Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Can a person be wrong and still be important?

Today most people in the field of psychology think Sigmund Freud was wrong about many of his most basic assumptions. If that is true, why is he considered so important? You could also look at some of his ideas and newer alternatives.

27 comments:

  1. We talked about some of Sigmund Freud’s ideas in the first chapter we covered in psychology. He had a major theory about personalities. It was interesting when reading about this, he believed that there was 3 parts that make a personality, the ego, superego, and id. These parts make up your conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. He also had ideas about personality and sexual development. These ideas were based on his observations of his patients, who were to report their uncensored thoughts and feelings as they came to the patient. What’s important to remember is that this is the first defined personality theory. Although, these ideas were very controversial.
    His ideas that children had sexual desires for the opposite sex caused a major uproar. Many people did not wish that their children had these thoughts. Besides that, all of his theories did not stand up very well when they were tested. Many wondered if there was even an unconscious part of our brain or if they were being manipulated by a psychiatrist.
    Despite the controversy, many still consider him to be one of the most influential people in psychology. A quote from my book is, “Although these early followers developed their own personality theories, they still recognized the importance of many of Freud’s basic notions, such as the influence of unconscious processes and early childhood experiences.” Freud laid the foundation for other theories and research, which makes him still important, even though he was wrong. It’s like people thinking the Earth was flat. This idea laid an idea for exploration to later figure out that the Earth was round.

    Sources:
    https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080803234612AAQb2gc
    Hockenbury & Hockenbury Psychology Textbook
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vs8uE8_02E

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  2. Sigmund Freud was not only important in psychology, but we talked a lot about him in sociology as well. Where Sigmund Freud dealt with more personalities of people, Auguste Comte studied groups of people and how they interacted in a society. Both Sigmund and Auguste brought great ideas out into the open. All of their theories may not be completely true but without their ideas, a lot more deaths would've occurred. Before Freud, everyone believed God made them the way they were. The grace of God made you behave well. People were killed for having mental illnesses, multiple personalities, etc. They were believed to be possessed by the devil. Freud came up with the explanation for these conditions, saving many lives. He is still talked about for his ideas today even though many weren't completely right, which is why he's so important.

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    1. Like Brenna is saying, we don't only talk about Freud in one class, I have now talked about him in three in one year. So, even with his theories being wrong, we still know and acknowledge his theories and ideas. We still learn about his teachings because he was the start of psychology. He knows how to study humans and how they behave, if he wouldn't have started psychology, we might not have had psychology for a long time.

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  3. Sigmund Freud created psychology and studied and studied a human’s brain and how an individual thinks. Freud believed that everyone had an id, ego, and superego. The id is a person’s instinct or drive to do something. It is the desire for instant gratification. The ego is like reality. It makes sure the needs of the id are met in a socially acceptable way.. The superego is like morality. It makes sure that moral standards are followed. This provided a lot of controversy at the time because people always thought that if people acted crazy it was because they were possessed, now they discovered that it was just them that was the problem. This is just one of the many ideas that Freud had, and also one of the many that were ultimately wrong.

    A majority of Freud’s ideas lacked concrete proof which made it hard to prove that he was correct. Also, the unconscious mind is difficult to study and measure which made it impossible to prove or disprove some of his ideas. Modern psychologists today would say that Freud is wrong in almost everything he is famous for. How can someone who is wrong for everything still be an influential character in our world today? It is not as if he is known for by being wrong, but is still credited with a positive reactions. Freud is such an important figure because he brought light to the topic of psychology.

    Sigmund Freud laid the foundation of psychology, without him, the name wouldn’t even be around. He led the study of the brain of individuals which, in turn, created a spread of others wanting to study the same thing. He may have been wrong about his ideas back then, but it led to psychologists studying it more and changing it so that it could be right today. Freud had a huge influence on the study of psychology which makes him very important, even if his discoveries were mostly incorrect.

    Sources:
    http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html
    http://io9.com/why-freud-still-matters-when-he-was-wrong-about-almost-1055800815

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  4. Sigmund Freud is known as the Father of Psychoanalysis, as well as much more, because he holds a great significance for many reasons. Freud's ideas may not necessarily be followed in psychology today, but his studies and ideas of individuals helped to "get the pot brewing" and to start different ideas from the individual's mind. Freud had many terms such as denial, repression, ego, superego, and id that affect how we look at different things today.

