Answer to Question #233098 in Psychology for Bola1

Question

discuss why Sigmund Freud’s theories were considered to be so controversial.

Answer 1

Freud is intellectually difficult and emotionally challenging, never a good combination. Most are either unfamiliar with or unable to understand his work, and of those who are intellectually equipped, some have always rejected it for emotional reasons: Freud threatens to reveal parts of the mind that we evolved to repress.

It didn’t help that psychoanalysis became a cult of sorts, dividing into schools and with practitioners either adopting an idolatrous and uncritical attitude towards Freud’s work or attempting to apply it to areas to which it didn’t apply.

It helped even less that insurance companies don’t want to pay for expensive, time-consuming depth psychology, and so much prefer superficial approaches like CBT that don’t dig very deeply but can be efficacious when psychological issues are not too complex or deep.

Finally, the cultural rebellion of the late 60’s led to a reflexive iconoclasm that attacked pretty much anyone who had ever accomplished anything, and our society still hasn’t fully rid itself of that particular idiocy.

All of this led to slippage of Freud’s reputation among a public that had been conditioned to regard him as a god, and was now told that the god had been deposed for reasons that can only be described as intellectually puerile.

Modern neurobiological research has in fact supported and extended many of Freud’s essential findings. When for example Freud spoke of the libido and the pleasure principle, he was speaking of what we now know of as the limbic system and the dopamine reward system. So as is always the case with science, we are building on, correcting, and expanding Freud’s work, taking advantage of the new technologies that have become available since then, using brain scans and biochemistry to elucidate the systems he posited.

In fact, as a clinical psychologist once put it to me once, something like 60% of modern clinical psychology is still Freud. Consider that he literally invented talk therapy and the notion of the unconscious mind. That before Freud, we didn’t know that dreams had meaning. His contributions are literally Newtonian in their importance. And for that reason, Freud’s reputation remains secure among those who really matter — namely, those who are able to understand and appreciate his work.