Hi everyone, as I think most of you know I’m a psychotherapist. I’m not really from the Freudian school and I don’t analyze my clients too much, although it can be useful from time to time. In my experience people benefit more from high quality attention, genuine understanding and being challenged gently. If childhood comes up we excavate it and definitely see links between how we were treated in childhood and how we talk to ourselves and and interact with others - and this can often be illuminating - but it doesn’t usually cure the problem in itself. For example, if you had a really critical parent you might be very self-critical, or you might be very sensitive to criticism, or you might be very critical of others - people react in different ways to similar environments according to how assess their best hope for survival is. But seeing where the problem comes from - even though it may give you an “Ahhh!” moment - will not usually dissolve the pattern of thinking or behaviour. It’s just a start. So that’s why I don’t go usually poking around in people’s childhoods unless it’s called for (which it is sometimes) or if they bring it up because they themselves want to talk about it and resolve unresolved feelings from childhood. It usually works and people do get a sense of peace an resolution from airing out past experiences that still bother them. I’m just saying it’s not the only approach to take.
I would say by today’s standards Freud should not be considered a good therapist but I would defend his contributions as a psychologist. He had many ideas, some were wacky, many were wrong. But, as JP kindly pointed out, so much of what he got right is now simply taked for granted now. It’s easy to go through Adam Smith and find wrong ideas on economics. But Adam Smith did not have the benefit of Adam Smith to improve upon. And so it goes for Freud.
My friend David Ramsay Steele (author of From Marx to Mises and Orwell, You’re Orwell as well as many collections of essays) send out a video he described as Freud Bashing. I enjoyed the video and agreed with a lot of David's objections, but I
thought we ought not to throw the freudian baby out with the bathwater, so I responded. I thought I’d work up my private correspondence into an essay for this blog because ya know - why waste good typing.
At the risk of differing with my betters:
First objection. David denies the existence of unconscious motivations. Really I don’t know how you can walk this planet or have an relations at all and deny unconscious motivations.
You are all aware of people whom you know exactly what they are doing and
what motivates them, but it seems to elude them somehow. Sometimes the whole family knows they always do this. They ask a bunch of leading questions and it sounds like they’re looking for a fight, and they won’t stop until they get one - then they plead innocence and claim not to know what you’re talking about when you call them on it. (Uh… just an example, from someone I know’s family, not mine.) Here’s a good one, listen to C. S. Lewis, The Trouble With X … Amazing essay. The reason they can’t see it? Well perhaps they’re in denial. (Another Freudian concept.)Interpreting others motives can, of course be mistaken, or even misused by authorities. Remember when they sectioned people in the Soviet Union because if they weren’t communists they must be insane? Watch out conspiracy theorists this idea may be coming back… Maybe you are just making it up in our head. Maybe you’re “projecting” your own personal material onto the other person. A Freudian concept. Maybe you experienced something in the past that their behaviour reminds you of and you are experiencing “transferance”, the Freudian concept of bringing past material into the present by redirecting your feelings about one person onto someone else. Or maybe you’re in “denial” of provoking them. Maybe this leads you to repress your anger until you blow up. All of these Freudian concepts are extremely useful for understanding our behaviour as well as that of others, and examples of them abound in and out of therapy, and especially in the family system where our defenses are often up.
To tie this into my own practice, if I think offering someone an interpretation would be useful I never tell them what motivates them. Instead I offer it as a question, “Could it be that… xyz” and I trust them to make use of that. Sometimes they consider it and it feels right, other times they come right back “No, it’s not that, it’s actually this…” so even if you get it “wrong” it’s still helpful because it helps them locate what actually does motivate them - as long as you aren’t aggressive and making them defensive. You need to be genuinely curious and trying to help. Only occasionally I offer an interpretation and the client rejects it at first but then goes away and thinks about it and realizes it’s true or partially true. The point is the client is the authority on themselves, not me. It’s for them to decide. That makes all the difference over the Freudian approach where the therapist is the authority - the “doctor” there to “diagnose” the client.
Ok this rewrite got longer than I thought, so I’m going to make it into a two part essay.
So far I haven’t discussed any ideas I actually think are wacky but quite reasonable. Next essay I am definitely going for the weird stuff.
If you’re interested in experiencing counselling with me (I use the terms interchangably) then check book in on my calendar here: Freedom Warrior Program
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