonder if the "Black Book of Psycho-Analysis" has good content.
Don't get too agitated or defensive about this, Joh'Nyx. You've stumbled upon a subject which has many and varied facets to it, and there's a LOT to be learned about it. That doesn't mean that what you've learned thus far is invalid or worthless; it just means there's a lot more to it than you may have realized when you started this thread.
Psychology is a fascinating subject, and it's worth understanding Freud so as to understand the influence he had on the study of the human mind over the past century. But it's also important to find out what's been learned since then; this is true even in the "hard" sciences (physics, biology, chemistry, etc).
Remember:
"A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing what he reads"
Also, if I ever had a therapist "psychoanalyze" me in a way I could tell that he was using Freudian bullshit or jungian archetypes or any of that old mystical silliness to tell me what was wrong with me and try to help me function better, I would walk out.
Might as well take snake oil and bleed myself with leeches, if we're going that route. It's like psychological medicine haddn't advanced in the last 100 years.
I'm not dismissing psychoanalysis out of hand as completely useless. Talk therapy helps a lot of people.
I just come from the exact opposite philosophical end of the spectrum, in my psych studies, and it rankles me deeply when Freudians, Jungians, and their ilk call their methods science.
Quote from: Kai on November 02, 2010, 03:47:53 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 01:37:55 AM
Quote from: Kai on November 02, 2010, 01:20:13 AM
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".
Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 02, 2010, 03:56:44 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:55:12 AM
Maybe because you dont know the terminology its the reason why it sounds like gibberish.
If you can't explain yourself to a layman, either
1. You don't understand the work, or
2. It's crap.
I didnt explain it for economic reasons, since i assumed that if one has the energy to invest in a response or reading, theyd have the energy to look up a term, anyhow:
What i meant is that since you cannot cut open a brain to see immaterial processes its hard to deduce a structure; libidinal development, which is the stages of development in humans seems to work, theres thoughts, processes and feelings associated with different ages that can be verified empirically, and when it doesnt happen that way, one can notice the pathology afterwards. The pleasure principle is a fundamental primitive drive, when we are still animal like and havent internalized a conscience (so to speak; superego) and have the ability to repress and only look after ourselves and our needs without regards to others, while after the fifth year the reality principle sets in, which is the ability to delay gratification in order to get more benefits from a given situation. Death drive is the attraction to destruction, which is a complex concept that im not sure i agree with.
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 03:58:55 AM
And the only "terminology" you've used is "death pulsion". Which is termed "death drive", since pulsion isn't properly a word.
Yeah, i wanna see you trying to have a serious discussion on a second language; if you look at previous post, you will see which terminology i speak of.
Quote from: Kai on November 02, 2010, 04:10:21 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:01:15 AM
Are you saying psycho-analysis is just speculation? What about all the case studies that have been made?
QuoteWell, 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.
IOW, yes I am. It's an art, not a science. Not that it's not USEFUL. I definitely wouldn't say that therapy isn't useful. It's just not science. There's no replication, the experiments are completely flawed in their design, and the conclusions and inferences are often based on completely made up evidence based in the cognitive biases of the therapist. If it is science, it's really really REALLY bad science. So no, it's not science. I don't think you actually have the balls to back up your claims in the manner that even social science demands.
Proyective tests and interviews are the methods we have used to test hypothesis based on theory.
I dont see what balls have to do with what we speak of (symbol of masculinity and integrity perhaps?), but, just because the evidence cant be measured, it doesnt make it untrue, we might not be able to count the number of appendages of guilt under a microscope, but with methodology we can notice if somebody has a fixation.
Quote from: Kai on November 02, 2010, 04:14:53 AM
Also, if I ever had a therapist "psychoanalyze" me in a way I could tell that he was using Freudian bullshit or jungian archetypes or any of that old mystical silliness to tell me what was wrong with me and try to help me function better, I would walk out.
Might as well take snake oil and bleed myself with leeches, if we're going that route. It's like psychological medicine haddn't advanced in the last 100 years.
According to you, how would a freudian psycho-analysis go? You do realize that freud and jung parted ways and they developed very different notions on theory and practice?
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 04:17:35 AM
I'm not dismissing psychoanalysis out of hand as completely useless. Talk therapy helps a lot of people.
I just come from the exact opposite philosophical end of the spectrum, in my psych studies, and it rankles me deeply when Freudians, Jungians, and their ilk call their methods science.
Can you share what things you have learned of? Was it more of a psychiatrical approach?
Quote from: Cainad on November 02, 2010, 04:13:42 AM
Don't get too agitated or defensive about this, Joh'Nyx. You've stumbled upon a subject which has many and varied facets to it, and there's a LOT to be learned about it. That doesn't mean that what you've learned thus far is invalid or worthless; it just means there's a lot more to it than you may have realized when you started this thread.
Psychology is a fascinating subject, and it's worth understanding Freud so as to understand the influence he had on the study of the human mind over the past century. But it's also important to find out what's been learned since then; this is true even in the "hard" sciences (physics, biology, chemistry, etc).
Remember:
"A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing what he reads"
Yes, its a very complicated subject, i knew it while i was writing OP, its just that i want to run into someone that has good arguments, not just cheap shots, so that i might actually learn and notice the flaws it has.
Right now im reading a book about personality disorders co-written by a psychiatrist, a clinician and a psycho-therapist, and it contains interesting things that make sense while at the same time things that don't.
My side of things is more toward the reductionistic, empirical side of the mind. I'm more interested in cognitions and perceptions and memories. I regard your end of psychology as too messy, asystematic, and subjective to be terribly worth while. I'm only interested in what is measurable, repeatable, and concordant with physical sciences.
Quote from: Liam on November 02, 2010, 04:41:03 AM
again, honestly, your pretty much asking the wrong crowd here.
Scientologists will have TONNES of information about the evils of head-shrinkage for you. Not a leg pull, go ask some, they will be MORE than happy to lay you on with more info than you ever wanted. Also in perfect Mexican Spanish.
It would indeed be an interesting novelty read, any specific one you recommend?
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 04:51:24 AM
My side of things is more toward the reductionistic, empirical side of the mind. I'm more interested in cognitions and perceptions and memories. I regard your end of psychology as too messy, asystematic, and subjective to be terribly worth while. I'm only interested in what is measurable, repeatable, and concordant with physical sciences.
The clean approach :lol:. Yeah, things get really messy within transference.
Clean doesn't really describe neuroscience.
Lord Markram once flensed thousands of rat brains just to get a map of where various DNA tags showed up.
Awesome? Yes. Clean? Hardly.
Some of Freud's theories are supported by contemporary scientific inquiry (the existence of the unconscious mind, for example), but most of his theories are either patently false, not falsifiable, or not able to be put into operational terms—and therefore not of interest to scientists.
You seem more than comfortable to leave the realm of empiricism, falsifiability and operational terms and still call it "valid." This suggests to me that this "ideological difference" you're talking about is a matter of legitimate science and blowing shit out your ass while proclaiming it fact.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:12:45 AM
Psycho-analysis is more than Freud, but a lot of the criticisms are indeed targeted at him, for he's the only author the mainstream culture knows about. As i stated in the OP, i have heard a lot of cheap-shot criticisms, but nothing substantial.
What criteria is necessary to constitute a "substantial critique" of psychoanalysis, then? I'm curious because scientific methods make such criteria glaringly obvious, however, you seem to want to play by a different set of game rules.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:33:19 AM
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 03:27:17 AM
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?
Eh, say what?
Most psychologists (e.g., my father, a neuropsychologist) agree to not really put much value to Freud, except for laying some conceptual foundations of psychological theory and the like. He created a framework but pretty much all of his concrete stuff has been disproven, dismissed or surpassed by better theories.
This up to the point that, in a discussion with my father (diehard skeptic with slight christian leanings--confusing? he manages by sort of avoiding the subject) anyway he once told me that there is in fact very little scientific basis for the [freudian concept of] subconscious, and doesn't really believe in it. Before that, I always thought the subconscious was in fact very real, as a sort of "hidden brain" thinking all sorts of crazy shit unknown to you, but bubbling up in your emotions every once in a while, affecting you. It's not. Or whatever it is, it is not as hidden, if you have a thought, you can be aware of it. There's no thoughts occurring that are really hidden from you (you can ignore them or just not pay attention, but that's different. they're not shrouded by anything)
Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on November 02, 2010, 07:10:59 AM
Some of Freud's theories are supported by contemporary scientific inquiry (the existence of the unconscious mind, for example), but most of his theories are either patently false, not falsifiable, or not able to be put into operational terms—and therefore not of interest to scientists.
You seem more than comfortable to leave the realm of empiricism, falsifiability and operational terms and still call it "valid." This suggests to me that this "ideological difference" you're talking about is a matter of legitimate science and blowing shit out your ass while proclaiming it fact.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:12:45 AM
Psycho-analysis is more than Freud, but a lot of the criticisms are indeed targeted at him, for he's the only author the mainstream culture knows about. As i stated in the OP, i have heard a lot of cheap-shot criticisms, but nothing substantial.
What criteria is necessary to constitute a "substantial critique" of psychoanalysis, then? I'm curious because scientific methods make such criteria glaringly obvious, however, you seem to want to play by a different set of game rules.
