Loved this, especially as a therapist. Our field has suffered from the sheer flattening of over-sanitization, over-scientification, over-evidence-basedification. If we want evidence, it all points at the inextricable connectedness of the human person, within and without. Psychodynamic approaches are far more in tune with this (and therefore in a sense with evidence) than CBT
I suspect you’ve studied far more psychoanalysis than I have, so forgive me if you’ve already followed this train, but I find your criticism of attachment theory surprising as it’s quite psychodynamic as far as modern theories go. It’s deeply rooted in object relations, and while slightly biologized and sanitized of some more fantastical aspects, I think it still retains a lot of the deeper wisdom of psychoanalysis.
I should've been clearer...not categorically against attachment theory...I guess I'm against the "popification" of it. How people use it to explain attachment patterns on a surface level without digging into the depths of those dynamics as Freud would have us do.
Ahhhh yes okay I’m totally with you then. People use it like a funny little personality test these days, it’s insane lol ( it’s actually an incredibly powerful framework that should spur you to deep understanding of human nature and need 🙃😂)
Never in my life would I have thought that I would read an article defending Freud… and like it! This was really well written and I enjoyed relearning about the parts of Freud I dismissed in college. As I’m getting older I’ve been more open to other forms of psychoanalytic theories and practices. I think we tend to stick with one form of therapy and praise it as the best. I’ll definitely be thinking about this in my own therapy sessions too!
Also hope you are doing well! (I’m Leah from St. John’s in Savannah Ga) my husband and I still talk about you!
Freud is certainly far from perfect, but in light of the current Behaviorist direction psychology has gone in, I think it's time to rediscover Freud's best insights.
And I think of you guys often! Hope you can visit NYC soon...or that I can make a trip back down to Savannah!
I was waiting for someone to ask that...tbh my thoughts on Jung are not very well developed. I think his openness to religiosity and sense of archetypes having an eternal, universal quality is both very useful for monotheists, but its basis on paganism also poses a challenge--a bigger one than Freud did since his views were not explicitly religious.
That's interesting..I also find people who are more conservative tend to lean towards Jung, while leftist lean more Frued. Peterson for example speaks about Jung frequently. I was wondering what that connection could be.
Start with Paglia (No Law in the Arena, Sexual Personae, her interview with Jordan Peterson) and Lasch (Culture of Narcissism, Minimal Self, True and Only Heaven)
Then move onto Freud primers (there are many...but if you're religious, I'd recommend the ones by Demspey and Vitz)
Finally, read Totem and Taboo, Interpretations of Dreams, Civilization and its discontents, Psychopathology of Everyday life, and three essays on the theory of sexuality
I read No Law in the Arena, and am still processing it. I have mixed feelings, but regardless she’s bombastic.
Some of the stuff she says is fascinating
“What I call Betty Crocker feminism — a naively optimistic Pollyannaish or Panglossian view of reality — is behind much of this. Even the most morbid of the rape ranters have a childlike faith in the perfectibility of the universe, which they see as blighted solely by nasty men. They simplistically project outward onto a mythical "patriarchy" their own inner conflicts and moral ambiguities. In Sexual Personae, I critiqued the sunny Rousseauism running through the last two hundred years of liberal thinking and offered the dark tradition of Sade, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud as more truthful about human perversity. It is more accurate to see primitive egotism and animality ever-simmering behind social controls — cruel energies contained and redirected for the greater good — than to predicate purity and innocence ravaged by corrupt society.”
Yes, absolutely! This endears me to her and Freud for simply admitting what is obvious to anyone who spends more than five minutes studying human history, there is real darkness in the human heart.
But she says a lot of things that either frustrate me or have me scratching my head.
“My position on child pornography is that no images, if drawn, painted, or sculpted, may be banned. As for the use of actual children in erotic photographs and videos, some restriction may seem reasonable, given our modern repugnance to child labor, but there is no easy answer, since government is notoriously unable to discriminate among kinds of art.”
She seems completely ignorant of the inevitable conflict between her libertarianism and paganism, or that her definition of paganism seems to really just be things she likes (I imagine Himmler’s paganism wouldn’t have counted in her mind).
She paints with a very very broad brush, which reminds me of Nietzsche. But Nietzsche (as I read him) understands he is not giving a clear picture of the world, but for the world. He is making his truth, it is an expression of his will to power and so on. There is thus an irony in Nietzsche when he talks about how the world is that I don’t detect in Paglia, but maybe I haven’t read her enough yet.
