Talk:Sigmund Freud/Archive 3

"born to a jewish family"
I don't understand it... why should we write "born to a jewish family" & not just that he's jewish? I saw it in many articles. It confuses, someone may think that only the parents were jewish & not the perosona its self. 84.228.63.146 09:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Because he wasn't a practicing Jew. 75.68.6.81 07:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Jews themselves do not believe one must be a practicing Jew to be Jewish. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 10:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Slrubenstein's right... Freud also considered himself to be "ethnically" and culturally Jewish, did he not? I thought he said as much in the introduction to Moses. Ajcounter 11:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Freud was an atheist so why should he be called a jew —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.243.74.110 (talk) 18:34, June 16, 2007 (UTC)


 * In 1926, Freud told the interviewer George Viereck, "My language is German. My culture, my attainments are German. I considered myself German intellectually, until I noticed the growth of anti-Semitic prejudice in Germany and German Austria. Since that time, I prefer to call myself a Jew." (Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for our Time, 1988, p. 448) Mick gold 07:30, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Why is Freud's ethnicity important? If he had been non-Jewish, would his life's work have been any different? Would he be any less notable? He was an atheist, and this had a far more important impact on his work (cf. Jung). Yet what appears in his bio summary box is not his belief but his "ethnicity" - something which doesn't appear in the summary box of any other bio in this series. Is it a standard element of Wikipedia biography summaries? If so, it should be inserted for all the others. If not, it should be removed as irrelevant - otherwise it gives the impression that his Jewishness is somehow important to his fame. (Mick Gold's quote above is interesting and belongs in a section about Freud's personal views, and/or in a separate article about anti-Semitism and medical science, or whatever.) Magnate (talk) 10:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The parameters for Template:Infobox_Scientist state, "Insert ethnicity. Use this field sparingly or where relevant". In Freud's case I think it is quite relevant. The quote from Freud in the Viereck interview above illustrates this (and it's quite appropriate here; this is a Talk page). Anti-Semitism played a major role in Freud's life and impacted the way he influenced the world. He was part of the brain drain of notable Jews who fled Hitler's Germany. Others include Albert Einstein, whose infobox includes his ethnicity. That's not a minor point. Ward3001 18:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I was not implying that Mick Gold's quote did not belong here - rather I was suggesting that it was interesting enough to belong in the article itself. I am convinced by your explanation that Freud's jewishness is relevant, and it seems to be well covered in the article. My problem is more with the template - I cannot find any bios whose template states the ethnicity of any non-jewish scientists. "Ethnicity" seems to be used only to denote the jewishness of those who are not practicing jews (where it is instead noted under "Religion"). But that's an issue to take up elsewhere. Magnate (talk) 10:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I understand that you weren't arguing about Gold's quote. That's not my point. In your first statement above, you seem to be arguing that Freud's ethnicity does not belong in the infobox, and that's what I was responding to, not whether Gold's quote belongs here. Whether ethnicity is included in the infobox of other articles is irrelevant. If someone wants to add ethnicity to other infoboxes when it is relevant, they are free to do so. Ethnicity should remain in Freud's infobox because the infobox parameters indicate such, and Freud himself acknowledged the importance of his ethnicity. Ward3001 (talk) 17:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Inaccuracy
"Terms such as "penis envy" and "castration anxiety" contributed to discouraging women from obtaining education or entering any field dominated by men, until the 1970s"

Isn't the 1970s a bit late? I'm fairly certain women were in education before then... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lozregan (talk • contribs) 10:25, June 16, 2007 (UTC)

There are so many people out there who have a superficial knowledge of psychoanalysis. It was one of the first disciplines that welcomed women. Freud considered his daughter Anna to be his intellectual heir. Joe2stones 04:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I might have taken you a bit more seriously, Joe2stones, if you hadn't launched into a whiney diatribe about how misunderstood Psychoanalysis is. Just because women were in education before the 1970s doesn't mean that Freud's ideas didn't still "discourage" women from the behaviors mentioned.  The educational system was very much set up to discourage women, and Freud's ideas may have had something to do with that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.62.190.9 (talk) 18:15, July 16, 2007 (UTC)

