DJ Hadoken’s Perspective:
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Theories of Human Nature
Written by DJ Hadoken
I agree with the theories of Sigmund Freud to an extent, however, I do know that it is possible that many of his theories may be wrong.
I agree that a person may possess unconscious repressed memories that may influence decisions. Though I don’t agree that these memories can be so influential. They may only influence decisions made that may hold some relevance to the past event.
It seems also that Freud believed that people were prisoners of their own subconscious thoughts. That anything we say, even the mere slip of a tongue is influenced by our subconscious. To a degree, I agree with this, however, I believe that a lot of the choices we make are purely conscious, and that we are able to (at most times) control the way we choose to act.
Freud also believed in the Id, Ego and Super-ego. I don’t agree with his beliefs of these three partitions of the brain, because I don’t think it is possible to set such simple divisions.
They are good devices for describing human nature, but to profess that the mind is divided into three parts that act on these concrete functions is an error. The thought process of every individual is different, and one cannot claim that every individual’s brain is separated into these three parts.
I do not believe that one single event in childhood can determine your entire personality for the rest of your life. I also do not agree that this single event in childhood could possibly be forgotten. If one event were to be so influential as to determine who you would be in your life, I do not believe that this event could ever be forgotten.
To bring about memories during hypnosis to try to understand why a person acts the way they do is futile. If something is forgotten, then it was probably not influential or important enough to be remembered. To bring about long-lost memories only acts to make a person’s life more complicated, as they are already seeking help, and now may become even more troubled at the sudden remembrance of these past experiences.
Freud believed that to bring repressed thoughts back into consciousness could save a person from mental suffering. I believe that bringing back these “repressed” memories only creates a scapegoat for a patient. There is no way to verify that these memories are in any way true, and that they were not made up during hypnosis. Freud himself found that many of his patients’ memories turned out to only be fantasies.
Hypothetical situation: a patient visits a psychiatrist who adheres to Freud’s beliefs, and pays a lot of money for weeks (or even months) of treatment. This patient then, after months of extensive treatment, “remembers” this horrible experience they had when they were four years old; all of a sudden, everything that has ever gone wrong in this patient’s life is blamed on the time Timmy stole a piece of candy from them at the playground.
So now, the patient is “cured” because they can blame some insignificant event that was never important enough to remember (and may not even be true to begin with) and the psychiatrist is happy because they have taken all of their patient’s money.
Then, to conclude their session, the psychiatrist will declare that the patient has been dirty deedually repressed for many years, because Freud too, believed that everything had some dirty deedual nature.
Because of the possibility of situations like the above, I find it difficult to agree with many of Freud’s beliefs.
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