On 10 Mar 2009 Joan Wambold drew attention to the article on dreams in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/science/10tier.html?em
The dream researcher G. W. Domhoff has written an article on the subject of the reporting of dream research in the mass media, with the subtitle "Where journalists go wrong": http://www.dreamresearch.net/Library/domhoff_2006a.html In the Times article, the social psychologist Carey Morewedge is quoted as saying in relation to Freud's taking opposite notions in dreams as signifying the same thing: "One might interpret this as evidence that scientists are just as self-serving as laypeople when interpreting their dreams." Scientist? Even many psychoanalysts nowadays would not describe Freud as a scientist. The philosopher Frank Cioffi takes the view that the reason classical Freudian theory is a pseudoscience is not on the Popperian grounds of irrefutability, but because of its spurious confirmation claims. A great many of Freud's notions that few analysts believe nowadays were claimed to have been 'confirmed' by other psychoanalysts. A notorious example is "penis envy", which Freud's psychoanalytic colleagues (including several women analysts) were soon confirming in their patients. However, a number of female analysts in the 1930s (notably Karen Horney) rejected the theory. In his chapter on "Femininity" in *New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis* (1933) Freud wrote in his characteristic manner that "One cannot very well doubt the importance of envy for the penis". When Horney and some other analysts rejected his 'findings' such as that a woman's desire "to carry on a intellectual profession... may often be recognized as a sublimated modification of this repressed wish [for a penis]", Freud explained that "we shall not be very greatly surprised if a woman analyst who has not been sufficiently convinced of the intensity of her own wish for a penis also fails to attach proper importance to that factor in her patients." (*An Outline of Psychoanalysis*) An amusing instance of psychoanalytic shenanigans revolves around Otto Rank's 'discovery' of the "birth trauma". The British analyst Edward Glover reported "the rapidity with which some analysts were able to discover 'birth traumas' in all their patients for some time after Rank first published his book on the *Trauma of Birth*, and before it was officially exploded." What Glover meant by "officially exploded" was that Freud rejected the theory (not having come up with it himself). Ernest Jones reported that Freud "tried to apply Rank's theory wherever possible in terms of birth, but he got no response from his patients, nor had the interpretations any other effect on them." Jones continues with unintentional humour: "Ferenczi, on the other hand, had had wonderful results by applying the same method and could not do without it in a single case." (Jones, 1957) Can there be any doubt that if Freud had come up with the idea himself he would have been 'confirming' it with all his patients, as he did with his seduction theory in 1896: http://www.esterson.org/Mythologizing_psychoanalytic_history.htm Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org ************************************************* Subject: Interesting article in NYT's about dream analysis From: "Joan Warmbold" <jwarm...@oakton.edu> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:32:06 -0500 (CDT) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/science/10tier.html?em This article discusses some fairly recent research on what most people feel about dream interpretation. What isn't surprising is that most 'regular folks' prefer the Freudian perspective on dreams versus the far less sexy theory coming from the activation-synthesis theory that dreams are just our brain's attempt to make sense out of random neural firing. (I mean, which theory makes us seem and feel more mysterious and intriguing?!) However, the research shows that people exhibit strong personal biases on how their their dreams should be interpreted. Check it out. Joan jwarm...@oakton.ed --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
