Psychodynamic Forgetting (was: Re: "Bad" Mothers: The Politics of Blame Re: Radio Doug

[Jim Farmelant]

B.F. Skinner in both *Science and Human Behavior* and
in *Verbal Behavior* argued that many psychodynamic
concepts could be translated into the language of
operant psychology.  Thus, he suggested that the
Freudian concept of repression could be subsumed
under the concept of punishment as understood
in his experimental analysis of behavior.  And he
suggested ways that the Freudian defense mechanisms
could be reinterpreted in terms of the language
of operant psychology.  Likewise, he went further
to suggest ways that the Freudian model of personality
of id, ego, and superego could be understood
behavioristically, in which the id was to be identified
with biologically-based reinforcement contingencies,
the superego with socially-contrived reinforcement
contingencies, and the ego with repertoires of behavior
that we develop to mediate between biologically-based
reinforcement contingencies, and the socially-based
ones.

On Tue, 01 Apr 2003 17:17:02 +0000 loupaulsen at attbi.com writes:
> The other side of this: even if such 'forgetting' is due to software 
> rather 
> than hardware (to the extent that this distinction makes sense), it 
> seems to 
> me there are a lot of ways to explain it other than the 
> 'psychodynamic' ways.  
> Just operant conditioning would do it, wouldn't it? - thinking about 
> X causes 
> distress, you avoid doing things that cause you distress, so you 
> think about X 
> less.  This accounts for a hell of a lot of my own procrastination 
> and 
> avoidance behavior, I can tell you.  You can call that "crude 
> protection of 
> the individual", but so is not touching hot stoves.
> 
> lp
> > There is a thing called short term memory loss.  People who have 
> > brain damage often have it. So do people with fibromyalgia and 
> other 
> > conditions. Lots of times people are not diagnosed with these 
> > conditions and they are sent to the shrink by their incompetent 
> > physicians who do not give a proper diagnosis. Short term memory 
> loss 
> > is physiological in origin so I think you have to be careful here.
> > 
> > Marta
> > 
> > >On Mon, 31 Mar 2003, RE wrote:
> > >
> > >>  In sessions
> > >>  I've had patients broach a difficult, important subject and 
> then forget
> > >>  about what they had been talking about ten minutes later, or 
> else forget
> > >>  about it by a session the next day, at the same time 
> complaining of feeling
> > >>  "foggy-headed" and the like.  To try to talk about this in any 
> way other
> > >>  than repression -- out of control, motivated forgetting that 
> crudely
> > >>  protects the individual -- is absurd.  If it's hard to study, 
> that doesn't
> > >>  mean it doesn't happen.
> > >>  Randy
> > >>
> > >
> > >I agree.  There is some pretty convincing research that supports 
> your
> > >observation that motivated forgetting is a common defense 
> mechanism.
> > >But this example is more the exception than the rule when it 
> comes
> > >to scientific tests of psychodynamic ideas.
> > >
> > >Miles
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Marta Russell
> > Los Angeles, CA
> > http://www.disweb.org
> 

________________________________________________________________
Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today
Only $9.95 per month!
Visit www.juno.com