    Today, we need terms like ego to balance out super ego (the parental voice inside of us) and id (what we just want to do). Terms like this from Freud prove to be of importance in everything we do. Also, with me stating above that Freud is known as the Father of Psychoanalysis and develops different ideas of how the individual mind things, as well as how mental illness should be treated. With many of his patients, Freud used methods like letting his patients talk freely; methods like this even today help psychologists and other therapists to help people with mental illness or other illnesses. Freud finding a way to find a successful science involving psychoanalysis is HUGE because it was a topic that involved much controversy, and Freud broke much of this controversy.

    Freud's ideas affects not only just psychology, but anthropology, artistic creativity, and much more. As I stated above, Freud's thoughts and theory may not necessarily be completely used, but his impact on getting ideas started is what is important about Freud. Freud had answers to many questions that were being asked during his time, and even the things he could not answer, he had good ideas for a starting point as to where psychologists should start to think. Freud wanted to do things like have an EXPLANATION for the CAUSES of categories like mental illness, and this was involved in his theory of unconsciousness. Furthermore, although modern psychology does not agree with him in aspects, it would not exist without him.

    http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/
    http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html
    http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/freud.htm

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    1. Austin is exactly right about Freud being important because he got the "pot brewing." Freud had so many psychology ideas, he just never was very accurate with those ideas. Psychoanalysis is huge just like Austin said. Freud's big idea with psychoanalysis that is still very important today is the idea of letting people freely talk about their feelings and what is going on or whatever they want to share. He had important ideas and some of these were right but he has very wrong while still being important today.

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  5. Sigmund Freud, like many other people, were wrong but still very important. This is because they started the thinking of something in a certain direction and for Freud, it was very important. His theory was all about sexual desires and how why it made people of all ages act in certain ways. Before Freud, people were thought to just die because of any illness or sickness, but he brought about a different way of thinking of things as to why they happen. Freud was also the founding father of psychoanalysis. This is the method for mental illnesses where people were allowed to talk freely about their problems they were having.

    Sigmund Freud also came up with the idea that we have an id, superego, and an ego. The id is impulsive stuff making us do whatever we want to do without really thinking about it. The superego makes sure to follow the rules. The ego is a balancer between the between the two of them and helps us to make the right decisions. This is very helpful to understand because it explains why a person may or may not do something because the ego could be “out of place”.

    One theory that Freud has was hypnotism. He believed that this method would help heal those who had a mental illness. However, as we know today, this is not always true. This is somewhat true today to get someone over bad habits, but it doesn’t mean that person has a mental illness. As you can see from these examples, someone can be wrong about something and still very important such as Sigmund Freud. This is because they got the thinking process started, but just on the wrong track.

    http://www.psychologistworld.com/psychologists/freud_1.php

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  6. Wow! Much excitement about Freud. More?

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  7. Sigmund Freud has been dead for nearly 70 years, but if you take a psychology class his name will still come up. So, he must be pretty significant. Freud is responsible for the creation of psychology. That itself is very important, but he didn't stop at that. He came up with various ideas. However, the majority of his ideas were a bit off.
    One of Freud ideas that was a bit off is his idea that boys love their mothers and hate their fathers because they see their father as competition. Despite being completely wrong, he got the ball rolling. Another idea that Freud was wrong about is penis envy. These are not the only ideas that Freud had that are wrong though. He is also credited with creating id, ego, and superego. Id is the impulsive part of you that wants to have fun. Then there is the superego, this part of you wants to follow the rules. Finally, we have the ego, this part is the balance between the superego and id.
    It seems as though Freud didn't get anything right, but that isn't entirely true. Freud was sort of right about the unconscious mind. He was right in that the unconscious mind exists, but he went further than that and everything after that was wrong. For example, he tried to explain how it worked, but he was completely wrong about it. Another thing that he was right about is that the brain is made up of "pieces". He said that the brain was compartmentalized. Surprisingly, he was 100% right about this.
    So, as you can tell Freud was wrong on just about every psychological idea he had. But yet he is a very significant figure. Maybe if you get enough things wrong you will be remembered and studied. But, I would say that he is still significant to this day because he started the whole idea of studying psychology.
    http://io9.com/why-freud-still-matters-when-he-was-wrong-about-almost-1055800815
    http://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html
    http://www.biography.com/people/sigmund-freud-9302400

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  8. Although Freud was wrong about many of his ideas, he got the talk about modern psychology started. There have been many famous "experts" that have been wrong throughout history, and yet we still study them. For example Ptolemy's geocentric model of the universe was wrong, as was Karl Marx on his theory of Marxism. Although these people had the wrong idea, bits and pieces of what they discovered or speculated were applied to later theories. Also, their discoveries laid the groundwork for later scientists, philosophers, and economists to build off of and come up with modern theories that we now accept today.