At least Kai specificaly pointed out his angle, which is the "ascientific nature" of it, and i understand that in this branch of psychology its not what could be called 100% accurate or expressable in graphs and numbers and our disagreement lies in what constitutes science.
But you, as well as several others, call ambiguous shit like "most of his theories are either patently false, not falsifiable, or not able to be put into operational terms—and therefore not of interest to scientists." i can practically get that response from a bum with a 3rd grade education. Either state specifically which theories, or why bother responding? Just to be "more correct than thou"?
Quote from: Triple Zero on November 02, 2010, 07:45:24 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 03:33:19 AM
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 03:27:17 AM
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?
Eh, say what?
Most psychologists (e.g., my father, a neuropsychologist) agree to not really put much value to Freud, except for laying some conceptual foundations of psychological theory and the like. He created a framework but pretty much all of his concrete stuff has been disproven, dismissed or surpassed by better theories.
This up to the point that, in a discussion with my father (diehard skeptic with slight christian leanings--confusing? he manages by sort of avoiding the subject) anyway he once told me that there is in fact very little scientific basis for the [freudian concept of] subconscious, and doesn't really believe in it. Before that, I always thought the subconscious was in fact very real, as a sort of "hidden brain" thinking all sorts of crazy shit unknown to you, but bubbling up in your emotions every once in a while, affecting you. It's not. Or whatever it is, it is not as hidden, if you have a thought, you can be aware of it. There's no thoughts occurring that are really hidden from you (you can ignore them or just not pay attention, but that's different. they're not shrouded by anything)
Very well, he indeed created the framework, and i would think that a lot of his ideas have been refined, but, can you give any specific example?
As for the unconscious (i think thats the correct term, rather than subconscious). And tell me, how did you come to the conclusion that its not too far from the concious part of mind? Perhaps you have great insight and a strong ego that your mind need not repress anything? :lol: I have personally seen several times how in interviews ideas that seem foreign to the persons surface, ive had several occasions where ive seen the unconscious betray someones intentions and the like.
I didn't bother to read all of this thread, but I'm going to do my best to summarize the various reasons why Freud is often considered incorrect. I think it basically boils down to two things:
The one that first springs to mind (and I can give a good example of) is the unscientific nature of Freudian theory, despite Freud's wish for it to be thought of as a contribution to science, it isn't. The best example I can think of is the use of the term "libido", which can refer to anything from a "sexual energy" to a universal "life force". This term, which is rather central to a lot of Freud, lacks any proper definition, or accurate form of measurement.
Now I briefly glimpsed a mention of psychoanalysis as qualitative not quantitative, but you still can't qualify if you don't have a definition of the quality.
Secondly: The interpreter. This is my main quarrel with Freud. He and his followers have no way of accounting for the "unconscious" projections of the person who is doing the analysing. There have also been a number of studies showing how wildly varied Freudian therapists can be in their interpretation of exactly the same data. Related to this, as Freud said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", well, how does the therapist know? exactly what method does the analyst use to differentiate between parts of a dream that are important details, and those which are meaningless?
Simply put, Freudian analysis is not an analysis of the patient.
x
edd
As an end-user of the Psychiatrist's trade, i personally see them as not an exact, empirical science. Mine hasnt diagnosed me with anything beyond a psychotic illness, as o far the data seems not to point toward any classic quantifiable illness, and they change-up things like medication depending on the patient, on a very much so trial an error basis.
neurology is more interesting, and less messy as with scans and experiments you can observe what is actually going on in the brain. I hope that in the future the psychiatric and neuroological models blend in this area, as to confirm better diagnoses.
I'm not dissing therapy here, but to get a better overview of therapy as a whole, you should probably start with Freud, but not get hung up on eating his entire menu. as you look at later methods as well.
I don't really have a lot of knowledge of psychoanalysis, other than there does seem to be a strong preoccupation with penises. However, in the interest of contributing to a conversation that I admittedly skimmed over:
A friend of mine studied psychoanalysis for grad school. Fine and dandy, and she can call herself a therapist and what not. Now, the professor that she was working with claims to be able to cure schizophrenics of their schizophrenia with psychoanalysis. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty much certain that such a claim is utter bullshit. Perhaps he was able to treat the schizophrenic and perhaps have the schizophrenic come to some understanding of what's going on with his/her mind, but since schizophrenia has a neurological component, there's no way he could have cured this person by talking about their mother and convincing themselves they wanted to bonk her at some point. Yes, perhaps this is just one guy, but a scientist wouldn't make a wild claim like that.
Quote from: Doktor Blight on November 02, 2010, 03:22:09 PM
I don't really have a lot of knowledge of psychoanalysis, other than there does seem to be a strong preoccupation with penises. However, in the interest of contributing to a conversation that I admittedly skimmed over:
A friend of mine studied psychoanalysis for grad school. Fine and dandy, and she can call herself a therapist and what not. Now, the professor that she was working with claims to be able to cure schizophrenics of their schizophrenia with psychoanalysis. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty much certain that such a claim is utter bullshit. Perhaps he was able to treat the schizophrenic and perhaps have the schizophrenic come to some understanding of what's going on with his/her mind, but since schizophrenia has a neurological component, there's no way he could have cured this person by talking about their mother and convincing themselves they wanted to bonk her at some point. Yes, perhaps this is just one guy, but a scientist wouldn't make a wild claim like that.
To make it clear, all psychological states have a neurological component, if by component you mean the whole thing.
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 02, 2010, 04:17:35 AM
I'm not dismissing psychoanalysis out of hand as completely useless. Talk therapy helps a lot of people.
I am. Psychoanalysis is not the same thing as therapy, any more than homeopathy is the same thing as medicine.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:01:15 AM
So which studies of the mind would you call as proper science? Neurology?
There is plenty of legitimate science in psychology that have little to do with neurology. I have a very large stack of files somewhere that are on the science behind jury psychology, Neurology is never mentioned. Psychoanalysis is not a field of psychology anymore though, it was rejected well before I was born. I'm trying to figure out how you even found a school that teaches it outside of the history and literature department.
Read R.D. Laing, The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness, Thomas Szasz's Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus and His Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry, Foucault's Madness and Civilization, PD McGorry; C Mihalopoulos, L Henry, J Dakis, HJ Jackson, M Flaum, S Harrigan, D McKenzie, J Kulkarni and R Karoly (1995). "Spurious precision: procedural validity of diagnostic assessment in psychotic disorders", American Journal of Psychiatry 1995; 152:220-223, the House of Commons Health Committee: The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Fourth Report of Session 2002-2005), Niall McLaren's Humanizing Madness and Humanizing Psychiatry and The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 08:12:02 AM
But you, as well as several others, call ambiguous shit like "most of his theories are either patently false, not falsifiable, or not able to be put into operational terms—and therefore not of interest to scientists." i can practically get that response from a bum with a 3rd grade education. Either state specifically which theories, or why bother responding?
I don't need to go through an itemized list of Freud's coke-addled imaginings to categorically dismiss unfalsifiable bullshit as non-science.
I could easily get a response like yours from people who also believe in crystals, homeopathy and vaccines causing autism.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 08:12:02 AM
Just to be "more correct than thou"?
I'll ask again, what critieria would a critique of Freudian psychoanalysis need to adhere to in order to be considered legitimate?
Or maybe you should change your thread title to "Doubts about my future profession - Please blow agreeable smoke up my ass."
Quote from: Roaring Biscuit! on November 02, 2010, 12:23:27 PM
I didn't bother to read all of this thread, but I'm going to do my best to summarize the various reasons why Freud is often considered incorrect. I think it basically boils down to two things:
The one that first springs to mind (and I can give a good example of) is the unscientific nature of Freudian theory, despite Freud's wish for it to be thought of as a contribution to science, it isn't. The best example I can think of is the use of the term "libido", which can refer to anything from a "sexual energy" to a universal "life force". This term, which is rather central to a lot of Freud, lacks any proper definition, or accurate form of measurement.
Now I briefly glimpsed a mention of psychoanalysis as qualitative not quantitative, but you still can't qualify if you don't have a definition of the quality.
Secondly: The interpreter. This is my main quarrel with Freud. He and his followers have no way of accounting for the "unconscious" projections of the person who is doing the analysing. There have also been a number of studies showing how wildly varied Freudian therapists can be in their interpretation of exactly the same data. Related to this, as Freud said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", well, how does the therapist know? exactly what method does the analyst use to differentiate between parts of a dream that are important details, and those which are meaningless?
Simply put, Freudian analysis is not an analysis of the patient.
x
edd
Ok then, lack of proper definition of terminology, that's a solid objection that i will keep in mind and look for in his works; althought im almost positive other authors have come up with definitions such as in, Brusset's "Libidinal Development" surely has something in that direction... ill have to get back to you on that.
Part of the things we are taught is what we call "transference" and "counter-transference" which is basicly the grounds where real and trascendent change/help takes place; basicly at some point, symbolically-interaction wise the patient is not the patient and the analyst is not the analyst, each one becomes the recipient of the reliving of primitive experiences, so to speak... This is what i meant when i mentioned to Sigmatic how things can get really messy, because if one doesnt have the appropiate training and a certain detachment from the emotional involvement and the cognition that is keeping track of the narration in the session one would simply react according to the counter-transference instead of maintaning its role.
