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:
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: >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?
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: Doug
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