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  9. I like how Alyssa pointed out the idea of Hitler. Obviously, Hitler was very wrong in terms of killing people to perfect the human race. If Hitler was such a horrible person, why do we still talk about him? Because he is one of the most important and significant leaders in history. We don't ignore a person or part of history that was wrong. This goes along with Hegel's ideas from a couple units ago. He had the idea that all history is important, whether its an event or a time leading up to a major event. The people in these events may be wrong, but they are still important.

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  10. Sigmund Freud is so important today because even though he was wrong about some of his ideas he was still the person who introduced psychology into the world. Rather than people doing what they used to do with a mentally ill person we can finally start doing things that is somewhat correct for the person. Even though he wasn't correct we still use it today. Some other people have been incorrect but we still use their information because it opens up the idea.

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  11. Although Freud ended up being wrong, he is still a really important person in psychology. If he would have never started looking and studying the human brain and study why we do certain things, we may not know as much today. Freud got people really thinking about things and opened up a whole new subject to study. Just because somebody ends up being wrong it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t study them. If you didn’t study the people who were wrong you wouldn’t know what the original thoughts were. In order to know what we know today you have to have a starting point and for most, that was Freud’s theory.

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    1. I agree, even though he was wrong doesn't mean we shouldn't study him. He helped evolve what we know today about psychology. He was the one that started studying the human brain and as to why we do certain things, if it wasn't for him who knows how long it would have taken to develop the same ideas. Freud's theory was, like Emily said, a starting point to what we know today. He started out with his theory and others were researching more about it, and they found out that Freud was wrong, but yet without him they wouldn't have found out.

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  12. I agree that Alyssa made a good point bringing up Hitler. When talking about changing society, many people thought they had the "right" way and idea about how society should be and Hitler was one of them. I do agree that people like Hitler are wrong for what they do and how they do it, but it does make me think that maybe it was those people who made others think that we might need a change, but not in the way that someone like Hitler did it. Many others have had ideas and ways to change society or other points, and are wrong. But, I believe that sometimes these people are the ones who make others think that we should change, but not in the ways they have.

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  13. Sigmund Freud has been dead for nearly seventy years, and he is still important and taught in schools today. Even though he was majorly wrong on his theory’s, he influenced the modern ideas of psychology. The problem with Freud’s theories was that there were little to none evidence to back him up. There is no proof of his findings of the id, ego, or superego. Even though Freud was wrong on a lot he was right on some ideas. He was correct with his idea of that we are masters of our own mind. Freud was the first to show that human experience, thought, and deeds are determined not by conscious rationality, but by irrational forces outside our conscious awareness and control.

    Freud didn’t discover the unconscious mind, he was just fascinated on the subject and started to do more tests and researching. He broke it down to the next level, after French psychiatrist Pierre Janet. Freud also studies the relations of dreams and why people dream. Freud called dreams “royal road to unconscious.” He was fascinated as to why people dream or why their dreams are of certain topics. Freud’s theory on dreams was that it was someone’s wish or wish of a fulfilled life. His dream theory of course was wrong, but his theory needed to evaluated sometime so what we know about dreams today is based upon Freud’s findings.

    Even though Freud was wrong on most of his theory’ s, if it wasn’t for him we would not know what we know today. Before Freud nobody knew how powerful our own conscious minds are and he was the one to come about it.