Family info missing
There seems to be no information at all on Freud's children and descendants? Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 17:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually not even his wife's name is mentioned- was a section perhaps removed in vandalism? Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 17:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Detail on his contributions
The first paragraph credits Freud with "...making a long-lasting impact on fields as diverse as literature (Kafka), film, Marxist and feminist theories, literary criticism, philosophy, and psychology...". Only the last two appear supported or justified by other contents of the article. Please substantiate Freud's contributions to literary criticism, etc. NuclearWinner 21:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Jewish-Austrian?
Uh, this looks weird: "a Jewish-Austrian neurologist". Just say "Austrian", then, if it becomes important later on, get to the Jewish thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.61.9 (talk) 01:30, July 16, 2007 (UTC)

Early Life Needs Better References
While trying to clean up the "tense" issues in the Early Life section (past and present tense mixed, and poor translations abounded), I happened to check the references listed there. Not only are they included altogether, at the end of the paragraph, but they don't appear to be reliable sources of information. One is a web site about eels, with no listing of the creators' credentials, and the other two are duplications of the same NEWSPAPER article from Berliner Zeitung. Surely there are more reputable sources for Freud's early life, education, and career? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.62.190.9 (talk) 18:18, July 16, 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes it is not even so much that the references are a bit odd, but as a whole the section on eels is problematic. Freud's early engagement with this topic concerning eels is an interesting anecdote, yet the paragraph both seems to overstate its importance and, more importantly, it seems to engage in a bit of (unnecessary) psychoanalyzing of Freud himself, in the quick but suggestive mention of Siegfried Bernfeld's question regarding the possible impact of this work on Freud's theories.  It is a bit loaded for an overview of Freud's early life, and suggests, however vaguely and implicitly, that we should see in this early experimental work a blueprint for Freud's motivations, which is, without further substantial evidence and a more robust psychological treatment, baseless speculation. --Phillijv (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Insomnia
It seems like the section on insomnia has nothing to do with Freud. I would assume that someone just pasted the article for "Insomnia treatments" into it, although I haven't checked that article. That section also doesn't cite its sources. Could it be removed, or edited to be related to be Freud in some way? 69.138.183.115 00:53, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

"Creator of a complex pseudoscience"
I restored the quote "However, his theories remain controversial and widely disputed by numerous critics, among them one who called him the "creator of a complex pseudo-science which should be recognized as one of the great follies of Western civilisation" to the second introductory paragraph because I think it provides necessary balance. If someone wants to remove it, I would appreciate discussion on the talk page.  Thanks! NuclearWinner 17:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Should be out, reeks of POV. Comparison: would you write, in an article over Christianity, aspects of which that make could make the religion not true, such as "Well, Christianity viewed by atheists is..." No, you stick to the facts and keep it basic, not elaborate information on what some think. Atheism should hardly be referenced (if at ALL in a Christianity article), so keep that "complex pseudoscience" propaganda point of view out of this. The article should relate to what Freud has done, not someone against his views or methods. It should be left and worth mentioning of his controversial methods, but not certain hand-picked devices to "prove" it and claiming something of that nature. "Disputed amongst critics" is good, saying that it's a type of pseudoscience is pure POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.183.208.237 (talk) 11:50, August 6, 2007 (UTC)


 * I restored the quote. I don't see the POV, since a prominent philosopher is being quoted.  That Richard Webster holds this opinion IS a fact.  Many people share the opinion.  I don't agree at all with your argument that an encyclopedia should describe any particular belief system only from the point of view of adherents.  On the contrary, NPOV requires a balanced portrayal of common views on the topic.  I haven't checked, but I do hope the Christianity article does contain the atheist viewpoint, if it is substantial and documented, and likewise the atheist article should discuss the views of notable dissenters.  Please review the NPOV policy and let me know if there is any requirement that articles should cover belief systems only from the POV of an adherent.  Thanks!  NuclearWinner 22:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I had a few minutes to check the Christianity article. It uses NPOV very nicely in the opening paragraph, which reads "Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.[2] Christians believe Jesus to be the Son of God and the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament, and they see the New Testament as the record of the Gospel that was revealed by Jesus. With an estimated 1.9 billion adherents in 2007, Christianity is the world's largest religion...."  Every one of those assertions is a verifiable fact (NOT an opinion) which can be readily admitted by Christian or non-Christian alike.  Please note that the article does NOT claim that Jesus of Nazareth is the son of God, only that Christians believe him to be.  If you'd like to change the Freud article to include the same approach (e.g. "Freudians believe that the personality consists of id, ego and superego" or whatever, that would make sense. NuclearWinner 19:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's quite important to take note of the large degree of criticism that Freud's ideas have inspired. Doing so does not, in and of itself, constitute taking sides with the critics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.187.124.39 (talk) 03:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree it is important to mention criticism of noteworthy scholars. The introductory area feels inappropriate for it though.  Even leaving the placement aside, Richard Webster is still a stub at WP.  I'm removing the quote, and if it is returned it needs a better reference and a placement lower in the article.  This isn't to say I disagree with the content of the quote, its just the placement and the source that is at issue.  Ryoutou 06:38, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

