Critical evaluation of Freud’s theory
Status of Freud’s theory as a scientific one
· Question of reliability and validity
· Question of generaliability and representativeness
· Quantifiability
Status of coherence of Freud’s theory
· System of interpretation
· Delineation of cause and effect relationship
· Deemphasizing important influence on personality
Freudian psychotherapy
Strength of Freud work
Status of Freud’s theory as a scientific one
eg, if Freudian theorist conclude that , patient has a strong unconscious hatred for his sister what sort of evidence would demonstrate that the conclusion is correct or incorrect.
If the patient says she cannot remember any negative feeling towards sister –according to Freud she is repressing them.
If the patient describes how much she loves her sister. Freud would infer it as reaction formation and if the patient she harbor some negative feeling towards her sister Freud would argue that the therapy has been successful in bringing the material into consciousness. Thus if the hypothesis generated by the theory cannot be unsupported them neither can it be truly supported. This makes the theory less scientific. Moreover, the theory does not lend itself for empirical validation for e.g. it is impossible to derive any empirical proposition from the postulation of death wishes.
Freud has also been criticized for accepting at face value whatever a patient said, without attempting to corroborate it by some external evidence.
E.g., question are being raised as to, in how many cases did he find an association between paranoid and homosexuality, hysteria and oral fixation etc.
Also Freud’s patients hardly representated typical adults. Not only did they come from relatively wealthy and educated European families they also were suffering from psychological disorders. Thus it will be an illogical assumption to expect that the minds of the patients function the same as the mind of average psychological healthy adult. Thus, Freud’s theory lacks the capacity to generalize its concepts to diverse social and cultural backgrounds.
· System of interpretation
Freud has never given any systematic account of his method of analysis and his inductive and deductive operations.
Consequently it is practically impossible to repeat any of the Freudian investigation in accordance with original design. Thus other investigators have often reached at different conclusion and interpretation of ostensibly by the same phenomena.
Moreover he is accused of drawing inference and reaching conclusion by a line of reasoning that was rarely made explicit.
Freudian psychotherapy
One of the most serious limitations of psychoanalytic therapy is that its use is restricted for a narrow section of the population educated, intelligent, and resourceful with good capacity for verbal expression.
Freud is also the pioneer who popularized and promoted psychological principles and their role in the development of personality as well pathology. Freud can be credited with developing the fist system of psychotherapy.
thnkx for sharing sir.
ReplyDeleteWell...a good work resembeles the volume of work done divided by the no of pages the transcript has....so in this Bahiya.......a balance is maintained between the ecastasy and essence of work.......gr8........you are the one......sher kahte hai tumhe sher......duja koi nahi........
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