Well, he was absolutely a coke-fiend that just made up a bunch of nonsense that was basically all incorrect. It’s easy to call him a fraud now in hindsight, but it’s important to remember that one of the things he made up was the idea that we should treat mental problems like illnesses that could be treated. That’s still an incredibly valuable idea that still isn’t being taken seriously enough. I’m willing to give the guy a break for being wrong when he was making up the entire idea of psychology from nothing. That was still useful, even if we have had to move on from everything he thought about psychology.
He didn’t create the field though? Psychology existed before Freud, Wundt was putting out journals while Freud was still in college. If anything, Freud ruined a lot of psychology’s early momentum, and largely contributed to it being seen as an illegitimate science even today.
I mean, yeah, okay, technically you’re correct. I should have been more careful with how I phrased things. I know people on the internet are pedantic. I should have seen this coming. Freud didn’t invent studying the mind, he just popularized the idea of, you know, actually using it to help people. The fact that he was bad at doing that doesn’t make it a bad idea.
What would have happened if he hadn’t come along and done that is just a story you made up. It has no basis in reality. Maybe we’d be living in a magical utopia where nothing bad would ever happen anymore. I can’t prove that isn’t true. It’s not really a helpful thing to discuss though.
Well, he was absolutely a coke-fiend that just made up a bunch of nonsense that was basically all incorrect. It’s easy to call him a fraud now in hindsight, but it’s important to remember that one of the things he made up was the idea that we should treat mental problems like illnesses that could be treated. That’s still an incredibly valuable idea that still isn’t being taken seriously enough. I’m willing to give the guy a break for being wrong when he was making up the entire idea of psychology from nothing. That was still useful, even if we have had to move on from everything he thought about psychology.
He didn’t create the field though? Psychology existed before Freud, Wundt was putting out journals while Freud was still in college. If anything, Freud ruined a lot of psychology’s early momentum, and largely contributed to it being seen as an illegitimate science even today.
I mean, yeah, okay, technically you’re correct. I should have been more careful with how I phrased things. I know people on the internet are pedantic. I should have seen this coming. Freud didn’t invent studying the mind, he just popularized the idea of, you know, actually using it to help people. The fact that he was bad at doing that doesn’t make it a bad idea.
What would have happened if he hadn’t come along and done that is just a story you made up. It has no basis in reality. Maybe we’d be living in a magical utopia where nothing bad would ever happen anymore. I can’t prove that isn’t true. It’s not really a helpful thing to discuss though.