Im not sure which kind of data different "freudian therapists" did "wildly varied" interpretations, would you mind sharing?
As for dreams, there isnt a "dream dictionary" that associates any particular symbol with a meaning, for meaning is subjective, and it being subjective, one can only decipher a dream with the help of the dreamer. For example, if i dream of spiders, is it because there's wicked-gnarly ones in my roof? Or is it a metaphor for the State? Or is it because i was traumatized by the movie "Arachnophobia" many years ago?
Quote from: Liam on November 02, 2010, 05:06:46 AM
After some scrabbeling though my book collection, the anti pych references are in
Psychiatrists: The Men Behind Hitler: The Architects of Horrory, Freedom Publishing (CA), ISBN 0964890917
Psychiatry, the Ultimate Betrayal, Freedom Publishing, Wiseman, Bruce shit ~anything~ by Bruce Wiseman, I have about six here that are pretty much essentially the same book over and over. Also The Church of Scientology International Provides Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Scientology covers some stuff too.
Some misc essays by L Ron himself, Robot Jesus bless His amphitimine riddled bloaded alco-corpse, but sadly light on space pirates and aliens, (1969). "Crime and Psychiatry", (1980). "Criminals and Psychiatry" (August 26, 1982). "Pain and Sex" no isbn for these as they are essays, you should be able to torrent em. I have em in a bound hardprint collection, also no isbn.
If you have a strong will and think you can escape their IRL clutches, pop into your local Adjustment Center, and ask em for some printed lit
hxtp://www.antipsychiatry.org/ a relatively well know Scicon web front (has spanish menu link)
Yeah. I own most of the Scicon / Hubbard works. Bar the shockingly expensive ones. Which I've had a friend to loan me in the past.
also: Quoteflensed
That word does not get enough usage IRL for my liking. this has to change :D
Im a bit scared of scientologists :lol:, one time there were people outside of one of their centres with the hand-tubes for detection of "stress", and i played along with them for some 30 minutes and even watched a video-tape of theirs, they invited me to have a private session, but that was too far in my consideration.
Their line of questioning while messing with the stress hand-tubes is oddly familiar, surely its one-on-one and in a public space, they ask about whats bothering you in your life and similar things, and they backtrack to see where it takes them... the video seems to acknowledge that previous trauma can affect present behaviour even if one cant notice it... but they totally lost me when they started with the exposition of terms and the theory they base themselves off...
I wouldnt say that im 100% against psychiatry, i just think it has a more limited scope of usefullness than how it is applied nowadays; not everything can be solved by drugs, and not everything can be solved thru therapy.
If i venture to the recruitment center again, do you think they would give me free printed books? Because last time i was there, they were trying to sell me "Introduction to Dianetics" for like $45usa.... If not ill just torrent and print it myself.
Quote from: Rainy Day Pixie on November 02, 2010, 01:32:20 PM
As an end-user of the Psychiatrist's trade, i personally see them as not an exact, empirical science. Mine hasnt diagnosed me with anything beyond a psychotic illness, as o far the data seems not to point toward any classic quantifiable illness, and they change-up things like medication depending on the patient, on a very much so trial an error basis.
neurology is more interesting, and less messy as with scans and experiments you can observe what is actually going on in the brain. I hope that in the future the psychiatric and neuroological models blend in this area, as to confirm better diagnoses.
I'm not dissing therapy here, but to get a better overview of therapy as a whole, you should probably start with Freud, but not get hung up on eating his entire menu. as you look at later methods as well.
From what ive learned, psychiatry is good for psychotic disorders to keep them from imagining things and the like, but in certain cases, the causes arent solely biological, more like a very early developmental problem revolving around a smothering mother and the failure to individuate from her... while autism tends to be the opposite mother-son interaction... The problem with psychiatry is its focus on dealing with symptoms, which requires a constant flow of medication, but then again, sometimes its the only solution.
And surely, ive read some works by Freud and i plan on eating up his whole works eventually. As i stated in some other part of the thread, ive read and im reading works from different schools, ive even spent my good share of hours reading the DSMs.
Quote from: Doktor Blight on November 02, 2010, 03:22:09 PM
I don't really have a lot of knowledge of psychoanalysis, other than there does seem to be a strong preoccupation with penises. However, in the interest of contributing to a conversation that I admittedly skimmed over:
A friend of mine studied psychoanalysis for grad school. Fine and dandy, and she can call herself a therapist and what not. Now, the professor that she was working with claims to be able to cure schizophrenics of their schizophrenia with psychoanalysis. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty much certain that such a claim is utter bullshit. Perhaps he was able to treat the schizophrenic and perhaps have the schizophrenic come to some understanding of what's going on with his/her mind, but since schizophrenia has a neurological component, there's no way he could have cured this person by talking about their mother and convincing themselves they wanted to bonk her at some point. Yes, perhaps this is just one guy, but a scientist wouldn't make a wild claim like that.
The "strong preoccupation with penises" is what i would categorize under "mainstream notion of psycho-analysis", which we all can see there's been several thrown out already in this thread :lol:.
Any disorder that involves detachment from reality and hallucinations is complex, and him trying to cure it just thru analysis, hes just trying to show-off or be a hero, which is exactly what one is not supposed to do. Im sure an analyst-psychiatrist cooperation would be good, but not on its own, on its own id think it can even make it worse, because deep introspection can provoke psychotic episodes. Who knows, maybe he got lucky and it was the rare case where the cause is solely emotional.
And also, its not all about the mother and bonking it, there's a lot going on.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 02, 2010, 04:05:35 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:01:15 AM
So which studies of the mind would you call as proper science? Neurology?
There is plenty of legitimate science in psychology that have little to do with neurology. I have a very large stack of files somewhere that are on the science behind jury psychology, Neurology is never mentioned. Psychoanalysis is not a field of psychology anymore though, it was rejected well before I was born. I'm trying to figure out how you even found a school that teaches it outside of the history and literature department.
Is jury psychology similar to criminology? I know they use a lot of proyective test batteries.
As far as i know, its a specialization at the master's degree level.
Quote from: Cain on November 02, 2010, 04:34:11 PM
Read R.D. Laing, The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness,
Thomas Szasz's Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus and His Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry,
Foucault's Madness and Civilization, PD McGorry;
C Mihalopoulos, L Henry, J Dakis, HJ Jackson, M Flaum, S Harrigan, D McKenzie, J Kulkarni and R Karoly (1995). "Spurious precision: procedural validity of diagnostic assessment in psychotic disorders",
American Journal of Psychiatry 1995; 152:220-223, the House of Commons Health Committee: The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Fourth Report of Session 2002-2005),
Niall McLaren's Humanizing Madness and Humanizing Psychiatry and
The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper.
Szasz apparently worked along with Scientologists in the Anti-Psychiatry movement, althought not being one himself. Foucault has some auto-implication troubles, but on some subjects he is good.
I think these books might cover a lot of corners of interest, thanks.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 10:14:59 PM
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 02, 2010, 04:05:35 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:01:15 AM
So which studies of the mind would you call as proper science? Neurology?
There is plenty of legitimate science in psychology that have little to do with neurology. I have a very large stack of files somewhere that are on the science behind jury psychology, Neurology is never mentioned. Psychoanalysis is not a field of psychology anymore though, it was rejected well before I was born. I'm trying to figure out how you even found a school that teaches it outside of the history and literature department.
Is jury psychology similar to criminology? I know they use a lot of proyective test batteries.
As far as i know, its a specialization at the master's degree level.
No, nothing like criminology, its largely a subset of group psychology, with a lot of dry questions like whether a 9 person jury is less likely to deadlock than a 12 person jury, and whether a defendant is more likely to get a light sentence from a jury if they act like they've done nothing wrong or if they act remorseful.
What is a 'proyective test'? I thought it was a typo at first but you keep repeating it.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 02, 2010, 10:45:14 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 10:14:59 PM
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 02, 2010, 04:05:35 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:01:15 AM
So which studies of the mind would you call as proper science? Neurology?
There is plenty of legitimate science in psychology that have little to do with neurology. I have a very large stack of files somewhere that are on the science behind jury psychology, Neurology is never mentioned. Psychoanalysis is not a field of psychology anymore though, it was rejected well before I was born. I'm trying to figure out how you even found a school that teaches it outside of the history and literature department.
Is jury psychology similar to criminology? I know they use a lot of proyective test batteries.
As far as i know, its a specialization at the master's degree level.
No, nothing like criminology, its largely a subset of group psychology, with a lot of dry questions like whether a 9 person jury is less likely to deadlock than a 12 person jury, and whether a defendant is more likely to get a light sentence from a jury if they act like they've done nothing wrong or if they act remorseful.
What is a 'proyective test'? I thought it was a typo at first but you keep repeating it.
I think he means "projective".
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 02, 2010, 10:45:14 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 10:14:59 PM
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 02, 2010, 04:05:35 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 02, 2010, 04:01:15 AM
So which studies of the mind would you call as proper science? Neurology?
There is plenty of legitimate science in psychology that have little to do with neurology. I have a very large stack of files somewhere that are on the science behind jury psychology, Neurology is never mentioned. Psychoanalysis is not a field of psychology anymore though, it was rejected well before I was born. I'm trying to figure out how you even found a school that teaches it outside of the history and literature department.
