Posted on 10/17/2009 7:06:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Anyone reading Sigmund Freud's original works might well be seduced by the beauty of his prose, the elegance of his arguments and the acuity of his intuition. But those with a grounding in science will also be shocked by the abandon with which he elaborated his theories on the basis of essentially no empirical evidence. This is one of the main reasons why Freudian-style psychoanalysis has long since fallen out of fashion: its huge expense — treatment can stretch over years — is not balanced by evidence of efficacy.
Clinical psychology at least has its roots in experimentation, but it is drifting away from science. Concerns about cost–benefit issues are growing, especially in the United States. According to a damning report published last week (T. B. Baker et al. Psychol. Sci. Public Interest 9, 67–103; 2008), an alarmingly high proportion of practitioners consider scientific evidence to be less important than their personal — that is, subjective — clinical experience.
The irony is that, during the past 20 years, science has made great strides in directions that could support clinical psychology — in neuroimaging, for example, as well as molecular and behavioural genetics, and cognitive neuroscience. Numerous psychological interventions have been proved to be both effective and relatively cheap. Yet many psychologists continue to use unproven therapies that have no clear outcome measures — including, in extreme cases, such highly suspect regimens as 'dolphin-assisted therapy'.
The situation has created tensions within the American Psychological Association (APA), the body that accredits the courses leading to qualification for a clinical psychologist to practise in the United States and Canada. The APA requires that such courses have a scientific component, but it does not require that science be as central as some members would like. In frustration, representatives of some two-dozen top research-focused graduate-training programmes grouped together in 1994 to form the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science (APCS), with a mission to promote scientific psychology.
The APCS effort has not been enough to change attitudes among all practitioners. But, in the United States, political pressure for change is building rapidly. The debates swirling around health-care reform have made it clear that key decision-makers expect medical caregivers to justify their therapies in terms of proven cost-effectiveness. If clinical psychologists cannot do this plausibly, they will be marginalized.
A quick and effective way to break this impasse would be to create a US version of the system that transformed clinical psychology (and medical practice generally) in England and Wales. There, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) evaluates therapies for evidence of efficacy, and approves the ones to be covered by the state health system (see Nature 461, 336–339; 2009). Private health insurers are influenced by NICE's decisions, and any clinical psychologist wishing to offer dolphin-assisted therapy in Britain will be hard-pushed to find patients.
For many opponents of health-care reform in the United States, however, NICE represents the epitome of big-government intrusion into individual freedom of choice; it remains to be seen whether such a body can ever be created in America. Still, as Baker et al. point out, interested US psychologists could take matters into their own hands by establishing a new accreditation system for scientifically trained psychologists in parallel with the APA system.
The APCS is well-positioned to take such a step. But whoever takes it should do so soon. Unmet mental-health needs are massive and growing: the number of Americans receiving mental-health care has almost doubled in the past 20 years. There is a moral imperative to turn the craft of psychology — in danger of falling, Freud-like, out of fashion — into a robust and valued science informed by the best available research and economic evidence.
Freud swept his intellectual peers off their feet and seduced a century–but now he looks like a con man, propounding elegant nonsense with no basis in evidence. The fact that a scientist of the stature of Freud could fall into disrepute is an important lesson in the history of science.
FAMOUS QUOTE FROM SIGMUND FREUD for your comment/agreement/rebuttal:
And a quote:
“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. [...] If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man’s evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.”
–Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism, 1939
EDIT TO ADD, I believe Evolutionist/Atheist Richard Dawkins, Oxford don, buys into this Sigmund Freud “neurosis” idea. He wrote about it in his best seller : THE GOD DELUSION.
When I took intro to psych 20+ years ago, the professor pointed out that each branch of psychology had a 12% cure rate. He also said hugging therapy had a 12% cure rate. I pointed out that this probably meant that 12% get better on their own. He was offended. I was given a B even though I had scores for an A.
At some point, Marxism will be rejected by academics, real research will be done, and enormous advances will be accomplished in just a few years. There is a Renaissance around the corner, though I may not live to see it.
Darwin’s theories certainly influenced Freud.
Until the 1920s or possibly even 1930s, Darwin’s and Freud’s theories were subject to roughly the same degree of “approval” (note the quotes).
In both cases, questions were asked whether their rather ‘big picture’ explanations could ever be tested properly ( scientifically), or whether they were even necessary for the conduct of empirical work in, respectively, biology and psychology.
However, by the 1940s, Darwin’s theory had come to be embraced by leading biologists (outside the USSR and possibly France) as providing a valid explanatory framework. Why Darwin managed to achieve that status, while Freud never did is the interesting comparative question to ask.
I don't. There are specific "mental disorders" that are supposed to be curable through "therapy". Like most psychology it is purely subjective
Cheers!
Cheers!
Freud wanted a world and theory without God, and he created theories to support it. Psychology is a false religion, with its own tenets, priests, inside knowledge, ‘cures.’
Translation: religion is to civilization as adolescence is to indivdual development. It is a necessary stage civilization goes through to get from immaturity to adulthood. Immaturity being tribal and superstitious and maturity being rationality?
I don’t agree with Freud if the sense of what he is saying is something like the above. Religion and rationalty are wrapped around one another like strands of DNA and are not either/or propositions, rather they enhance and play off of one another, each necessary for the existence of the other.
One is reminded of the sinister organization called N.I.C.E.in C.S. Lewis's science fiction trilogy - especially the third book entitled THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH.
The story is set in England of the mid 1940s ("vaguely after the war"), in the small university town of Edgestow, centered around a young university don Mark Studdock, a fellow of Bracton College at the University of Edgestow, and his wife Jane (née Tudor), who is working on her graduate degree in poetry. The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments ("N.I.C.E."), a scientific and social planning agency, furtively pursues its program of the exploitation of nature and the annihilation of humanity. The Institute is secretly inspired and directed by fallen eldila, whom they refer to as "macrobes", superior beings. Their takeover of Edgestow and its surrounding area is a case in point of the manner in which they use human pride and greed to get what they want. After the N.I.C.E. would achieve its ends, the earth would only belong to the "macrobes". Set against the N.I.C.E.'s operations is a small resistance group led by Dr. Elwin Ransom, who following his journeys to Mars and Venus, is now directed by the good eldila there, as well as those of Mercury, Saturn, and Jupiter. These eldila, previously blocked from accessing Earth, "the silent planet", are now unhindered, as that silence had first been breached by Weston and Devine when they left the earth to travel to Malacandra (Mars) in Out of the Silent Planet. Ransom's group consists of humans and animals living in unity and harmony, in stark contrast to the division and political maneuverings within the N.I.C.E...read more....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Hideous_Strength
That Lewis trilogy was so satisfying to read. Have you read Till We Have Faces? I tried to read it when I was about 19 and couldn’t get through it. A couple of decades later, I thought it was one of the best things I’d ever read.
I did read "TIL WE HAVE FACES." It is based on the classical Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_We_Have_Faces
I thought it was a wonderful story as well!
I have most of the works of C.S. Lewis in my private library. I call it my "Lewis canon." LOL
When I went as a teen to live in Brazil, a missionary there gave me Miracles by C.S. Lewis and The God Who Is There by Francis Schaeffer. After returning to the States, I read everything I could by both authors. Both were very profitable to read, but it was (and is) C.S. Lewis that was delightful to read.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.