eli5: Why is Freud concidered to be “the father of modern psychology” but at the same time, every psychologist hates freudian analysis?
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Freud is considered as that because most people equate “psychology” with “clinical psychology”. There’s not really a good case to be made for father of psychology (where William James, Wilhelm Wundt, Hermann Ebbinghaus, etc. would be good candidates). But when it comes to clinical psychology, his efforts can’t be overstated. Most everything in clinical psychology, even rivaling theories from cognitive/behavioural perspectives, all reacted to and developed from Freud. If you go to r/psychotherapy or explore clinical writings, you will find that it’s simply not true that every psychologist hates freudian analysis. In fact, psychodynamic therapy is one of the most common treatment modalities that are practiced, and it has a direct heritage from Freud.
When it comes to why Freud is “hated” this might come from a serious schism between academic psychology and practical clinical psychology, or a researcher/practitioner divide. In research one approximates scientific ideals, to alleviate bias and aim towards generalizability. In the practicing field you deal with bias, subjectivity and individualized phenomena. The practicioner will respect Freud for trying to find a language to describe the latter, and be suspicious of science as something that triest to explain it away.
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