As the title says, is this structure still valid in modern psychology?
Is modern psychology valid in anything?
Was the concept -ever- valid in any way to reality?
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Everything that Freud came up with has been outdated by modern psychology, much in the way that everything Newton came up with has been outdated by modern physics. (I am comparing to laws of gravitation because these are laws that we feel we understand pretty well.)
That said, it isn't any more invalid than Newton's Law of Gravitation is invalid. Sure, General Relativity is a better model for understanding the nature of the relationship among space, time, matter, and geometry, but Newton's model is still pretty useful.
Similarly, Freud's model for the human mind is not as good as modern models, but it is still very useful for some insight into what makes us tick. Moreover, it is important to understand for anyone who wants to study modern psychology, for the historical perspective, in exactly the same way that physics students definitely need to learn Newton's Law of Gravitation before studying General Relativity.
Freudian psychology and modern psychology are easy to criticize for being "wrong" and completely unrelated to reality, but I want to point out that Newton's Law of Gravitation and Einstein's General Relativity are also both wrong in the exact same sense. In fact, the whole point of modern physics is to try to come up with a model that is even closer to reality than either Newton or Einstein.
Lastly, it is worth noting that the human brain is one of the most complex systems—if not most complex system—known to man. It is pretty amazing that we have any working models of our minds at all. There are billions of connections in the human mind. Both Newton's Law of Gravity and General Relativity both break down (in the sense that we cannot use them for predictions except in a very limited set of cases) when there is more than one connection. (c.f. Three-Body Problem)
OK, I get it.
Now the real question: We know what Monsters from the Id would look like, but what about Monsters from the Superego?
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OK, I get it.
Now the real question: We know what Monsters from the Id would look like, but what about Monsters from the Superego?
Monsters of the superego would look exactly like you supervisor at work.
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Freud considered himself a natural scientist. He was a pretty smart cookie, but it is important to realize that Popper's requirement for falsification came as a reaction to the ideas of then current psychology. In essence, Freud sat figuring things out and trying to set up a pattern. Sadly, when actually examined, he had very little to back his statements up, and this goes to the most basic of levels. Freud is NOT like Newton's gravitation. He is more like Newton's alchemy, or more properly, like the texts of some odd cult written by smart people. Said cult indeed exists regarding his texts today in psychoanalysis and psychodynamics. Two things to keep in mind, though:
It is not his fault. Had he done his work today, it would have been far more stringent.
There is nothing wrong with his observations. It is just his interpretations that are useless.
Freida a tuff is interesting, but not useful overall. It collapses under its own weight.
Is modern psychology valid in anything?
yes.
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Thanks autocorrect.
Everything that Freud came up with has been outdated by modern psychology, much in the way that everything Newton came up with has been outdated by modern physics.
Absolutely not.
Newtons laws of motion are reality based. They are true but incomplete. More specifically they're based in the reality that you'll find yourself operating in for your entire life. You have to do something really weird before they don't apply.
Newton: Reality----> accurate, provable description that later got an asterix.
Freud Reality---> entirely subjective evaluation that later got tossed in the rubbish whole hog.
in exactly the same way that physics students definitely need to learn Newton's Law of Gravitation before studying General Relativity.
You can put people on the moon with newton and a slide rule. Freud isn't nearly that accurate. Its not wrong, its just not perfect.
Lastly, it is worth noting that the human brain is one of the most complex systems—if not most complex system—known to man. It is pretty amazing that we have any working models of our minds at all.
If the problem is so complex that you don't know, the honest answer is to say "I don't know", not make up something whole cloth to cover your ignorance.
If you want a real basis for psychology, start with darwin.
Yeah, forget Freud's invented untestable explanations for human behavior and go with evolutionary psychology.
As opposed to the testable explanations of other forms of psychology?
That's the basic problem for trying to treat it as a science. You're trying to get at someone's thoughts and at current technological levels they're pretty unknowable.
You are aware that not only has that led down some really nasty blind alleys
If you're looking for the true nature of humanity and you find yourself in a nasty blind alley you have quite likely arrived at the right address.