Is jury psychology similar to criminology? I know they use a lot of proyective test batteries.
As far as i know, its a specialization at the master's degree level.
No, nothing like criminology, its largely a subset of group psychology, with a lot of dry questions like whether a 9 person jury is less likely to deadlock than a 12 person jury, and whether a defendant is more likely to get a light sentence from a jury if they act like they've done nothing wrong or if they act remorseful.
What is a 'proyective test'? I thought it was a typo at first but you keep repeating it.
Typo indeed, what i meant is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_test)
Its basicly a "test" in which the "answers" are ambiguous, leaving a lot of margin for subjective expression.
Using the most mainstream example: Rorschach; its just inkblots, but depending on the persons inclinations, state of mind and different factors of personality, they can see anything from animals to sexual organs.
H.T.P. (House-Tree-Person) is also a popular one, and based on how one draws each figure, one can determine a lot of things. Theres also Family Drawing one, in which you can interpret interactions and feelings towards family members.
How was the interpretation for family drawing with small children built?
Quote from: Roaring Biscuit! on November 02, 2010, 12:23:27 PM
I didn't bother to read all of this thread, but I'm going to do my best to summarize the various reasons why Freud is often considered incorrect. I think it basically boils down to two things:
The one that first springs to mind (and I can give a good example of) is the unscientific nature of Freudian theory, despite Freud's wish for it to be thought of as a contribution to science, it isn't. The best example I can think of is the use of the term "libido", which can refer to anything from a "sexual energy" to a universal "life force". This term, which is rather central to a lot of Freud, lacks any proper definition, or accurate form of measurement.
Now I briefly glimpsed a mention of psychoanalysis as qualitative not quantitative, but you still can't qualify if you don't have a definition of the quality.
Secondly: The interpreter. This is my main quarrel with Freud. He and his followers have no way of accounting for the "unconscious" projections of the person who is doing the analysing. There have also been a number of studies showing how wildly varied Freudian therapists can be in their interpretation of exactly the same data. Related to this, as Freud said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", well, how does the therapist know? exactly what method does the analyst use to differentiate between parts of a dream that are important details, and those which are meaningless?
Simply put, Freudian analysis is not an analysis of the patient.
x
edd
Quote from: Brusset, Bernard "Libidinal development" (1992)
Libido
Latin: wish, desire
Freud: libido is an expression taken from the theory of affection (affectivity?). We call this the energy considered like a quantitative magnitude -even though it cannot currently be measured- of those drives related with all that can be included under the term <love> (1921); Its the dynamic manifestation of the sexual drive in the psychic life (1922).
Laplanche/Pontalis: the energy postulated by Freud as the sustrate of the transformations of sexual drive as related to the Object (investment displacement) and unto the ends (sublimation) and unto the source of sexual arousal (diversity of erogenous zones).
Are you asking if psychoanalysis as a profession is a good idea, or if psychoanalysis as a field is a good idea?
If you're asking if you should go into psychoanalysis ... I don't like the theories at all, but it's still a profession where the basic goal is to help people. You might be setting yourself up to operate in a less-than-useful framework, but any mature, reasonable person with a measure of wisdom who really means the Hippocratic Oath will benefit his clients/patients in some way. I don't think God exists, but several of the people who I would trust to ask advice on serious life decisions are priests. Psychoanalysis might be valid in the sense that it is possible to help patients from within that framework, but still BS in an academic sense.
Psychoanalysis as a field, however ... is just so much metaphysics. I admit to not having studied psychoanalysis specifically, but the method it uses to generate theories is not conducive to coming up with accurate theories. The reason the scientific model works is falsifiability - over any period of time, scientists will generate a ton of hypotheses that are wrong, but it's okay because sooner or later the false hypotheses will be debunked by an experiment. We believe in theories not because they've been conclusively proven by some experiment, but because over decades/centuries the best and brightest minds have been trying to find a way to show the theory is false, and failed. The difference between Freud's theories and more established ideas is that modern psychologists have been running their ideas through the gauntlet of experiment (admittedly, many experiments are poorly designed) and weeded out most of the wrong ones. We have a reason to believe that the theories which stand up to rigorous experimentation might be true, because people have looked for places where the theories break down and failed to find any.
On the other hand, we basically have Freud's word that his theories are true. According to (my meager knowledge of) Freud, you either exhibit a thought pattern regarding your mother and sex or whatever, or you repress it. If that theory were false - and so many theories from that time period turned out to be (I think we still had the ether model of the universe at that point?) - there'd be no way to tell. If you test and individual for unconscious desires about your mother, you'll either find them or not. If you find them, you haven't shown Freud is right or wrong (that individual could just be an outlier) and if you fail to find it, you still haven't shown that Freud is right or wrong (he could just repressing it.)
So when I say that the claims of psychoanalysis are unfalsifiable, I don't mean that they're necessarily wrong, just that whether they're right or wrong, we'd have no way to tell, and the default position should be that any existence claim (this relationship exists, this pattern exists) is false.
The other quibble with psychoanalysis is that it's so subjective, that what its analysis reveals has at least as much to do with the test evaluator. The person evaluating the response to House-Tree-Person or whatever is himself giving an open ended response to ambiguous input - so it doesn't say much that psychoanalysts find that the patients HTP fit in with their psychoanalytic worldview. It's very much a Lo5s problem - everything relates back to your childhood sexual identity, and the statement is truer the harder you look for connections. If you walk into a therapy session with the preconception that the main problem with your patient is the patient's parents and childhood, you can probably "verify" that with clever use of association games and picture drawing, but only if you're willing to give up on any possible cause that isn't in psychoanalysis's portfolio of "things that mess up your head later" and the patients who really do have anxiety for a reason other than their (lack of) a sex life at eight years old.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 02, 2010, 11:10:45 PM
How was the interpretation for family drawing with small children built?
I cant find my notes nor textbooks, but if i recall correctly, there were studies made with a number of children that had already been diagnosed and subsequently the features in the drawings they made were correlated with their personality. But this is mostly speaking of HTP and Human Figure.
Now, Family Drawing is more complex, because it not only takes into account what the features each character represents, but also the portrayal of each member, its positioning (or lack of prescense). Even though the subject is told to draw an imaginary one, its usual that they will draw their own family. Basicly the interpretation comes from the features, which comes from correlation thru different cases, and the positionings are taken as symbolical and non-random.
For example, assuming its a four member family, consisting of mother, father, daughter and a younger brother; the test is applied to the daughter, which proceeds to only draw her parents and herself, symbolically it expresses the desire to supress her brother; why does she wish to supress her brother? it would need to be taken in the context of other available data, but a possible explanation would be envy of the attention the newborn draws instead of herself.
Projection tests are a tool or an aid, its not a full diagnostics solution. Also, one must never keep out of sight on whom the criterions were based on, which is usually USA middle class populations, and many of these tests must be standardized to be of greater use.
For example, in Mexico, houses rarely have differentiated rooftops, have chimneys or are made of wood, and each one is associated with a particular disorder; not standardized, therefore, not as useful or relevant.
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on November 03, 2010, 05:12:39 AM
Are you asking if psychoanalysis as a profession is a good idea, or if psychoanalysis as a field is a good idea?
If you're asking if you should go into psychoanalysis ... I don't like the theories at all, but it's still a profession where the basic goal is to help people. You might be setting yourself up to operate in a less-than-useful framework, but any mature, reasonable person with a measure of wisdom who really means the Hippocratic Oath will benefit his clients/patients in some way. I don't think God exists, but several of the people who I would trust to ask advice on serious life decisions are priests. Psychoanalysis might be valid in the sense that it is possible to help patients from within that framework, but still BS in an academic sense.
Psychoanalysis as a field, however ... is just so much metaphysics. I admit to not having studied psychoanalysis specifically, but the method it uses to generate theories is not conducive to coming up with accurate theories. The reason the scientific model works is falsifiability - over any period of time, scientists will generate a ton of hypotheses that are wrong, but it's okay because sooner or later the false hypotheses will be debunked by an experiment. We believe in theories not because they've been conclusively proven by some experiment, but because over decades/centuries the best and brightest minds have been trying to find a way to show the theory is false, and failed. The difference between Freud's theories and more established ideas is that modern psychologists have been running their ideas through the gauntlet of experiment (admittedly, many experiments are poorly designed) and weeded out most of the wrong ones. We have a reason to believe that the theories which stand up to rigorous experimentation might be true, because people have looked for places where the theories break down and failed to find any.
On the other hand, we basically have Freud's word that his theories are true. According to (my meager knowledge of) Freud, you either exhibit a thought pattern regarding your mother and sex or whatever, or you repress it. If that theory were false - and so many theories from that time period turned out to be (I think we still had the ether model of the universe at that point?) - there'd be no way to tell. If you test and individual for unconscious desires about your mother, you'll either find them or not. If you find them, you haven't shown Freud is right or wrong (that individual could just be an outlier) and if you fail to find it, you still haven't shown that Freud is right or wrong (he could just repressing it.)
So when I say that the claims of psychoanalysis are unfalsifiable, I don't mean that they're necessarily wrong, just that whether they're right or wrong, we'd have no way to tell, and the default position should be that any existence claim (this relationship exists, this pattern exists) is false.
