Tuesday, August 9, 2022

Was Freud right about anything?

 https://www.livescience.com/why-freud-was-wrong.html

But Freud's theories are, on the whole, almost impossible to submit to the rigor of statistical analysis that legitimate science has to endure, said Crews. "That's because his ideas are hopelessly vague. How do you test for them? They're just phrases."

13 comments :

  1. A quick vort -


    https://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/36/Q2/



    although Anger is said to be a big aveirah, it is not apparently a lav from the Torah. Why so?


    My "synthesis" of this area is that what Shlomo hamelech says about anger, is referring to displaced anger. The Neviim, and Chachamim already knew about Displacement defence mechanism of Freud, but they called it anger. Moshe was not wrong to be angry - anger is a Holy emotion given by G-d, to protect us form danger and wrongdoing. It is the wrongful displacement of that anger which is the problem - and as such, Moshe tapped the rock in displacement.

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  2. Where is there any allusion to displaced anger?!

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  3. Firstly , displacement as a Defence mechanism, which is Freud's strongest area is what I am talking about. we can explore anger management later on.






    here :


    32 שְׁמוֹת






    יט וַיְהִי, כַּאֲשֶׁר קָרַב אֶל-הַמַּחֲנֶה, וַיַּרְא


    אֶת-הָעֵגֶל, וּמְחֹלֹת; וַיִּחַר-אַף מֹשֶׁה, וַיַּשְׁלֵךְ מִיָּדָו


    אֶת-הַלֻּחֹת, וַיְשַׁבֵּר אֹתָם, תַּחַת הָהָר


    As far as i am aware, and from the meforshim, eg or hachaim, Meshech chochmah, Moshe was not sinning here, neither hsi anger, nor the shattering of the Luchot. because his "anger" was not displaced. Even the luchot - he was commanded to smash them (or HaChaim brings Avot D'rabbi Nathan to prove this).


    The rock was different - his anger - towards the murmurers may have been righteous, but it was displaced to the Rock, and his hitting the rock was not commanded in this instance.



    You are saying the data , and in fact phenomena that freud either deals with or introduces, are real - but his theory/interpetation is false. However, I am at present focusing on his theory of defence mchanisms.


    Even the Rabbinic explanation that in his anger, Moshe forgot certain things - is to do with Repression. there is a lot of trauma led psychology which deals with this- and it is validated.
    How about when Sarah imenu laughs, and then denies? That is "denial".

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  4. Wow so you are claiming Frud created or discovered defense mechanisms - but he said they were a protection against castration, So you say take the idea and ignore the theoretical baggage?

    So if you explain something in Freudian terminology - that means he is true. even if his theory is garbage?!

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  5. He is not saying that the Defence mechanisms are all designed to protect against the castration complex.




    According to this summary, that complex is largely metaphorical.


    https://nosubject.com/Castration






    You are not addressing his Defence mechanisms, other than misrepresenting them and trying to attach them to another theory.



    To scientifically test a theory requires a well designed test that can produce results.

    What I have said is that anger displaced seems to be what the Torah, or at least Shlomo, and the Rabbis are critical of. How do you fight a war / milchemet mitzvah if you do not show anger? It is when you turn the sword against your friends or family that you are donig evil.

    Same with arayos - it is not a bad thing to carry out permitted sexual relations with a spouse. it is bad when that is displaced to forbidden relationships, eg someone else's spouse. even if she has been to mikveh.

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  6. You've not produced one shred of evidence that this theory is central to defence mechanisms, or even peripheral.

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  7. In any case, you are using distraction techniques to avoid the distinction between directed anger in Judaism vs displaced anger which is a defence mechanism.
    Moshe 's tapping of the rock was misplaced anger - the object of his anger was bnei yisrael, who were murmuring, but the rock was innocent and provided water of life.

    Like I said before, a rosh yeshiva attacks YU, tzahal, when in fact he was angry at his son for leaving the hareidi world.

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  8. Even this teshuva

    Rema (#11): Concerning the matter of justifying slander in order to obtain peace in the community...