    Here is a great video that I found about Freud. It’s two minutes long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1ya3HFN2bM

    http://io9.com/why-freud-still-matters-when-he-was-wrong-about-almost-1055800815
    http://www.psychologistworld.com/psychologists/freud_1.php
    https://books.google.com/books?id=lPbJSV8Q_QoC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=even+though+freud+was+wrong+why+is+he+so+important?&source=bl&ots=mWM9TG7rzu&sig=lmGxeU4SbnVOwLBYcctl49jJgYQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=v74_VaDNJsKWNvDYgKgI&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=even%20though%20freud%20was%20wrong%20why%20is%20he%20so%20important%3F&f=false


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  14. Alyssa is right. Just because someone in history was wrong, doesn't mean they weren't any less important. The whole Hitler idea is absolutely right also. Just because he was wrong doesn't mean he's not important. Were Stalin, Ho Che Minh, or even Sigmund Freud unimportant because they were wrong? Of course not. Sigmund Freud helped start the study of psychology and the human brain and why it does what it does. So he is very important to the history because he was the starter pistol of the race for the study of psychology.

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  15. You may wonder why there are so many different psychology perspectives and whether one approach is correct and others wrong. Most psychologists would agree that no one perspective is correct, although in the past, in the early days of psychology, the behaviorist would have said their perspective was the only truly scientific one. Who hasn't heard of Sigmund Freud? So many expressions from our daily life come from Freud's theories of psychoanalysis - subconscious, denial, repression and anal personality to name only a few. Freud believes that events in our childhood can have a significant impact on our behavior as adults. He also believed that people have little free will to make choices in life. Instead our behavior is determined by the unconscious mind and childhood experiences.
    Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, explained the human mind as like an iceberg, with only a small amount of it being visible, that is our observable behavior, but it is the unconscious, submerged mind that has the most, underlying influence on our behavior. He believed that the unconscious mind consisted of three components: the 'id' the 'ego' and the 'superego'. The 'id' contains two main instincts: 'Eros', which is the life instinct, which involves self-preservation and sex which is fuelled by the 'libido' energy force. 'Thanatos' is the death instinct, whose energies, because they are less powerful than those of 'Eros' are channeled away from ourselves and into aggression towards others. The 'id' and the 'superego' are constantly in conflict with each other, and the 'ego' tries to resolve the discord. If this conflict is not resolved, we tend to use defense mechanisms to reduce our anxieties. Psychoanalysis attempts to help patients resolve their inner conflicts.
    However it has been criticized in the way that it over emphasizes of importance of sexuality and under emphasizes of role of social relationships. The theory is not scientific, and can't be proved as it is circular. Never the less psychoanalysis has been greatly contributory to psychology in that it has encouraged many modern theorists to modify it for the better, using its basic principles, but eliminating its major flaws.
    Sources:
    http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html
    http://www.psychologistworld.com/psychologists/freud_1.php
    http://curioustendency.blogspot.com/2011/09/freud-and-his-controversial-theories.html

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  16. Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 and was researching during the time where not much about the human brain was known. Freud mainly researched, the theory that the mind is a complex energy-system, the structural investigation of which is the proper province of psychology. Freud was the one of the first one’s to come up with a theory and since he was the first, that’s what most people thought was correct. We know today though that Freud wasn’t actually right.
    Freud believed that people could be cured by making conscious their unconscious thoughts and motivations. The aim of psychoanalysis therapy is to release repressed emotions and experiences. Freud believed that if you spoke what you were thinking then you would feel better. In psychoanalysis Freud would have a patient lie on a couch to relax, and he would sit behind them taking notes while they told him about their dreams and childhood memories. Freud thought that them talking about that would then explain why they are doing things the way they are. This process wasn’t a short one it usually would last about for about several years, while doing sessions two to three times a week.
    If Freud would have never gone and experimented then we may not know what we know today. Freud influenced many people that later went on and went further with what he was saying. As his biography on biography.com states: “Freud's work has been both rapturously praised and hotly critiqued, but no one has influenced the science of psychology as intensely as Sigmund Freud.”

    http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/
    http://www.simplypsychology.org/psychoanalysis.html
    http://www.biography.com/people/sigmund-freud-9302400

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  17. Sigmund frued is found very important in the field of psychology. He formed a theory that humans were driven by their sexual desires. Frued also thought that the human mind is mostly hidden from us. That we have not unlocked the brains full potential. Frued was able to explain a persons behavior based on three different things. The Ego, id, and the super ego. Each one had to maintain a balance within a persons body. And if one became unbalanced, that is what caused a mental disease. These three things were a key idea into what leads to a much larger theory that we know today of psychology. Now if you were to get a mental disease, you were more likely to get treated on it.