The other quibble with psychoanalysis is that it's so subjective, that what its analysis reveals has at least as much to do with the test evaluator. The person evaluating the response to House-Tree-Person or whatever is himself giving an open ended response to ambiguous input - so it doesn't say much that psychoanalysts find that the patients HTP fit in with their psychoanalytic worldview. It's very much a Lo5s problem - everything relates back to your childhood sexual identity, and the statement is truer the harder you look for connections. If you walk into a therapy session with the preconception that the main problem with your patient is the patient's parents and childhood, you can probably "verify" that with clever use of association games and picture drawing, but only if you're willing to give up on any possible cause that isn't in psychoanalysis's portfolio of "things that mess up your head later" and the patients who really do have anxiety for a reason other than their (lack of) a sex life at eight years old.
I'm more interested in the latter, I personally think that it's a good profession, im not sure if in the OP and throughtout the discussion ive made it clear that this is what I wish to be my occupation (although I have some years to go yet).
I thought of being a lawyer, sociologist or philosopher, but, A) im not that greedy B) the individual seems more interesting C) too abstract, little application, no money. As an analyst one can make decent money while helping others and I have an inclination to investigate the secret motivations of others. Im not sure I would trust a priest with giving advice, theres a saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".
And here's where there is a stumble in the conversations, I know there is no physical manner to show that an Oedipus Complex, for example, exists, for it is a symbolical working of the mind, and not a physical one and although it is not a simple thing, I would like to try my hand at showing why I think its true (I just need some time to think how I would proceed with it); or some concept in the same branch of things, I have several works that ive done, including hypothesis, methodology and the likes, and just to bring a concrete example so as to be dissected in its flaws id be willing to translate it.
Its not precise, it is in a certain manner as detective work, piecing things together for a diagnostic. And as I mentioned before, HTP is a tool/aide, not a conclusive reference.
Its not all about childhood sexual identity, its about if there was a healthy passage thru the different stages of development, which ideally is done with at 19ish while not disregarding influential events that could have happened later on.
And you see, theres something weird with your discourse at the end, why bring up sex-life of an eight year old at all?
GA,
As i previously asked to someone else ITT (to which they didnt respond):
-Why is the insult "Fuck your mother" a global phenomenon?
-Why does the imagining of one's own parents having intercourse evoke disgust?
-What is so tragic about the myth of Oedipus?
Quote
I cant find my notes nor textbooks, but if i recall correctly, there were studies made with a number of children that had already been diagnosed and subsequently the features in the drawings they made were correlated with their personality. But this is mostly speaking of HTP and Human Figure.
Now, Family Drawing is more complex, because it not only takes into account what the features each character represents, but also the portrayal of each member, its positioning (or lack of prescense). Even though the subject is told to draw an imaginary one, its usual that they will draw their own family. Basicly the interpretation comes from the features, which comes from correlation thru different cases, and the positionings are taken as symbolical and non-random.
For example, assuming its a four member family, consisting of mother, father, daughter and a younger brother; the test is applied to the daughter, which proceeds to only draw her parents and herself, symbolically it expresses the desire to supress her brother; why does she wish to supress her brother? it would need to be taken in the context of other available data, but a possible explanation would be envy of the attention the newborn draws instead of herself.
Ok, but why does it mean that she wishes to suppress her brother?
In the human drawing one, or the ink blot test (which I'm a bit more familiar with), you can draw validity, (though not reliability) because you can diagnose those disorders, then compare the disorders to the results, and use that to build a database of drawings or answers or whatever and link it to the disorders. (IE, if 70% of the people who see a certain inkblot and answer butterfly have narcissistic tendencies, and your patient answers butterfly, you know to do more thorough tests for narcissistic tendencies, though you can't simply conclude that the patient has that).
But in family drawing, there's no diagnosis for the little girl wishing to suppress her brother, no database of 'this drawing was by a person with the following issues', the test was made up, it wasn't drawn from thin air, so it might be correct, but you have no way of knowing if it is correct or not.
Quote-Why is the insult "Fuck your mother" a global phenomenon?
-Why does the imagining of one's own parents having intercourse evoke disgust?
-What is so tragic about the myth of Oedipus?
Why is this relevant?
Quote
And here's where there is a stumble in the conversations, I know there is no physical manner to show that an Oedipus Complex, for example, exists, for it is a symbolical working of the mind, and not a physical one and although it is not a simple thing, I would like to try my hand at showing why I think its true (I just need some time to think how I would proceed with it); or some concept in the same branch of things, I have several works that ive done, including hypothesis, methodology and the likes, and just to bring a concrete example so as to be dissected in its flaws id be willing to translate it.
There's lots of psychology out there that isn't based in the physical workings of the brain. Nothing about Bias research is based in neurology, but I can still say the Ball and Bat Bias exists, because no matter how many times the experiment gets run, people get the problem wrong. You can give a lot of reasons why the Oedipal stage is true, but how do you run an experiment to demonstrate it isn't false? And don't give me any vague statements, if you don't know where it comes from, and you don't know how to find out where it comes from, then how did you decide it was correct?
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 06:18:53 AM
-Why is the insult "Fuck your mother" a global phenomenon?
It's not. We don't use that insult in Dutch.
(With the exception of doing an ironically bad literal translation of US pop-culture/movie phrases, which is mainly used for the irony of cheese rather than meaning what is actually being said)
Projective testing, only an abstract mind (http://psi.sagepub.com/content/1/2/27.abstract)
"Nobody agrees how to score Rorschach responses objectively. There is nothing to show what any particular response means to the person who gives it. And, there is nothing to show what it means if a number of people give the same response. The ink blots are scientifically useless." (Bartol, 1983).
"The only thing the inkblots do reveal is the secret world of the examiner who interprets them. These doctors are probably saying more about themselves than about the subjects." (Anastasi, 1982).
also, some more detail on issues with projective testing (http://deltabravo.net/custody/misuse.php)
I couldn't find the stuff on Freudian analysis, but if you want a comprehensive read on the issues of Freudian theory I can recommend Hans Eysenck's "The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire".
As for that there definition, well you've kind of proved my point there, as there are two seperate definitions quoted right there, and reading Freud you may notice that his use of libido is a linguistic use not a scientific. Is the definition you quoted now the standardised definition?
Thirdly, if this is the line of work you really want to follow, check yourself out some George Kelly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Kelly_(psychologist)), his testing methods try to minimise the effect of therapist interpretation.
x
edd
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 06:18:53 AM
-What is so tragic about the myth of Oedipus?
his children are likely to have serious genetic defects?
There are some pretty good evolutionary reasons for children to not be sexually attracted to their parents...
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 06:18:53 AM
GA,
As i previously asked to someone else ITT (to which they didnt respond):
-Why is the insult "Fuck your mother" a global phenomenon?
-Why does the imagining of one's own parents having intercourse evoke disgust?
-What is so tragic about the myth of Oedipus?
"Fuck your mother" - I'm not sure that it is a global phenomena. But if you were making the claim that "fuck your mother" is evidence for the psychoanalytic view, then you'd also need to show that past societies used the same insult (either that, or past societies didn't have a mother complex.)
"Parent's intercourse evoke disgust" - Neither of my parents are particularly sexually attractive, and the combination of modern porn culture and American crypto-puritanism has conditioned me to view any sex between less than movie starlet quality couples is gross. I find the idea of most of my professors having sex to be a bit discomforting, and I only met them within the past few years. I've also found (only within instrospective psych, although I think other experiments have/would bear this out) that imagining specific kinds of sexual situations changes your own sexual appetites and relationship to the subjects. So I don't imagine my classmates in sexually provocative positions because I don't want to change the way I think about them as human beings.
"Oedipus tragedy" - I haven't read any of the epics about Oedipus, but I suspect that the tragedy comes from a combination of quality literature and "Guy does things the Gods do not approve of, gets ass handed to him in divine retribution as moralistic tale for audience."
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 06:09:02 AM
Its not all about childhood sexual identity, its about if there was a healthy passage thru the different stages of development, which ideally is done with at 19ish while not disregarding influential events that could have happened later on.
And you see, theres something weird with your discourse at the end, why bring up sex-life of an eight year old at all?
As I understand it, psychoanalysis traces the roots of present-day disorders back to people's failures to progress "normally" through the hoops of development as laid out by Freud and others. But suppose psychoanalysis, while being correct about the influence of development in people's future lives, got the precise stages of development that people are supposed to go through wrong. (Considering how much we've revised the work of greats like Newton, Piaget, and Darwin it would seem incredible that a field would get everything very nearly correct on the first go-round.)
There would be no way to tell - psychoanalysts would of course find that their patients didn't go through all the stages properly and diagnose them with disorders. The fact that the patients only didn't go through the stages properly because the stages themselves are flawed could only be discovered if a) there really are neurotypical people b) those actual neurotypical people go to see a psychoanalyst and c) the psychoanalyst correctly identifies them as not having any disorders and doesn't attribute this them repressing their disorders or whatever. Which means that psychoanalysis as a field has no good way of correcting its errors, and so we should expect all the inevitable errors made over the years to still be there.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 05:19:32 AM
I cant find my notes nor textbooks, but if i recall correctly, there were studies made with a number of children that had already been diagnosed and subsequently the features in the drawings they made were correlated with their personality. But this is mostly speaking of HTP and Human Figure.
