Id, Ego and Super Ego

To answer the question.. probably mostly ego and some id, I hate Freud's impossibly worded theories, castration and what not.. repugnant. I really don't know about super ego, for me a conscience falls mostly toward empathy with a "huh?" response.

I studied psychology at college but I dropped out of my course when I realised that psychology was little more than the study of the absolutely obvious.

You have just put something into words which I have not been able to put into words. Thank you.

I think Freud would be respected if people would let him go. I don't know much of the history of psychology, but it seems there hardly was such a thing before him. We could see him as a pioneer who got the field started and then leave him to history. The automobiles and airplanes from his time were quaint and impractical but they led to what we have today. Freud belongs in a museum as much as the technology of his time. He no more belongs in the practice of psychology than Ford's first cars belong on the road.

phineas wrote:I think Freud would be respected if people would let him go. I don't know much of the history of psychology, but it seems there hardly was such a thing before him. We could see him as a pioneer who got the field started and then leave him to history. The automobiles and airplanes from his time were quaint and impractical but they led to what we have today. Freud belongs in a museum as much as the technology of his time. He no more belongs in the practice of psychology than Ford's first cars belong on the road.

Some of his stuff is interesting but for the most part it just has that "here are some things I thought up with while I was so high I could taste music" kind of feel to it.

All it is, guys, is one person's way of trying to conceptualize and communicate what is really there. There is some 'truth' to a lot of what Freud has come up with, but he was an expert fixated on sex. As such, I find what he's done fairly significant, but again, it's his own take.

People tend to take such authority figures on their word once they've found an individual to whom they want to attach and form their ideas. This doesn't work well, obviously. Freud and Jung both had very good ideas, but to take one or the other at face value leaves little or no room for forming individual analysis. Similarly, they are quick to deride and reject outright anything that could be learned from other authority figures.

The id, ego and superego are good abstract representations of concepts dealing with existing functions within the brain and how we deal with the world. Is it entirely 'accurate'? I would be shocked if it was. It's a fairly loose idea, and one that is vulnerable to subjectiveness. It deals with development, which is much more complicated and influenced by complex factors.

For instance, by Freud's logic, I am a freak. I was more or less born with id, ego and superego thanks to the fact that I am naturally empathic (due to a neurological abnormality, best anyone can tell at this point -- see mirror synesthesia). That immediately forms some sort of superego 'conscience' for someone like me, who can't stand seeing others in pain. My ego has always been very well formed since I can remember, always the mediator. So, although I don't fit in with Freud's idea completely, I still encompass the same basic idea of all three parts he's described. It's such a simple concept it's not really capable of being #######4.

I personally don't use it in conversation, except very occasionally to describe Freud's point of view - people can take it or leave it.

I studied psychology at college but I dropped out of my course when I realised that psychology was little more than the study of the absolutely obvious.

That's one of the reasons I don't bother studying it more than I do on a personal level. That, and structured learning environments piss me off. Studying people first hand is like nothing else, and the information gained therein is indispensable.

phineas wrote:I think Freud would be respected if people would let him go. I don't know much of the history of psychology, but it seems there hardly was such a thing before him. We could see him as a pioneer who got the field started and then leave him to history. The automobiles and airplanes from his time were quaint and impractical but they led to what we have today. Freud belongs in a museum as much as the technology of his time. He no more belongs in the practice of psychology than Ford's first cars belong on the road.

I fully agree. Freud should be trated like Descartes - a man who was revolutionary for his time and his ideas were of great importance for future theories. But just like Descartes's physics gave way to Newtonian physics which then gave way for Einstein's physics, thus Freudian psychology should give way to modern psychology.
Like you said: Freud should be respected as a pioneer of psychology, but his theories are outdated today.
The problem of psychology is that it seems unable to fully free itself from falsified theories.

what do you mean? if it's a theory, How can it be WRONG? pftt.
psychology it's not like technologies, or Even QUANTUMS. IMO.

THERe's not one single 'theory' who is accepted this days. and Freud's seems quite alright.
what iw ant is a theory made from teh psyche of 'normal' people. why do they act such ways? why do normal people suffer from social anxiety? why do nromal peopel become their 'masks' _Now, that's a theory. IMO. pfft anyways. im fed up, have FUN!

also if it's 'obvious' then is the truth? aweeee???? well, ive gtg. pft.

yeh- wrote:what do you mean? if it's a theory, How can it be WRONG? pftt.

I think a good psychological theory should have the following qualities:

a)Be univocal - meaning that psychologist using that theory should give the same diagnosis to the same patient, or at least give similar diagnosis and be able to constructively discuss their differences and come to the same conclusion.

b)Be precise - meaning that it should use well defined and clear notions that are understood in the same way by the psychologists involved.

c)Be usefull and effective in treating patients. If treatement based on a certain theory is less succesfull that treatement based on another theory, then the first theory is probably wrong and needs to be adjusted or discarded.

d)Should be able to explain all epirical phenomena in the sphere it referes to.

e) It should be usefull when predicting the future events that will occur in the shpere that it referes to.

Now Freud's theory has failed in all aspects except maybe d).
Psychodynamical psychologists, the intellectual successors of Freud such as Karen Horney or Heinz Kohut tried to adapt their theories to fit aspects a) and b), but one can't really say that they've been truly succesfull.

yeh- wrote:what do you mean? if it's a theory, How can it be WRONG? pftt.

A scientific theory, by definition, is falsifiable.

From Wikipedia:

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation.