"Bad" Mothers: The Politics of Blame Re: Radio Doug

[RE]

True, it is hard to test psychodynamic propositions.  Part of the reason is
because what psychoanalysis addresses are aspects of individual subjectivity
that are presented indirectly and obscurely in a deliberate fashion -- e.g.
there is certainly at least a subset of homophobes who attack their own
desires in others.  More generally, the stuff of psychoanalysis is
understanding the multiple functions of ideas and actions.  Analysts assume
that wishes, and the compromise formations built up around them, are
steadily trying to find some form of expression; any representation is
assumed to be polysemous, the only question is the complexity and intensity
of the investment.  Understandably, this makes researchers looking for
unambiguous indicators impatient.

At the same time, researchers can be astonishingly obtuse about dealing with
psychoanalytic concepts.  Over the last decade the controversy over
repressed memories became a mess as researchers such as Elizabeth Loftus
tried to split hairs to deny that "data" indicated repression had occurred
in the case of evidence of memory loss of corroborated traumatic events.
Thus, for example, a woman who had been assaulted and who had forgotten
about the event at one point and then remembered it at another might be
"choosing not to report" the memory [is she lying, or is she forgetting
she's lying?], or might have for other reasons simply not remembered, for
example, the memory was "tagged" in a way that made it hard to access.  This
struck me as just so much ax grinding and question begging.  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


: Miles Jackson wrote:
:
: >Despite the popularity of Freud in the broader academic and
: >popular culture, many actual psychologists who do research and
: >develop theories pretty much ignore his work, for two simple
: >reasons: (1) many psychodynamic ideas cannot be adequately tested
: >and (2) when people have systematically tested psychodynamic
: >ideas, they are often inconsistent with data (e.g., the idea
: >of catharsis).
:
: Catharsis? Are you saying that's an important part of psa?
:
: Doug
:
: