Freud is a fraud

[Tulloni]

Sorry no offence intended, some of them are okay but others just think really big of themselves and end up falling down. Like poor old Freud!

[MisterTinkles]

Dont care........I will always pronounce it FRAUD!!!

[Jake]

He made some giant breakthroughs in the ways of psychology, which have allowed others to come up with more substantial evidence. His ideas were just too archaic, so they have no place in the modern world. He also gave a lot of people opportunities to disprove him, which may have been even more useful.

Totally agree with this. First of all nobody said that psychology was an exact science. Yes Freud may have been very controversial in its theories... but even today we have little munchkins aged 18 years old from Arkansas or wherever he moved from who comes along telling his own theories that also seems as crackpot has Freudian theories yet that little dude has many many many references he can go to before spewing some idiosyncratic theories and discredit people who have made milestones in the science.

To this little dude... unless you are in pure science, math, physic, biology and all the likes... sciences such as Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy are not and will never be exact science, why because the society you had a century ago aren't certainly not the same as of today. Just go back 50 years ago and although cellular phone did exist it wasn't yet ready for the public.

Sigmund Freud wasn't the only notable psychologist:

Alfred Adler - one of Freud's pupil who departed from Freudian theories and developed his own perspective

Mary Ainsworth - best known for research on attachment theory and development of strange situation assessment (more used into child development studies)

Gordon Allport - I suggest Ark to go read about this guy and read some of its theories, he is best known as the founding father of personality psychology

Solomon Asch - is a sociologist/psychologist and one of his works regard the conformity experiments; this is when people say that something is correct when it's obvious that it is not due to social pressure from peers

And there's few sociologists that you may want to read about... the eldest the father of them all which is considered the founder of modern sociology is Emile Durkheim, honestly I am a durkhemian sociologist... Emile wasn't just studying social actions he was looking for solutions. The work he did on Division of Labor in Society (1893), The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) and followed by Suicide (1897) are still used today as a syllabus for social studies of suicide (yes it was different in its time... but even 100 years later they are still slightly accurate. They are lengthy, boring for some, but they give you so much insights on how to analyze society as a whole... differentiates the social group from the individual.

So Ark leave the cliche and pick a real subject and drivel on it. Freud may not be a reference to you but without HIM there's a lot of things you wouldn't know about your own sexuality. That also goes for all those that said he was a dirty old man... yeah well who isn't here?

[Tim18]

While I do think Freud did just make up some of his more crazier Ideas.I do beileve that the rest of his Ideas where useful for a time. till, they were disproven by the people who came after him.

[Rawr]

Personally, I'm A-freud of his theories. I've heard of some weird concepts... e.g. Giraffe Penis

[Dreamer]

He was also a total FREAK!
(and not in a good way)

I read somewhere that he had some dark and demented, fucked up sexual kinks.

Like he was totally into genital mutilation, and "modification".

That kind of shit got his rocks off!

WTF!

Total QUACK!

[Jake]

Well let's take time to learn a little more about Freud... because while you guys are vehemently telling all kind of stories about him... it's doesn't change the fact that in modern psychology we are still studying the Freudian method... just forget a bit about his twisted theories... I so agree with you that some of them are twisted even for his era. As a student in behavioral psychology I can tell you that our teacher was depicting Freudian theory the very same that you all just did it here... but for the non-psychologist just one little parenthesis - the concept and method of psychoanalysis was indeed developed by Doctor Freud and that is the very same method that we still use in psychology class. Although we study Freudian Theory, what we actually focus on is the method... so you can discredit the man for his weird theories, but not for the method that he developed.

Now here's one of the statement made by Freud that may cause some waves:

According to Freud, all psychic energy is generated by the libido. As per Freud our mental states were influenced by two competing forces: cathexis and anticathexis. Cathexis was described as an investment of mental energy in a person, an idea or an object. If you are hungry, for example, you might create a mental image of a delicious meal that you have been craving.
Anticathexis involves the ego blocking the socially unacceptable needs of the individual. Repressing urges and desires is one common form of anticathexis, but it involves a significant investment of energy. Remember, according to Freud's theory, there is only so much libidinal energy available. When a lot of this energy is being devoted to suppressing urges via anticathexis, there is less energy available for other processes.

I know it's a short description but I'm not going to copy all of my Freudian books in here now would I?

Now Freud also believed that much of human behavior was motivated by two driving instincts: the life instincts and the death instincts. The life instincts are those that relate to a basic need for survival, reproduction and pleasure. They include such things as the need for food, shelter, love and sex. He also suggested that all humans have an unconscious wish for death, which he referred to as the death instincts. Self-destructive behavior, he believed, was one expression of the death drive. However, he believed that these death instincts were largely tempered by the life instincts (thus always going back to libido.)

In Freudian theory, the mind is structured into two main parts: the conscious and unconscious mind. The conscious mind includes all the things we are aware of or can easily bring into awareness. The unconscious mind, on the other hand, includes all of the things outside of our awareness – all of the wishes, desires, hopes, urges and memories that lie outside of awareness yet continue to influence behavior. Freud compared the mind to an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg that is actually visible above the water represents just a tiny portion of the mind, while the huge expanse of ice hidden underneath the water represents the much larger unconscious.

Freudian theory suggests that as children develop, they progress through a series of psycho-sexual stages. At each stage, the libido's pleasure-seeking energy is focused on a different part of the body. The successful completion of each stage lead's to a healthy personality as an adult. If, however, a conflict remains unresolved at any particular stage, the individual might remain fixated or stuck at that particular point of development. A fixation can involve an over dependence or obsession with something related to that phase of development. For example, a person with an "oral fixation" is believed to be stuck at the oral stage of development. Signs of an oral fixation might include an excessive reliance on oral behaviors such as smoking, biting fingernails or eating.

Ever heard of the term "defense mechanism"? you may even use it yourself right? Well the term come from a Freudian theory. When someone seems unwilling to face a painful truth, you might accuse them of being "in denial." When a person tries to look for a logical explanation for unacceptable behavior, you might suggest that they are "rationalizing." These things represent different types of defense mechanisms, or tactics that the ego uses to protect itself from anxiety. Some of the best-known mechanisms of defense include denial, repression and regression, but there are many more.

While Freud's theories have been widely criticized, it is important to remember that his work made important contributions to psychology. His work sparked a major change in how we view mental illness by suggesting that not all psychological problems have physiological causes (It's a gay forum... you may be very well aware of this statement is very true, coming from the crazy sex maniac that all of you are discrediting now). His belief that mental problems could be resolved by actually talking about them helped revolutionize psychotherapy.

In order to understand where psychology is at today, it is essential to take a look back at where we've been and how we got here. Freud's work provides an insight into an important movement in psychology that helped transform how we think about mental health and how we approach psychological disorders.

[SilverFrost]

After Jake's more than good replies it's hard to add or say anything, but here is my opinion, based on mostly that what I have learnt from basics of psychology:

Freud was one of the pioneers in psychology. No matter what kind of man or what kind of life he lived,there is no doubt in that psychology wouldn't be the way it is now without him. If this thread is about psychology then I think it would be better to focus on his work and forget the personal life.

[gilhooly]

Research into Freud's life showed that many of his patients were invented by him. Freud was having a sexual affair with his wife's sister. To account for all the time he was missing, he psychoanalyzed non-existent people. His mythical women patients all suffered from penis envy. His mythical male patients all wanted to have sex with their mothers. He wrote up patient logs on train trips to cover up for his affair.

He was not the first man to have an affair. It was rather nasty on his part to create patients who backed up his weird personal beliefs. He has the right to be incoherent. I just dislike the fact that he was considered correct for a long time.