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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He invented therapy. Good. Father of psychoanalysis. Duly deserved.
Why he gets so much flak is because he completely ignored the scientific method for much of his work. Carl Popper invented the term pseudoscience to describe the lack of scientific rigor in Freud’s work.
Einstein (a contemporary) made predictions and then set out to take measurements. If the measurements did not match his predictions then he would know his work was flawed.
Freud would say a woman had penis envy and then twist any data to fit that conclusion. Abusive father? Well your penis envy is born of resentment. Loving father? Your penis envy is born of confusion and wanting to be your father.
Freud normalized some very important tools for mental health treatment but he was simply bad at his job as a researcher and scientist.
That’s why he’s treated differently than other scientific figures. Newton and Darwin and Curie did important work without having some key insights or modern methodology, but for the time and tools available they did great actual work.
Freud’s work was just fatally flawed in many ways.
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