Discussion post I submitted for my Atlantic University TP6000 Course – January 24, 2020
Sigmund Freud is certainly an interesting character. Having never taken any psychology courses In high school or college, I didn’t know much about him except the mark he left on the field and for “Freudian slips.” As I’ve become more familiar with the subject through books I’ve listened to about Carl Jung, and particularly through this Master’s, I’ve gained a perspective on Freud which isn’t that dissimilar to Robert Van De Castle’s (1994, 109-139).
There is no question Freud was too focused on repressive sexual symbols, and as a result, missed a great deal of what was really happening with himself and his patients. I know from listening to the Jung books that this was a major reason for their falling out. Quoting from Freud, Van de Castle identifies some real doozies when it comes to Freud’s sexual interpretations of dreams. For example, to Freud, children represent the genitals, and that “baldness, haircutting, falling out of teeth, and decapitation” are symbols of castration (1994, p. 123). I’m a guy, and I know we get accused of fixating on sex all the time, but even in my wildest dreams (or fantasies) could I make these leaps!
It’s amazing to think how much more effective Freud could have been if he weren’t so limited in his scope, and how much harm he did to the profession as a result. As Van de Castle puts it, because of Freud, “Dreams and sex…become synonymous, and to openly share one’s dreams has been considered equivalent to publicly confessing one’s private sins and secret sordid desires” (1994, p. 138).
If I were to go “Freud” on Freud, I’d say he suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder, with some serious sexual repressions thrown in there as our Mentor suggests in this assignment. This is on clear display when he minimizes the work of his predecessor (1994, p. 112), holds the publication of his first dream book for a year so it will coincide with the new century (1994, p. 112), plagiarizes works of others (1994, p. 113), produces a severely limited literature review in the First Edition of The Interpretation of Dreams (1994, p. 112), and in his 1909 edition notes that he’s added nothing to his literature review because the nine years since his first edition has “produced nothing new or valuable.”
I’ve always wondered what modern psychology would have become if Carl Jung and not Sigmund Freud was the grandfather of the field. One can only dream, I suppose.
References
Harthan, J. (2013). Working with dreams: a handbook of techniques. Joan C. Harthan, PhD.
Van de Castle, R. (1994). Our dreaming mind. New York NY: Ballantine Books.