I was just wondering if Freud's Psychoanalysis is of any benefit to present day psychology? What do you guys think??? THanks for the help!

-- Miranda (miranda_mand@hotmail.com), March 22, 2003

Answers

There continue to be large groups of psychoanalysts, particularly in the New York and Boston areas, and in most major cities as well. My understanding, however, is that fairly few of these people practice "orthodox" psychoanalysis -- they are partisans of one or another of the various forms of "neo-psychoanalysis" that have been developed over the past century (e.g., Klein, Horney, Lacan). There are academic societies dedicated to psychoanalsysis, including a divsion of the American Psychological Association. Having said that, however, I think that psychoanalysis is regarded by most psychologists as being mainly of historical insterest (though, of course, there is a welter of (mostly unacknowledged) influences of psychoanalysis on modern psychology, not the least of which is the general acknowledgement of unconscious mental processes).

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), March 22, 2003.

If you're interested in the impact of Freud in a general way, a quick overview is provided in Gardner Murphy, The Current Impact of Freud upon Psychology, American Psychologist, 1956, pp. 663-671. Murphy provides an excellent analysis of ways that Freudian theory has been absorbed in psychology, despite the fact that there are few orthodox Freudians remaining.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), March 24, 2003.

Hi Miranda, well some might say that present day psychology which I will make a gross generalization and call cognitive behavioral therapy, is pretty much based on Freud's psycholanalysis. But a lot of people will deny this, bitterly deny it. But to get the bigger picture, you have to know about a guy by the name of Perrie Janet and his psychology. Freud and Janet kind of began at the same place, and although they diverged it is worth noting the parallels in their work. Then there were many contributions made to Freud's method. Then you have to look at Beck's carrer in the development of his cognitive behavioral approach and his psychoanalytic base which you will find in a dissertation by R. Rosner. This work was done a couple years back at York University, and it is a biography of Beck, and you will want to read it to understand what I'm talking about. Objectively, if you looked at a theraputic session today or back then, you will see a couple of people talking.

Hope this helps, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), March 26, 2003.