Well there's your problem right there. Double blind studies need to be done with a mix of healthy children and diagnosed ones. Because if the healthy children put the same kinds of features in their drawings, then the drawings are diagnostically useless.
Quote from: Liam on November 03, 2010, 02:20:21 PMQuoteIt's not. We don't use that insult in Dutch.
I have to ask then, what's the rudest Dutch insult, or is it one of those funny things that will not translate well?
We generally curse with diseases.
Tering = TBC
Tiefus = Typhoid
Klere / Kolere = Cholera
(these are all slang words, the actual diseases are named tuberculose, tyfus and cholera)
While those are pretty harsh language, depending on who you are with they can also be rather mild and used as random expletives.
But probably the worst one is "krijg kanker", meaning "get cancer", or variations thereupon. The former diseases are quite uncommon and treatable, while there's a pretty good chance that a person has lost a family member or close friend to cancer. So that usually gets them. It's also the reason why I don't use that one. IMO it's either bad taste or if the person really deserves it, I can probably come up with something stronger and more relevant.
Ooh, I just remember another one. "Schurft" means "Scabies". Often used in combination with "hekel" (dislike) into "schurfthekel". To mean you really hate something (or someone). The nice thing about this one is that it sounds like clearing your throat and you can really spit it out. (schurft sounds like "skurft" except with the Dutch throat-clearing "g" sound instead of a "k")
Quote from: Roaring Biscuit! on November 03, 2010, 02:17:17 PM
Projective testing, only an abstract mind (http://psi.sagepub.com/content/1/2/27.abstract)
"Nobody agrees how to score Rorschach responses objectively. There is nothing to show what any particular response means to the person who gives it. And, there is nothing to show what it means if a number of people give the same response. The ink blots are scientifically useless." (Bartol, 1983).
"The only thing the inkblots do reveal is the secret world of the examiner who interprets them. These doctors are probably saying more about themselves than about the subjects." (Anastasi, 1982).
While there may be a lot of therapists who use inkblots that way, there is a very specific set of interpretation rules that go with the cards, and I suspect that those two critics never actually learned how to use them. (Which is not to say that rules are necessarily any good, there are a lot of issues with it, not least of which is that there's no way to be sure if cultural drift has made the data invalid over the decades, and the lack of repeated experiments to verify the initial results).
There are still therapists that use Rorschach cards???
Well, somebody was pressuring Wikipedia not to publish the real cards on the grounds that people who have seen the cards can't be tested with them, presumably whoever was doing that had a reason.
QuoteAPA ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGISTS AND CODE OF CONDUCT
http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.html (http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.html)
http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.html#2.07 (http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.html#2.07)
2.07 Obsolete Tests and Outdated Test Results.
(a) Psychologists do not base their assessment or intervention decisions or recommendations on data or test results that are outdated for the current purpose.
(b) Similarly, psychologists do not base such decisions or recommendations on tests and measures that are obsolete and not useful for the current purpose.
Also, you can see the Rorschach cards right here (http://deltabravo.net/custody/rorschach.php), as well as a lot of info on the problems with it.
Quote from: Triple Zero on November 03, 2010, 05:23:21 PM
There are still therapists that use Rorschach cards???
Thematic apperception tests are IMO a more useful tool, but yes. The point is just to get you talking about what's on your mind. It's just a way to see where your imagination takes you. Any other use is questionable, I think.
Objective study of mind is impossible under modern technological limitations. You want to learn anything about psychology then, by all means read some Freud, read some Jung, fuck read some Castaneda or Timothy Leary you might end up with the kind of half-assed impression that the greatest shrinks of the day aspire to. Solution is simple - you have a fully observable test mind at your disposal - go experiment on it. Mental process is something you have to experience first hand but be warned (omgz quantums) the observer will affect the results :evil:
Quote from: Doktor Vitriol on November 03, 2010, 11:36:31 PM
Objective study of mind is impossible under modern technological limitations. You want to learn anything about psychology then, by all means read some Freud, read some Jung, fuck read some Castaneda or Timothy Leary you might end up with the kind of half-assed impression that the greatest shrinks of the day aspire to. Solution is simple - you have a fully observable test mind at your disposal - go experiment on it. Mental process is something you have to experience first hand but be warned (omgz quantums) the observer will affect the results :evil:
If you want to learn something about Psychology, those are some key people to completely ignore. As for the observer affecting the results bit, that's what double blind studies and control groups are for.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 03, 2010, 07:54:34 AM
Quote
I cant find my notes nor textbooks, but if i recall correctly, there were studies made with a number of children that had already been diagnosed and subsequently the features in the drawings they made were correlated with their personality. But this is mostly speaking of HTP and Human Figure.
Now, Family Drawing is more complex, because it not only takes into account what the features each character represents, but also the portrayal of each member, its positioning (or lack of prescense). Even though the subject is told to draw an imaginary one, its usual that they will draw their own family. Basicly the interpretation comes from the features, which comes from correlation thru different cases, and the positionings are taken as symbolical and non-random.
For example, assuming its a four member family, consisting of mother, father, daughter and a younger brother; the test is applied to the daughter, which proceeds to only draw her parents and herself, symbolically it expresses the desire to supress her brother; why does she wish to supress her brother? it would need to be taken in the context of other available data, but a possible explanation would be envy of the attention the newborn draws instead of herself.
Ok, but why does it mean that she wishes to suppress her brother?
In the human drawing one, or the ink blot test (which I'm a bit more familiar with), you can draw validity, (though not reliability) because you can diagnose those disorders, then compare the disorders to the results, and use that to build a database of drawings or answers or whatever and link it to the disorders. (IE, if 70% of the people who see a certain inkblot and answer butterfly have narcissistic tendencies, and your patient answers butterfly, you know to do more thorough tests for narcissistic tendencies, though you can't simply conclude that the patient has that).
But in family drawing, there's no diagnosis for the little girl wishing to suppress her brother, no database of 'this drawing was by a person with the following issues', the test was made up, it wasn't drawn from thin air, so it might be correct, but you have no way of knowing if it is correct or not.
Quote-Why is the insult "Fuck your mother" a global phenomenon?
-Why does the imagining of one's own parents having intercourse evoke disgust?
-What is so tragic about the myth of Oedipus?
Why is this relevant?
Because it's a symbolical expression of a desire; there is also cases of devaluation with drawing a sibling with defects or ugly features.
Yes, exactly, as ive said, it's a tool, an aide for diagnosis, but its not 100% reliable, it must be taken in the context of other data. Also, if the rapport isn't done appropriately, the results can be completely off, also if the person is under stress or if its forced to do it.
Yes, I know what you speak of about Family Drawing, there isn't a database; but I ask you, which other interpretations can you draw from such an important omission in the drawing? In this specific case I made up its what I would consider a very straight forward meaning, but its not always that easy or obvious.
Those questions are relevant as examples of common remnants of the Oedipus complex, Im sorry, i guess it was too much of an ambiguous postulation.
Allow me to catch up with other responses to adress this part more in depth.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 03, 2010, 08:34:17 AM
Quote
And here's where there is a stumble in the conversations, I know there is no physical manner to show that an Oedipus Complex, for example, exists, for it is a symbolical working of the mind, and not a physical one and although it is not a simple thing, I would like to try my hand at showing why I think its true (I just need some time to think how I would proceed with it); or some concept in the same branch of things, I have several works that ive done, including hypothesis, methodology and the likes, and just to bring a concrete example so as to be dissected in its flaws id be willing to translate it.
There's lots of psychology out there that isn't based in the physical workings of the brain. Nothing about Bias research is based in neurology, but I can still say the Ball and Bat Bias exists, because no matter how many times the experiment gets run, people get the problem wrong. You can give a lot of reasons why the Oedipal stage is true, but how do you run an experiment to demonstrate it isn't false? And don't give me any vague statements, if you don't know where it comes from, and you don't know how to find out where it comes from, then how did you decide it was correct?
Ball and Bat bias, I couldn't find anything that seemed relevant, can you explain?
The Oedipus complex theory is based on the symbolic content of myths of antiquity and its interpretation, its also based on observation of child-mother-father interaction, cultural taboo and the content of deep interviews – other than that, im not sure how an experiment would be run to demonstrate it.
The Oedipus complex comes from the transition from an instinct based stage of mankind towards a stage of mankind that it was capable of repression/sublimation in order to reap benefits (a.k.a. culture). Rather than groups living under an alpha-male with complete control, with the cyclical switches in power when one grew too old and a successor arrived based solely on violence, at some point, power was distributed, but the incest taboo was created along with exogamy. This is referenced in Levi-Strauss's "Nature and Culture" (if I recall correctly) and S. Freud's "Totem and Taboo".
Quote from: Triple Zero on November 03, 2010, 12:30:59 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 06:18:53 AM
-Why is the insult "Fuck your mother" a global phenomenon?
It's not. We don't use that insult in Dutch.
(With the exception of doing an ironically bad literal translation of US pop-culture/movie phrases, which is mainly used for the irony of cheese rather than meaning what is actually being said)
That is strange indeed, it seems to be a common phenomenon in english and spanish speaking countries. I wonder if its linked to something of greater importance.
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 03, 2010, 07:10:46 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on November 03, 2010, 05:23:21 PM
There are still therapists that use Rorschach cards???