It's a fact that we evolved, and that includes our behaviors. No matter how complex our brains are they are the result of that evolution and thus have been formed with survival and reproduction of our genes as their primary motive and function. We did not drop 3 billion years of evolution out of our species the second the light came on and we achieved consciousness.
It is a mistake to say that what is creates any sort of ought obligation on the part of our brains to do anything, but starting with the right idea of what our brains are is incredibly important to understanding why they do the things they do.
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Id, ego and superego? I always thought the structure of Freudian psychology was, "Every urge every human being ever has is always, always the result of sexual repression, unless I'm smoking a cigar." ;P
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Ouch. Rough thread.
Id, ego, and superego may have not be testable concepts, and are therefore not scientific, but that doesn't mean they are useless. Id represents basic urges, which may be in conflict with our conscious thought (ego) and/or societal expectations of us (superego). It is a useful model for psychotherapists helping people reconcile conflicting motivations or expectations.
Is it how the brain chemistry is actually set up? Not really. Would a more scientific understanding of brain chemistry be a better guide for humans weighing internal conflicts? Not really.
Now, the stuff about conversion hysteria leaves a whole lot to be desired. But models of human cognition (which are frankly all rather unscientific at this point) do have their uses.
There are other models of human cognition, but there are some practitioners who find the Freudian model still has its applications.
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And those practitioners are doing bloody useless work, at least so far as treating mental illness goes. There is absolutely no evidence that any of their stuff works. It also costs a s$~&-ton of money, leading to less resources for actual functioning methods (psychopharmacology and cognitive behavioural methods, mainly). Even worse, these people strive for and achieve decision-making positions in mental health care, leading to those already thin resources going to educating more of these people.
If you see it as a way to learn interesting stuff about yourself and such, fine. Just don't spend a nickel of tax money on the crap.
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And those practitioners are doing bloody useless work, at least so far as treating mental illness goes. There is absolutely no evidence that any of their stuff works. It also costs a s+&@-ton of money, leading to less resources for actual functioning methods (psychopharmacology and cognitive behavioural methods, mainly). Even worse, these people strive for and achieve decision-making positions in mental health care, leading to those already thin resources going to educating more of these people.
If you see it as a way to learn interesting stuff about yourself and such, fine. Just don't spend a nickel of tax money on the crap.
*sniff* I liked my job, back when I had one...
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Yep, the science of gravitation is a lot more rigorous than the science of the human brain, or at least it was.
I intentionally chose gravitation for that reason in my discussion above.
You have to start somewhere in science. The science of gravitation started earlier than Newton, of course. Galileo was applying the scientific method to the problem of gravitation much earlier.
The science of the human brain pretty much started with Freud. Even if his models were total crap (which we now know they were), they were still useful because of his desire to construct a working model of the human psyche.
I did not mean to imply that Freud's model was as accurate as Newton's model of gravitation—though I can see how my wording doesn't make my intent clear. I meant that it is as important. But in hindsight, maybe I should have compared him to some of the earlier thinkers on gravitation.
Nonetheless, just because a problem is so ridiculously hard as to seem unsolvable, doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and say, "I don't know." We currently have close to zero understanding of the nature of dark matter. And it is one of the most interesting problems in modern large-scale physics. Equally interesting, and probably more complex (though we won't know until we are able to look back) is the nature of human consciousness.
Interesting tangent: in small-scale physics, when we were trying to understand the nature of matter, before Bohr came up with his model of the atom, Lord Kelvin had a model that treated elementary particles as knotted loops. This spawned the field of Knot Theory in mathematics. And even though his model turned out to be incorrect for understanding atoms and molecules, it is leading to advances in the understanding of quantum physics today.
I would say Kraepelin and Bleuler made far more important work on the functioning of the human mind than Freud did.
Nonetheless, just because a problem is so ridiculously hard as to seem unsolvable, doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and say, "I don't know." We currently have close to zero understanding of the nature of dark matter. And it is one of the most interesting problems in modern large-scale physics. Equally interesting, and probably more complex (though we won't know until we are able to look back) is the nature of human consciousness.
If you had a bucket of dark matter that you had to deal with* "I don't know" is a much better starting point than "Well how explosive could it possibly be"
* I recall getting different answers when i looked, this stuff is supposed to be different than normal matter? Or rather our "normal" matter IS the weird stuff?