Loved this, especially as a therapist. Our field has suffered from the sheer flattening of over-sanitization, over-scientification, over-evidence-basedification. If we want evidence, it all points at the inextricable connectedness of the human person, within and without. Psychodynamic approaches are far more in tune with this (and therefore in a sense with evidence) than CBT
I suspect you’ve studied far more psychoanalysis than I have, so forgive me if you’ve already followed this train, but I find your criticism of attachment theory surprising as it’s quite psychodynamic as far as modern theories go. It’s deeply rooted in object relations, and while slightly biologized and sanitized of some more fantastical aspects, I think it still retains a lot of the deeper wisdom of psychoanalysis.
I should've been clearer...not categorically against attachment theory...I guess I'm against the "popification" of it. How people use it to explain attachment patterns on a surface level without digging into the depths of those dynamics as Freud would have us do.
Ahhhh yes okay I’m totally with you then. People use it like a funny little personality test these days, it’s insane lol ( it’s actually an incredibly powerful framework that should spur you to deep understanding of human nature and need 🙃😂)
Never in my life would I have thought that I would read an article defending Freud… and like it! This was really well written and I enjoyed relearning about the parts of Freud I dismissed in college. As I’m getting older I’ve been more open to other forms of psychoanalytic theories and practices. I think we tend to stick with one form of therapy and praise it as the best. I’ll definitely be thinking about this in my own therapy sessions too!
Also hope you are doing well! (I’m Leah from St. John’s in Savannah Ga) my husband and I still talk about you!
Freud is certainly far from perfect, but in light of the current Behaviorist direction psychology has gone in, I think it's time to rediscover Freud's best insights.
And I think of you guys often! Hope you can visit NYC soon...or that I can make a trip back down to Savannah!
Yes I agree and I’m glad I’m not the only one noticing the behaviorist direction either.
And We want to visit you! We will definitely let you know!
Great article.
What are your thoughts on Jung?
I was waiting for someone to ask that...tbh my thoughts on Jung are not very well developed. I think his openness to religiosity and sense of archetypes having an eternal, universal quality is both very useful for monotheists, but its basis on paganism also poses a challenge--a bigger one than Freud did since his views were not explicitly religious.
That's interesting..I also find people who are more conservative tend to lean towards Jung, while leftist lean more Frued. Peterson for example speaks about Jung frequently. I was wondering what that connection could be.
You've convinced me to engage with Freud, any recommendations on where to start? Either with Freud or with works about Freud?
This is the "course" I'd recommend:
Start with Paglia (No Law in the Arena, Sexual Personae, her interview with Jordan Peterson) and Lasch (Culture of Narcissism, Minimal Self, True and Only Heaven)
Then move onto Freud primers (there are many...but if you're religious, I'd recommend the ones by Demspey and Vitz)
Finally, read Totem and Taboo, Interpretations of Dreams, Civilization and its discontents, Psychopathology of Everyday life, and three essays on the theory of sexuality
I read No Law in the Arena, and am still processing it. I have mixed feelings, but regardless she’s bombastic.
Some of the stuff she says is fascinating
“What I call Betty Crocker feminism — a naively optimistic Pollyannaish or Panglossian view of reality — is behind much of this. Even the most morbid of the rape ranters have a childlike faith in the perfectibility of the universe, which they see as blighted solely by nasty men. They simplistically project outward onto a mythical "patriarchy" their own inner conflicts and moral ambiguities. In Sexual Personae, I critiqued the sunny Rousseauism running through the last two hundred years of liberal thinking and offered the dark tradition of Sade, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud as more truthful about human perversity. It is more accurate to see primitive egotism and animality ever-simmering behind social controls — cruel energies contained and redirected for the greater good — than to predicate purity and innocence ravaged by corrupt society.”
Yes, absolutely! This endears me to her and Freud for simply admitting what is obvious to anyone who spends more than five minutes studying human history, there is real darkness in the human heart.
But she says a lot of things that either frustrate me or have me scratching my head.
“My position on child pornography is that no images, if drawn, painted, or sculpted, may be banned. As for the use of actual children in erotic photographs and videos, some restriction may seem reasonable, given our modern repugnance to child labor, but there is no easy answer, since government is notoriously unable to discriminate among kinds of art.”
She seems completely ignorant of the inevitable conflict between her libertarianism and paganism, or that her definition of paganism seems to really just be things she likes (I imagine Himmler’s paganism wouldn’t have counted in her mind).
She paints with a very very broad brush, which reminds me of Nietzsche. But Nietzsche (as I read him) understands he is not giving a clear picture of the world, but for the world. He is making his truth, it is an expression of his will to power and so on. There is thus an irony in Nietzsche when he talks about how the world is that I don’t detect in Paglia, but maybe I haven’t read her enough yet.
Whatever else she is, she’s interesting.
I'm super Catholic. Barthian Catholic. So I will try Dempsey and Vitz. Thank you!