    Is what Freud would later describe as sublimation.
    Freud didn't invent these mechanisms, he put a name to what already existed in the human psyche.

    The Rema is a communal level mechanism, to make peace between individuals, but the psychological mechanism is a very Freudian one.

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  9. You are simply labeling all analysis as Freudian - which of course means your analysis is also Freudian
    If everything is Freudian than nothing is uniquely Freudian
    Freud didn't discover human thought - though he gave it general labels.
    My point is the theory under lining his labels is nonsense and largely false.
    If all you are claiming is that he invented a terminology - I don't disagree
    Even the idea of defense mechanism was viewed by him as pathological- his daughter and others developed it into an a helpful method of adaptation and healthy development

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  10. Nope - your statement might be true if i saw all analysis as Freudian, which is not the case.






    "Freud didn't discover human thought" - I never claimed he did.




    "My point is the theory under lining his labels is nonsense and largely false.
    If all you are claiming is that he invented a terminology - I don't disagree
    Even the idea of defense mechanism was viewed by him as pathological-"


    The theory of defence mechanisms is not just labels, it is a psychological theory to explain behaviour in humans, that i at least am aware of. What do you think science is? If you see something under the microscope, you give it a lable, and then develop a theory on how it behaves or interacts.


    he developed a theory of defence mechanisms - which he says is not usually healthy. Now, you obviously have a twofold problem - a) you don't want to accept that anything he said was correct. b) it is most likely sacrilegious for any sort of psychological analysis of a halachic teshuva , and all the more so when it comes to a major pillar of Torah.


    However, that teshuva of the Rema - is an exception, becasue normally it would be a greta aveirah to destory a good person's name (emasculate) - which is what Rema is cautioning against. So he agrees that this behaviour is pathological, and it is allowed only in a rare circumstance. But the mechanism is a collective defence mechanism - whcih you simply cannot accept. i think it is a negative hallucination where something is front of a person, but he cannot see it.

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  11. What you are clamming is Freud's theory of defense mechanism is simply wrong. It is more relevant to that developed later by his daughter and others! Freud was not a scientist but a story teller. His theory of defense mechanism is connected to his theories of Oedipal complex and sexual development. the theoretical claims he made are generally ridiculed today but his terminology is still used
    The use of his terms with the rejection of his theories doesn't make someone a Freudian nor does the claims that someone used a psychological explanation make it Freudian
    A Freudian is anchored in Freud's unscientific theories and isn't identified solely by vocabulary
    You sound like those Russians who claim Russians invented everything

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  12. "Freud believed that psychological disorders, and particularly the experience of anxiety, occur when there is conflict or imbalance among the motivations of the id, ego, and superego. When the ego finds that the id is pressing too hard for immediate pleasure, it attempts to














    correct for this problem, often through the use of


    defence mechanisms — unconscious psychological strategies used to cope with anxiety and maintain a positive self-image.


    Freud believed that the defence mechanisms were essential for effective


    coping with everyday life, but that any of them could be overused


    (Table 12.4, “The Major Freudian Defence Mechanisms”)."


























    https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/11-2-the-origins-of-personality/
















    So it seems like your "fixation" with lumping the defence mechanisms with Odeipal theory is unwaranted.














    Also: DT: " The use of his terms with the rejection of his theories doesn't make someone a Freudian nor does the claims that someone used a psychological
    explanation make it Freudian





    It depends on what parameters there are, and if the revisionist is seeking originality whilst trying to conceal plagiarism.



    Furthermore, the pre-use of the mechanism such as the cases I have provided from Judaism, suggest there is empirical evidence for such a mechanism or phenomenon existing in human psychology. the debate would be whether the source is a conflict between the superego and the id - or another mechanism, such as cognitive dissonance, social structure etc.



    Explaining the same phenomenon with a different psychological theory may or may not be Freudian - but is derived from Freud. Part of the theory itself is that we use defence mechanisms to reduce inner conflict. More modern psychologists often use the same mechanisms, eg denial, repression - but talk of anxiety, trauma etc.



    It is like making a copycat product of Coca cola, adding an extra ingredient, and then denying it has anything to do with Coke.

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