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And those practitioners are doing bloody useless work, at least so far as treating mental illness goes. There is absolutely no evidence that any of their stuff works. It also costs a s$*$-ton of money, leading to less resources for actual functioning methods (psychopharmacology and cognitive behavioural methods, mainly). Even worse, these people strive for and achieve decision-making positions in mental health care, leading to those already thin resources going to educating more of these people.
If you see it as a way to learn interesting stuff about yourself and such, fine. Just don't spend a nickel of tax money on the crap.
I didn't say anything about using it to treat mental illness. It is an obsolete model for that. I was answering the OP's question, which also never mentioned treatment of mental illness.
I simply advocated that it has valid application, specifically in understanding and hashing out internal conflicts within individuals in non mentally ill populations. And tax dollars don't usually fund that sort of thing.
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* I recall getting different answers when i looked, this stuff is supposed to be different than normal matter? Or rather our "normal" matter IS the weird stuff?
Yes, "normal" matter is the weird stuff. There is at least 5 times as much dark matter in the universe as there is baryonic ("normal") matter. We don't yet even know how to interact with dark matter (except through gravitation).
We are still working on trying to fit dark matter into the Standard Model. One of the hopes behind the Large Hadron Collider is to create dark matter to study. To some extent, the physicists there are saying, "We don't know Jack about this stuff, but how explosive could it be?" ;)
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If you're asking that question, you really wouldn't understand why "Monsters form the Superego" is a contradiction in terms.OK, I get it.
Now the real question: We know what Monsters from the Id would look like, but what about Monsters from the Superego?
Our higher standards can't have a monstrous aspect when worked as fiction or setting fodder?
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Our higher standards can't have a monstrous aspect when worked as fiction or setting fodder?If you're asking that question, you really wouldn't understand why "Monsters form the Superego" is a contradiction in terms.OK, I get it.
Now the real question: We know what Monsters from the Id would look like, but what about Monsters from the Superego?
I'd probably use the Superego as inspiration for a dark twist on genius loci, having a broad spirit of a place that forces conformity. It's been done, but tying it in to the Superego would be a nice take.
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Sigmund Freud is basically the creepy uncle of modern psychology. Everybody knows his work was important, but in retrospect it has many flaws and is a bit to concerned with sexuality. The Super-ego, Ego, Id model is largely only regarded as a historical concept today, not a practical model.
As for a "monster" of the Super-ego, I'd suggest reading Arendt's writings on totalitarianism. I imagine such an entity would be focused solely upon control.
The science of the human brain pretty much started with Freud. Even if his models were total crap (which we now know they were), they were still useful because of his desire to construct a working model of the human psyche.
The desire to create a working model does, at best, nothing without the means to do so, means which he didn't have and we are, at best, JUST starting to get our grubby little paws on.
The entire point of science is that rational, systematic inquiry does little unless it can be reined in and build off of observable phenomenon: which thoughts are not.
The science of the human brain pretty much started with Freud. Even if his models were total crap (which we now know they were), they were still useful because of his desire to construct a working model of the human psyche.The desire to create a working model does, at best, nothing without the means to do so, means which he didn't have and we are, at best, JUST starting to get our grubby little paws on.
I'll admit a preference to Penrose's Orch-OR model of consciousness, and hey, it even makes testable predictions. Jury is still massively out on it of course.
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The science of the human brain pretty much started with Freud. Even if his models were total crap (which we now know they were), they were still useful because of his desire to construct a working model of the human psyche.The desire to create a working model does, at best, nothing without the means to do so, means which he didn't have and we are, at best, JUST starting to get our grubby little paws on.
The entire point of science is that rational, systematic inquiry does little unless it can be reined in and build off of observable phenomenon: which thoughts are not.
You really don't believe that thoughts are a phenomenon that is observable?
This present discussion is evidence of that phenomenon.
You really don't believe that thoughts are a phenomenon that is observable?
This present discussion is evidence of that phenomenon.
This conversation (assuming i pass a turing text) lets you indirectly determine thoughT but not not observe thoughts.