Thematic apperception tests are IMO a more useful tool, but yes. The point is just to get you talking about what's on your mind. It's just a way to see where your imagination takes you. Any other use is questionable, I think.
I know what they are used for, and intended for.
I was mostly wondering if there are qualified therapists that still actually use this method.
Quote from: Roaring Biscuit! on November 03, 2010, 02:17:17 PM
Projective testing, only an abstract mind (http://psi.sagepub.com/content/1/2/27.abstract)
"Nobody agrees how to score Rorschach responses objectively. There is nothing to show what any particular response means to the person who gives it. And, there is nothing to show what it means if a number of people give the same response. The ink blots are scientifically useless." (Bartol, 1983).
"The only thing the inkblots do reveal is the secret world of the examiner who interprets them. These doctors are probably saying more about themselves than about the subjects." (Anastasi, 1982).
also, some more detail on issues with projective testing (http://deltabravo.net/custody/misuse.php)
I couldn't find the stuff on Freudian analysis, but if you want a comprehensive read on the issues of Freudian theory I can recommend Hans Eysenck's "The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire".
As for that there definition, well you've kind of proved my point there, as there are two seperate definitions quoted right there, and reading Freud you may notice that his use of libido is a linguistic use not a scientific. Is the definition you quoted now the standardised definition?
Thirdly, if this is the line of work you really want to follow, check yourself out some George Kelly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Kelly_(psychologist)), his testing methods try to minimise the effect of therapist interpretation.
x
edd
Only the abstract is free. I haven't been taught how to utilize Rorschach, but it seems to be more related to the free association type, because the subject is just expressing passively what an image evokes, rather than actively creating an image themselves. Id be more interested in knowing what the article has to say about HTP, Human Figure and Family Drawing, because those are the ones I closely know of and is related to what we speak of.
And which are these doctors the article speaks of? Psychiatrists? General Practitioners? Psycho-analysts? Therapists? Psychologists? I would venture to say that not everyone has the appropriate training to use them.
We all know that anything within the setting of court is very much cutthroat and with vested interests. It speaks volumes of the bad uses of projective tests in a particular setting, but not its overall benefits.
Once more: using a single application of HTP or any similar
tool as a sole guidance for diagnosis is jumping to conclusions.
Quote from: Roaring Biscuit! on November 03, 2010, 02:30:13 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 06:18:53 AM
-What is so tragic about the myth of Oedipus?
his children are likely to have serious genetic defects?
There are some pretty good evolutionary reasons for children to not be sexually attracted to their parents...
That can fall under the heading of biological reductionism.
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on November 03, 2010, 02:33:48 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 06:18:53 AM
GA,
As i previously asked to someone else ITT (to which they didnt respond):
-Why is the insult "Fuck your mother" a global phenomenon?
-Why does the imagining of one's own parents having intercourse evoke disgust?
-What is so tragic about the myth of Oedipus?
"Fuck your mother" - I'm not sure that it is a global phenomena. But if you were making the claim that "fuck your mother" is evidence for the psychoanalytic view, then you'd also need to show that past societies used the same insult (either that, or past societies didn't have a mother complex.)
"Parent's intercourse evoke disgust" - Neither of my parents are particularly sexually attractive, and the combination of modern porn culture and American crypto-puritanism has conditioned me to view any sex between less than movie starlet quality couples is gross. I find the idea of most of my professors having sex to be a bit discomforting, and I only met them within the past few years. I've also found (only within instrospective psych, although I think other experiments have/would bear this out) that imagining specific kinds of sexual situations changes your own sexual appetites and relationship to the subjects. So I don't imagine my classmates in sexually provocative positions because I don't want to change the way I think about them as human beings.
"Oedipus tragedy" - I haven't read any of the epics about Oedipus, but I suspect that the tragedy comes from a combination of quality literature and "Guy does things the Gods do not approve of, gets ass handed to him in divine retribution as moralistic tale for audience."
Touché. Im not a historical linguist, unfortunately. Adds up with Trip's objection.
Ive known quite a number of people with attractive parents which were teased about it, so I wouldn't think it's a matter of attractiveness. Its an interesting cultural argument what you came up with. The last sentence in the second paragraph sounds a bit odd to me, just saying.
The tragedy of Oedipus symbolically speaking is tragic because it illustrates how all humans have an infatuation with the mother, along with ambiguous feelings towards the father, which if they aren't resolved throught identification rather than with violent competition it would be the end of/is incompatible with culture.
Quote from: Triple Zero on November 03, 2010, 04:12:31 PM
Quote from: Liam on November 03, 2010, 02:20:21 PMQuoteIt's not. We don't use that insult in Dutch.
I have to ask then, what's the rudest Dutch insult, or is it one of those funny things that will not translate well?
We generally curse with diseases.
Tering = TBC
Tiefus = Typhoid
Klere / Kolere = Cholera
(these are all slang words, the actual diseases are named tuberculose, tyfus and cholera)
While those are pretty harsh language, depending on who you are with they can also be rather mild and used as random expletives.
But probably the worst one is "krijg kanker", meaning "get cancer", or variations thereupon. The former diseases are quite uncommon and treatable, while there's a pretty good chance that a person has lost a family member or close friend to cancer. So that usually gets them. It's also the reason why I don't use that one. IMO it's either bad taste or if the person really deserves it, I can probably come up with something stronger and more relevant.
Ooh, I just remember another one. "Schurft" means "Scabies". Often used in combination with "hekel" (dislike) into "schurfthekel". To mean you really hate something (or someone). The nice thing about this one is that it sounds like clearing your throat and you can really spit it out. (schurft sounds like "skurft" except with the Dutch throat-clearing "g" sound instead of a "k")
Is it like Yiddish where you form entire curse sentences like "May you get raped by a goat and all your teeth fall out" ? :lol:
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on November 03, 2010, 02:53:33 PM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 06:09:02 AM
Its not all about childhood sexual identity, its about if there was a healthy passage thru the different stages of development, which ideally is done with at 19ish while not disregarding influential events that could have happened later on.
And you see, theres something weird with your discourse at the end, why bring up sex-life of an eight year old at all?
As I understand it, psychoanalysis traces the roots of present-day disorders back to people's failures to progress "normally" through the hoops of development as laid out by Freud and others. But suppose psychoanalysis, while being correct about the influence of development in people's future lives, got the precise stages of development that people are supposed to go through wrong. (Considering how much we've revised the work of greats like Newton, Piaget, and Darwin it would seem incredible that a field would get everything very nearly correct on the first go-round.)
There would be no way to tell - psychoanalysts would of course find that their patients didn't go through all the stages properly and diagnose them with disorders. The fact that the patients only didn't go through the stages properly because the stages themselves are flawed could only be discovered if a) there really are neurotypical people b) those actual neurotypical people go to see a psychoanalyst and c) the psychoanalyst correctly identifies them as not having any disorders and doesn't attribute this them repressing their disorders or whatever. Which means that psychoanalysis as a field has no good way of correcting its errors, and so we should expect all the inevitable errors made over the years to still be there.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 03, 2010, 05:19:32 AM
I cant find my notes nor textbooks, but if i recall correctly, there were studies made with a number of children that had already been diagnosed and subsequently the features in the drawings they made were correlated with their personality. But this is mostly speaking of HTP and Human Figure.
Well there's your problem right there. Double blind studies need to be done with a mix of healthy children and diagnosed ones. Because if the healthy children put the same kinds of features in their drawings, then the drawings are diagnostically useless.
Yes, it's about going thru development phases "healthily" but it speaks of the libidinal side of development. A good complimentary set of development phases are cognitive development ones.
The problem with this you speak of, is that it's a big assumption. There are characteristics that denounce pathology in each phase, which is distinct from problems with other phases. And now im a bit confused... that's autism movement lingo for "normal people" right? And responding that, yes, of course not everyone is autistic – why do you take that angle? And correcting you, one doesn't repress a disorder, one represses emotions and thoughts.
One very common problem nowadays is througouth the latency phase (5.5-12), in which children sublimate their libidinal energy towards learning and learning to control their impulses; the cause to the pathology is their exposure to mediatic sexuality and violence, which distracts their focus from learning; symptoms? thrill seekers, bad academics and agression. This is culturally speaking, individual cases might vary.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 03, 2010, 11:39:34 PM
Quote from: Doktor Vitriol on November 03, 2010, 11:36:31 PM
Objective study of mind is impossible under modern technological limitations. You want to learn anything about psychology then, by all means read some Freud, read some Jung, fuck read some Castaneda or Timothy Leary you might end up with the kind of half-assed impression that the greatest shrinks of the day aspire to. Solution is simple - you have a fully observable test mind at your disposal - go experiment on it. Mental process is something you have to experience first hand but be warned (omgz quantums) the observer will affect the results :evil:
If you want to learn something about Psychology, those are some key people to completely ignore. As for the observer affecting the results bit, that's what double blind studies and control groups are for.
Yes, being objective might be impossible, the proposed solution is to acknowledge one's own positioning, and attempt to be aware of it, so as to know its limitations (read Devereaux's "From anxiety to method in the behavioural sciences"), meta-situational awareness is essential.
