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Re: VN vs. Freud (fwd)
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From: Luba Lepskaya <ll@jumbo.com>
>As my professor has said, "to disagree with Freud is to lose the
>ability to say anything meaningful at all." I tend to trust Nabokov over my
>professor, but need some ammunition in the debate against Freudian analysis.
A lot of psychology professors disagree on Freud's theory for several reasons.
First of all a theory is based on hypotheses which, in order to be considered
good, have to be testable and possibly refutable. One cannot refute Freud's
theory because they it doesn't predict anything, but explains what had
happened.
His theory was based on a very specific group of people which consisted of
mentally ill with very severe cases and predominantly male population.
He also refused to believe in sexual abuse, therefore, he created all
the possibilities of subconscious fight against fantasies. These I think could
create a good argument for his theory to be unreliable.
Sincerely,
Luba
>As my professor has said, "to disagree with Freud is to lose the
>ability to say anything meaningful at all." I tend to trust Nabokov over my
>professor, but need some ammunition in the debate against Freudian analysis.
A lot of psychology professors disagree on Freud's theory for several reasons.
First of all a theory is based on hypotheses which, in order to be considered
good, have to be testable and possibly refutable. One cannot refute Freud's
theory because they it doesn't predict anything, but explains what had
happened.
His theory was based on a very specific group of people which consisted of
mentally ill with very severe cases and predominantly male population.
He also refused to believe in sexual abuse, therefore, he created all
the possibilities of subconscious fight against fantasies. These I think could
create a good argument for his theory to be unreliable.
Sincerely,
Luba