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You probably believe in quarks and neutrinos and gravitons, etc. All are things we observe only indirectly. Same with dark matter and dark energy. Same with black holes. Same with biological evolution. Same with the Big Bang and the Inflationary Period. Thoughts are no less observable than any of those.
Since we are also speaking directly about Freud, I think we've done a pretty good job of demonstrating all three components of the human psyche—id, ego, and superego—just in our discussion here. ;)
As for Turing...a machine that passes the Turing Test may very well also have actual consciousness similar to human consciousness, complete with a full psyche. We won't know until we can study such a construct.
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We know what Monsters from the Id would look like, but what about Monsters from the Superego?
Maybe things like Inevitables that demand conformity, but even to damaging levels. Standards of beauty and those that don't/can't conform must be destroyed. Anorexia. Things that attack folks who don't conform to a certain set of mores, no matter how strict or strange. Guilt monsters. Creatures that spring from a warped collective unconscious, almost like the mind of a mob. Maybe those would almost work like a haunt, but psychic, not undead.
You probably believe in quarks and neutrinos and gravitons, etc. All are things we observe only indirectly. Same with dark matter and dark energy. Same with black holes. Same with biological evolution. Same with the Big Bang and the Inflationary Period. Thoughts are no less observable than any of those.
Those are easier to observe because they can be seen in isolation. you're never going to get a concious being with just one thought.
Since we are also speaking directly about Freud, I think we've done a pretty good job of demonstrating all three components of the human psyche—id, ego, and superego—just in our discussion here. ;)
Thats the problem. You haven't. They're only descriptive. When science has a good explanation its prescriptive, that is its describing something that objectively and independently exists in reality.
Yeah, forget Freud's invented untestable explanations for human behavior and go with evolutionary psychology.As opposed to the testable explanations of other forms of psychology?
That's the basic problem for trying to treat it as a science. You're trying to get at someone's thoughts and at current technological levels they're pretty unknowable.
You are aware that not only has that led down some really nasty blind alleysIf you're looking for the true nature of humanity and you find yourself in a nasty blind alley you have quite likely arrived at the right address.
It's a fact that we evolved, and that includes our behaviors. No matter how complex our brains are they are the result of that evolution and thus have been formed with survival and reproduction of our genes as their primary motive and function. We did not drop 3 billion years of evolution out of our species the second the light came on and we achieved consciousness.
It is a mistake to say that what is creates any sort of ought obligation on the part of our brains to do anything, but starting with the right idea of what our brains are is incredibly important to understanding why they do the things they do.
As Gould pointed out in arguing against adaptationism and evolutionary just-so stories, the brain can do a lot of things, most of which are the result of nonadaptive sequelae.
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You can put people on the moon with newton and a slide rule.I'm gonna need a bigger slide rule.
F=MA...
or a VERY tiny person.
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As Gould pointed out in arguing against adaptationism and evolutionary just-so stories, the brain can do a lot of things, most of which are the result of nonadaptive sequelae.
Calling them just so stories is not an argument. The guy thinks that gradual evolution is a just so story because we can't see it in any one specific sheet of bedrock.
Calling all human behavior culture is the untestable hypothesis, not evolutionary psychology. For that to be true, we would not only have to have had a method for losing all of our instincts as a species but then we would have, by some cosmic coincidence, culturally re acquired the behavior that evolution put into our nearest relatives. Biology carries a great deal of explanatory power, culture does not.
We know biology influences chemistry. We know chemistry influences psychology.
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As Gould pointed out in arguing against adaptationism and evolutionary just-so stories, the brain can do a lot of things, most of which are the result of nonadaptive sequelae.
Calling them just so stories is not an argument. The guy thinks that gradual evolution is a just so story because we can't see it in any one specific sheet of bedrock.
Calling all human behavior culture is the untestable hypothesis, not evolutionary psychology. For that to be true, we would not only have to have had a method for losing all of our instincts as a species but then we would have, by some cosmic coincidence, culturally re acquired the behavior that evolution put into our nearest relatives. Biology carries a great deal of explanatory power, culture does not.
We know biology influences chemistry. We know chemistry influences psychology.
Do we know the airspeed of an unladen swallow?
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Do we know the airspeed of an unladen swallow?
Yes :)