SIGMUND FREUD who died in 1939 at the age of 83 is according to The Time of London now out of favor and the theories of the father of psychoanalysis are being debunked by a new group of Critics.
Freud is now the target of American psychiatrists who argue that mental illness has a physical basis and should be treated with powerful drugs. Some academics allege that Freud worked in an unscientific way and doctored his own results. He made exaggerated claims of cure jumped to conclusions based on inadequate evidence and ignored basic principles of scientific research.
These conclusions will upset analysts as well as their patients who spend large amounts of time and money on the psychoanalyst’s couch.
Freud built the “talking cure” for the mentally ill on six case histories. Recent research has discredited these cases as believed to be rampant with distortions highly dubious reconstructions and exaggerated clinical claims.
“One involved a patient who fled therapy in disgust another involved no real therapy and two others of the remaining four were actually not treated by Freud. His cure was thus a complete misrepresentation of the facts” says Frank Sulloway Professor of Science History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He adds that Freud’s theories are based on outmoded assumptions from the 19th century.
Those who do well like criticism. Those who don’t do well resent it.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 15, 1991