    But today there is a huge idea that frued was wrong about almost everything he 'discovered'. After Frued death in 1939, we still talk about his ideas, but there is more understanding to the ideas of psychology. But his work wasn't all lost for the bad. They take his ideas and they either made improvements on them, or they completely threw them out. This was not taking a step back in our advances in science, it was taking a step forward knowing that those certain ideas do not actually work that way. There is more to them.

    One of the big things that is addressed about Frued's work is the gender classification. That a boy lusts after his mother and hates his father. There was also no proof of the id, ego, or super ego. Or that having that sexual desire is what makes you grow up and mature. Today we know much more on these subjects then frued did, but if you looked at his work, in some ways it did make sense. Technology and more explorations are always proving new things so it is no surprise when you look at work from famous people back then, and you realize that it is completely wrong.

    http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/freud.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Freud_Was_Wrong
    http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/freud.htm

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  18. Sigmund Freud could be described as Copernicus. He may not have been right about everything he made assumptions about, but he was the first to get the wheels turning. The reason we study Freud in psychology first is because he was the first to get things kinda right. Then we go on to study other people and how they perceive psychology. People still use Freud's methods along with the other people's ideas. He may have been wrong, but he has changed the world with his ideas about how people work.

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  19. Sigmund Freud may have been wrong about some of his ideas, but is still one of the, if not the most important contributor to modern psychology. I still think that he should be studied, even if he was wrong. The human brain may be one of the most difficult things to understand. There are many complexities within this one organ. Some of his ideas that he was wrong on was: his idea of the id, ego, and superego; how little boys lust after their mothers and hate their fathers and vice versa; and also that humans develop through the oral, anal, phallic and genital stages. The reason why many view these ideas as wrong, is because he has no supporting evidence; there are no facts to back these ideas up. Some of these ideas that many claim as wrong, were some of Freud’s most known. Although he was wrong on these ideas, he is still probably the most important man in psychology, because he contributed the most towards the study.

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  20. Just like everyone else said, even though Sigmund Freud was still wrong. we all still continue to learn about him because some of his points were valid and he was the start of thinking about people's behaviors. If we didn't have Freud, we wouldn't have started psychology until who knows when. He's been dead for nearly 70 years and we are still learning about what he has taught and what he was teaching.
    There are some people like this where they were wrong in their theories or their teachings, but we still study them today because of the impact they had.
    One person that comes to mind is Karl Marx. His ideas and beliefs were very wrong, but we still learn his teachings because it shows us how not to do things, or ideas and beliefs come into play. If we didn't have either of these gentleman, we wouldn't know about communism the time that we did or psychology.
    Most of the people that are wrong, aren't totally wrong, they just have some incorrect findings. Their findings could have been correct back when they started talking about it, but when we start looking into it with modern technology, then it becomes incorrect and we fix their theories.

    http://www.biography.com/people/karl-marx-9401219
    http://io9.com/why-freud-still-matters-when-he-was-wrong-about-almost-1055800815
    http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/

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  21. A person can be wrong and still be important. Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychology. While many of his ideas were proven wrong, for once there was an alternate explanation to people with mental disabilities other than believing they were possessed. The grace of God was what made you good and those who acted out were often believed to be possessed. Psychology led us to understand how the human mind works. Now we are able to explain why people act the way they do. People with mental disabilities have a much better life now than before Sigmund Freud. Originally, mentally disabled people were locked up and forgotten about. Now, there are many treatments and facilities that help treat these disabilities. Even though Sigmund Freud was wrong about many ideas, he set the basis of psychology and allowed other psychologists to expand and improve on his ideas. The impact Freud had is much more important than his original ideas.

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  22. Maybe Sigmund Freud had a different perspective to view his field of study, which none other had at that point of time. People perhaps realized that the ideas of Freud were innovative in spite of the fact that they turned out to be wrong at the end. He showed his ability to think beyond the already laid rules...much like a theorist. His theories may not apply practically but it really takes a great mind to invent any form of theory. Take for example the theories about the beginning and end of this universe. There are lots of theories but only one holds true (or maybe none), still all those theorists are considered to be really important in the field of science. Freud is important because of his ability to build paths, not reach destinations...The destination of a traveler is his path...and for the rest, most realize the path is sometimes way more beautiful than the destination.

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