pop psychology question

[MisterTinkles]

Freud was a FRAUD.

Apparently he put HIS emotional baggage, handicaps, phobias, and mother fixations on everybody else, and called it "psychology", when in fact HE should have been called psychotic.

Just because some guy has a fancy accent and uses big words, doesn't mean he knows what the fuck he's talking about.

[SolemnBoy]

I find it hard to accept homosexuality as a pure result of the environment a child was brought up in. There are places on earth where no such "encouragement" or even neutrality would occur, it doesn't stop people from turning out gay.

Freud contributed to the subject of psychology in many ways but a lot of his theories have been highly controversial and questioned. The problem with his claims lies in the fact that most of them cannot be proven nor disproven nor even properly evaluated in some few cases.

[ardus]

I had a pretty normal family, maybe a bit strict on discipline, but normal parental roles. I have 3 brothers and 3 sisters, all straight.

This theory of Frued's seems to have very little behind it

Richard

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Science also used to propose that the sun revolved around the sun and the earth was flat.

Theories tend to come then get supplanted by new ones.

[ManicReptile21]

Welp. I was always daddies little boy and my mother wasn't too bad. I was always with my dad. He showed me how to work with my hands and get down and dirty whereas my mother just stood in the background cooking and cleaning. typical mother stuff. and i knew i was gay before the divorce. so the marriage went south AFTER I had already figured everything out. I contest this theory. If I am an exception than the theory is destroyed.

[MisterTinkles]

Science also used to propose that the sun revolved around the sun and the earth was flat.

Theories tend to come then get supplanted by new ones.

Hmmmm.........

I was always told "So you think the sun revolves around YOU".

So I always thought it did.

Am I wrong?

[OrphanPip]

I wouldn't be so hard on Freud, he was one of the first people to advocate that homosexuality was not correctable and that it shouldn't have to be. Also, I'm not sure I recall ever hearing him make such arguments about the origin of homosexuality, Freud believed in universal bisexuality and that all sexual proclivities in adulthood were shaped by childhood experience. Saying Freud was a fraud also is a mistake, Freud was important for bringing to the fore a number of important issues and questions about human behaviour that we all take for granted as obvious (have you ever considered someone might have unconscious motivations?). Of course, he also had a number of ridiculous ideas but they were not unreasonable for his time. Freud is obsolete, but his influence should be respected.

Also, I don't think this idea has anything to do with Freud, it came from all the clinical psychologists in the 50s and 60s who tried to find connections between the patients they kept seeing. Many of the gay men who were in psychiatric care had abusive childhoods and often were the victims of sexual abuse, this lead to skewed data because in general the people who end up in psychiatric care are more likely to have experienced these things than the general population. There were also issues of confirmation bias because gay patients were encouraged to admit instances of abuse that other patients might not have been.

[Slidezone303]

@ OrphanPip: Over the years I have favored the theories of Freud's contemporary, Carl Jung. You may be interested in reading this book by Jungian psychologist Robert H. Hopcke : Jung, Jungians and Homosexuality (Shambala, 1989). He includes an interesting discussion of The Wizard Of Oz and why it has become a popular myth in the gay community.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

But a quick edit will fix that.

Go ahead, edit it.

[kidchameleon]

Have to say, I personally lend some credence to the claims in that department. While I hardly think it's flawless logic, I do think there is a high possibility that the sexuality of at least some people is influenced by their upbringing. And in turn, I think having an overbearing mother/absent father (as was very much my own situation, with the addition of a douchebag step-dad, and step-mother who made more effort to raise me than my dad did) could contribute to the development of homosexual tendencies.

But, I don't think it'd turn anyone gay or anything. I just think that in certain areas, women are far more acceptant of homosexuality than men are, and I personally think that a mother is far more likely to pass on acceptance to her child than a father would be (less so in this day and age, but again it would also depend on their upbringing. My step-father for instance might as well have been raised on a farm in the 1960's considering how his views developed).

And if that acceptance is passed onto a child, I think it leaves them more open to exploring their sexuality, and not feeling ashamed by it. Thereby, making the realization far earlier than they would have naturally, or possibly just making them more open to the idea of same-sex relations as a possibility than they would have been otherwise. Obviously, some people are just wired a certain way, and no amount of nurturing can change their nature - but I do think Freud was at least onto something, if that was one of his concepts...

...his ideas about penis envy in women were a tad far-fetched though