>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 uvj at vsnl.com asked Doug:
>
>>How do you identify unconscious motive/motives, since you believe
>>in their existence?
>>
>>Ulhas
>
>People have mercilessly beat up Freudians for this: "How can you study
>something that is not even accessible to the conscious mind? How can
>you know your assessment of unconscious content is valid?"
>I guess Doug will be surprised, but I think this argument is pretty
>weak. Scientists posit the existence of many things that cannot be
>directly observed (e.g., gravity, dark matter, 10-dimensional space),
>and they test their ideas by looking for predicted effects of
>whatever force or entity they've posited.
>
>Psychoanalysts do the same thing: look for the indirect effects of
>unconscious impulses in dreams, slips of the tongue, transference,
>resistance. My fav example (haven't I mentioned this before?):
>homophobic men are more sexually aroused by a film of men having
>sex than nonhomophobic men are. This may seem strange--why would
>men who say they're disgusted by gays in fact be sexually
>aroused by men having sex? Freudians contend that this is a
>common defense mechanism they call reaction formation: these
>homophobic men in fact have a strong unconscious desire to
>engage in same-sex sexual activity, and they cannot directly and
>honestly express this sexual desire, so it is manifested (in
>a twisted way) as conscious disgust and hatred of gays.
>
>--In short: the Freudian concept of the unconscious can be
>rigorously studied by psychologists, just as the invisible
>force of gravity can be rigorously studied by physicists.
Thanks. I didn't have time to do that this morning.
Doug