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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Sometimes the best way to get the right answer is to post the wrong one and let everyone vigorously and thoroughly explain the correct answer.
Freud is to psychology what Henry Ford is to the automobile. Had groundbreaking theories, paved the way for the people after him, and his ideas were the beginning of a new field, really.
Without Freud we couldn’t have Jung, who agreed with some of Freud’s work but not all of it so he started his own school of thought. We have the first wave of psychology which was Freud and Jung, the second wave people were more emotion focused, and the third wave people are more behavioral focused. But none of it would have been possible without Freud.
As someone said already, Freud has tons of ideas (most, if not all, or which he retracted before he died), but if it wasn’t for his crazy ideas no one would have tried to do it better, this giving birth to better understanding of mental health that we have today.
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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.
Once upon a time there was no way to help people who were mentally sick, nor were they seen as mentally ill, they were just viewed as crazy weirdos. Then Freud came along and said I have a way of helping people with their mental difficulties, of which worked very well. The majority of his clients that he treated were labelled as “hysterical women” which would be considered to be by todays terms as clients with borderline personality disorder. He would help them resolve their psychological turmoil through talk therapy, a brand new style of treatment which had not been employed before. This treatment style is employed by all therapists, however it has evolved and adapted over the years. A lot of modern day psychologists veered strongly to empirical/scientific study… so strongly that they could only believe something is useful if statistical ananlysis said so. This leads many psychologists to become narrow sighted and prescriptive, they would not “see” their clients as people, only a problem that required a formulatic response, and they would only use robotic formulas and prescriptive treatments (REBT, CBT, Behaviourist treatments) as a means of “curing” their client. They built up resentment towards Freud, psychoanalysts, and also humanist/psychodynamic treatments (Gestalt, Person centred therapy), because the psychodynamic treatments aren’t so easy to scientifically observe or understand, and I believe because their treatments would not work on clients with severe mental illness. However, there is a drastic shift away from these prescriptive treatments, and back towards psychodyanic/humanist talk-therapies because science has advanced and is now actually capable of showing evidence (due to neuro imaging) that strongly support the old ways of treatment. I mean, every mainstream psychologist is now in support of therapeutic treatments such as mindfulness meditation, breathing techniques, and accept psychoanalytic concepts such as the unconscious, defence mechanisms, and transference, or recently found neurological aspects such as mirror neurons that facilitate empathy, and other aspects such as the embodiment of experience as a means of connecting to others etc.
Also, not all psychologists hate Freud, the Uni’s have just shifted so much of their focus away from psychodynamic treatments, that most psychologists don’t even understand nor read his works. If you listen to or read any of his stuff, you will begin to understand the sort of genius that he is. Many young psychologists early on in their career will dimean his work, but you will find a large majority of them gradually veer towards psychodynamic/humanist therapies because their prescriptive styles will not work for clients suffering severe mental illnesses.
For reference I have a B.Pscyh & M. Counselling & Psychotherapy
Edit: It is important to note that his theories evolved and developed over time, and although his concepts were extraordinary and out there, the way in which he got to the conclusion of his hypothesis’ was through intensively meticulous, and conservative scientific observation.
Oh and a huge reason he is unpopular is because it’s super trendy, particularly by feminists, simps, and hipsters to call him a coke head or a misogynist. Because apparently doing drugs, or being a male helping women is misogynist. But hey, he only revolutionised and formalised the way we view ourselves, the way we help one another overcome mental difficulty, and the fact that he spent his life mainly assisting women overcome the turmoil of their time…
Because we all hate our fathers and wish to destroy/replace them (with our own psychological theories)
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