Freud seems fine so far, Jung seems to have gone off the deep end, Leary idk about, and Castaneda.... Castaneda I wouldn't consider seriously, its just drug-trip tales id say. Introspection is quite interesting id like to add – but I personally think its more fruitful with the aid of someone else, if just as someone to be your "mirror" and just listen.
The Ball and Bat problem goes as follows "A bat and a ball together cost $1.10, the bat costs one dollar more than the ball."
Which seems very easy but people get it wrong ~87% of the time in nearly all tests run on it (MIT students are the only group ever to do better that I've heard of).
It's a bias, rather than being bad at math, because people will usually get it right if the ball and bat cost 37 cents and the bat is 23 cents more than the ball.
Quote
Because it's a symbolical expression of a desire; there is also cases of devaluation with drawing a sibling with defects or ugly features.
Yes, exactly, as ive said, it's a tool, an aide for diagnosis, but its not 100% reliable, it must be taken in the context of other data. Also, if the rapport isn't done appropriately, the results can be completely off, also if the person is under stress or if its forced to do it.
Or these cultures of a history of looking down on women who are sexually active, or its based on triggering incest avoidence instincts etc. No hypothesis for this is worth a damn till you can run an experiment on it.
Quote
Yes, I know what you speak of about Family Drawing, there isn't a database; but I ask you, which other interpretations can you draw from such an important omission in the drawing? In this specific case I made up its what I would consider a very straight forward meaning, but its not always that easy or obvious.
I can't draw *any* conclusions from that, I have no data, for all I know girls who really like the color green won't draw their brothers (there are stranger correlations out there). For a Freudian bonus, it only applies to girls who really like the color green, but are ashamed of it, so won't admit they like the color green.
:lol:
It never fails to amuse me that people get it wrong even when I tell them its a trap. For clarification, the bat is only 90 cents more than the ball if the bat is 1$ and the ball is 10 cents.
ball is $1, bat is $2, its a special offer if you buy them together* ;)
QuoteThat can fall under the heading of biological reductionism.
And? Both my answer and (I'm guessing) your belief in the Oedipal complex are both rationalisations based on our internal models of humanity each with a lack of definitive evidence. Can I ask what exactly you are looking for in this thread? I don't want this to seem like a personal attack, but it seems to me that this thread is not (for you) a learning experience, but rather an extended and impressive exercise in confirmation bias.
Also, I only skimmed these next articles, but they seemed pretty negative towards projective testing, so I imagine you can find something of interest in them:
http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/895917/download/56-3-2000-5%20Rorschahiana4.pdf (http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/895917/download/56-3-2000-5%20Rorschahiana4.pdf)
http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/896289/display/145-1rorschachiana.pdf (http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/896289/display/145-1rorschachiana.pdf)
http://www.wfu.edu/psychology/faculty/pubs/wood/multiple%20methods%20in%20personality%20psychology%20(Roberts,Harms,Smith,Wood,Webb,%202006).pdf (http://www.wfu.edu/psychology/faculty/pubs/wood/multiple%20methods%20in%20personality%20psychology%20(Roberts,Harms,Smith,Wood,Webb,%202006).pdf)
Also,
QuoteFreud seems fine so far
If you buy into his theory fair enough I suppose, but as a human being he is an absolutely intolerable, egotistical piece of shit. More on that on request.
x
edd
Quote from: Requia ☣ on November 04, 2010, 12:31:54 PM
The Ball and Bat problem goes as follows "A bat and a ball together cost $1.10, the bat costs one dollar more than the ball."
Which seems very easy but people get it wrong ~87% of the time in nearly all tests run on it (MIT students are the only group ever to do better that I've heard of).
It's a bias, rather than being bad at math, because people will usually get it right if the ball and bat cost 37 cents and the bat is 23 cents more than the ball.
Quote
Because it's a symbolical expression of a desire; there is also cases of devaluation with drawing a sibling with defects or ugly features.
Yes, exactly, as ive said, it's a tool, an aide for diagnosis, but its not 100% reliable, it must be taken in the context of other data. Also, if the rapport isn't done appropriately, the results can be completely off, also if the person is under stress or if its forced to do it.
Or these cultures of a history of looking down on women who are sexually active, or its based on triggering incest avoidence instincts etc. No hypothesis for this is worth a damn till you can run an experiment on it.
Quote
Yes, I know what you speak of about Family Drawing, there isn't a database; but I ask you, which other interpretations can you draw from such an important omission in the drawing? In this specific case I made up its what I would consider a very straight forward meaning, but its not always that easy or obvious.
I can't draw *any* conclusions from that, I have no data, for all I know girls who really like the color green won't draw their brothers (there are stranger correlations out there). For a Freudian bonus, it only applies to girls who really like the color green, but are ashamed of it, so won't admit they like the color green.
Yes, i understand your point. But thats why i have been mentioning repeatedly that Family Drawing its not a conclusive test, its an
aide:
The method is to tell the subject along the lines of "Could you please draw
a family in this piece of paper?" which gives way to them usually drawing their own family by default without feeling the pressure to do so. Even if they draw stereotypes derived from any source, it all is useful. The subject is observed to see what reactions or behaviour it has during the drawing of each element, also if it erases, or traces very hard. Then the subject is questioned about who they are, who does it feel identified to, who do they like the most, who do they like the least and other questions. This usually is done parallel to a family history questionnaire, filled out by the parents with libidinal/cognitive/motor skills questionnaire.
Then after all this information is obtained, one proceeds to interpret the drawing and
hypothesize about what is going on with said person, and based on these one has more guidance.
Take another example, said girl does draw her brother, but without arms; now that is a much more ambiguous symbolism: could it mean his brother has a deformity? accident? what do the arms typically symbolize in humans? is she associating him to a media figure without arms?, etc.
Quote from: Roaring Biscuit! on November 04, 2010, 02:45:10 PM
ball is $1, bat is $2, its a special offer if you buy them together* ;)
QuoteThat can fall under the heading of biological reductionism.
And? Both my answer and (I'm guessing) your belief in the Oedipal complex are both rationalisations based on our internal models of humanity each with a lack of definitive evidence. Can I ask what exactly you are looking for in this thread? I don't want this to seem like a personal attack, but it seems to me that this thread is not (for you) a learning experience, but rather an extended and impressive exercise in confirmation bias.
Also, I only skimmed these next articles, but they seemed pretty negative towards projective testing, so I imagine you can find something of interest in them:
http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/895917/download/56-3-2000-5%20Rorschahiana4.pdf (http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/895917/download/56-3-2000-5%20Rorschahiana4.pdf)
http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/896289/display/145-1rorschachiana.pdf (http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/896289/display/145-1rorschachiana.pdf)
http://www.wfu.edu/psychology/faculty/pubs/wood/multiple%20methods%20in%20personality%20psychology%20(Roberts,Harms,Smith,Wood,Webb,%202006).pdf (http://www.wfu.edu/psychology/faculty/pubs/wood/multiple%20methods%20in%20personality%20psychology%20(Roberts,Harms,Smith,Wood,Webb,%202006).pdf)
Also,
QuoteFreud seems fine so far
If you buy into his theory fair enough I suppose, but as a human being he is an absolutely intolerable, egotistical piece of shit. More on that on request.
x
edd
ITT im doing several things: observing the manifestation of mainstream generalizations-criticisms to psycho-analysis; then im also attempting to address the more serious criticisms based on facts rather than notions; im creating a booklist of critics.
I will read these PDFs and get back to you.
If you don't mind sharing, id like to hear. I only know that he had been a cocaine junkie for a while and that he might had caused the death of a couple of people by medical malpractice in regards to the same drug.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on November 04, 2010, 11:21:59 PM
Yes, i understand your point. But thats why i have been mentioning repeatedly that Family Drawing its not a conclusive test, its an aide:
How do you know that its and aid and not a hindrance? It is entirely possible that not one single valid conclusion has been drawn from the test in the lest 50 years. You have no way of knowing.
Quote from: Roaring Biscuit! on November 04, 2010, 02:45:10 PM
22. Using Multiple Methods in Personality Psychology
http://www.wfu.edu/psychology/faculty/pubs/wood/multiple%20methods%20in%20personality%20psychology%20(Roberts,Harms,Smith,Wood,Webb,%202006).pdf[/url]
It was indeed a light skimming RB, for this one article doesnt speak against proyective tests, but rather for the complimentary limited scope of utility of different kinds of tests, and that i can agree with. (Disregarding a lot of the theory they speak of in the article, i did go into detail, but the stupid post got lost in limbo)
Ill get back to you on the ones regarding Rorschach.
Quote from: Roaring Biscuit! on November 04, 2010, 02:45:10 PM
"Projective Test use among school psychologists: A survey and critique"
http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/896289/display/145-1rorschachiana.pdf (http://moemesto.ru/rorschach_club/file/896289/display/145-1rorschachiana.pdf)
Perception of utility? That is only fishing for opinions of the users of said tests, which says nothing of its real utility. Fuck that.
Althought, it is frightening to know what they are used for:
Quoteto make important educational decisions, such as eligibility determination and intervention planning.
. But i would like to know which specific "important educational decisions" to know for myself if they actually are "important".
I reiterate: projective testings are good as an aide, and to "generate hypothesis", but not as a conclusive, one-shot fix all for diagnostics.
BTW, in the manner in which these school practitioners used the tests, i would consider it on the border of malpractice.