It should definitely be removed. If one wishes to include prominent philosophers that are critical to articles we can start with Christianity. One wouldn’t have to look far. The intro is not the place for this. Vopat 19 January 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 20:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The intro in fact IS the place to specifically mention notable controversies. In keeping with Wikipedia guidelines for lede section, which says "...The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describing its notable controversies...".  The article on Christianity most definitely should allude to any substantial controversies over it.  I'd certainly encourage you to start on that. NuclearWinner (talk) 09:34, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I see you removed all indication of controversy in the lede, Vopat. It is important to briefly refer to notable controversies in the lede. If you prefer, you can quote a different critic or critics on the nature and extent of controversy over Freud and his theories. However, deletion of content that is on-topic, required according to the guidelines, and referenced is not a good idea. Bottom line: Freud is controversial, the lede must reflect that fact and briefly mention why. Therefore, I have restored the deleted text.NuclearWinner (talk) 01:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The problem is that the degree of detail (actual names and quotations!) at that point reflects not some desire to inform the reader, but rather an aggressively anti-Freudian desire to 'get your retaliation in first': nothing so detailed about *any* of Freud's actual ideas has yet been presented -- and we are *already* being treated to specific utterences of Webster and Grayling! It's *out of proportion*, and demagogic in effect.


 * The solution would be to retain mention of 'controversy' and 'criticism', but *not* to include specific examples or quotations of either. As it stands, the lede is outrageous. I will fix it later, if no-one else has the sense.Pfistermeister (talk) 19:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Příbor and Freiberg
The Czech name of the town did not take effect until 1919 when it became part of Czechoslovakia. When Freud was born it was within the borders of the great Austrian Empire the town's name was Freiberg. I think we should leave the name of the town as it was when he was born. Therefore I am going to change it back to Freiberg.

Norum 20:42, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Příbor/Freiberg was predominantly Czech town at that time and the name Příbor was in everyday use. It was certainly known to Freuds themselves, they lived in a house owned by a Czech locksmith named Zajíc and Sigmund's nanny was also Czech. Austrian Empire was a multinational entity, not a German state. Qertis 22:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * But don't forget that the official language of the Empire was still German with other languages spoken in different parts. I agree that people there spoke mostly Czech, but if you went to an office, you'd have to speak in German.

Norum 17:58, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Norum. Freud saw himself as a representative of German culture within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In interviews, Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud referred to his place of birth as Freiberg. Mick gold 11:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Removed religion on the side
It might not be too notable. Upon a quick glance, a casual reader would see that he was atheist and possibly disregard the Jewish heritage he has. Besides he has referred to himself as a Jew many of times, but he has also said the same about being atheist. Until there's certified sources for either him being either/or, not a clash of both, I say the whole religion on the side mention isn't even needed. Most notable figures of science don't have their religion noted, so I don't see why Freud would. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theseven7 (talk • contribs) 00:46, August 7, 2007 (UTC)


 * First of all, you're wrong that the religion of notable figures of science is not noted. It's frequently noted. Secondly, "Jewish" can refer to both religious beliefs AND to ethnicity. Ethnically Freud identified himself as Jewish, regardless of his religious beliefs. Leave his Jewish ethnicity in the article. Ward3001 01:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * In 1926, Freud told the interviewer George Viereck, "My language is German. My culture, my attainments are German. I considered myself German intellectually, until I noticed the growth of anti-Semitic prejudice in Germany and German Austria. Since that time, I prefer to call myself a Jew." (Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for our Time, 1988, p. 448) (sorry to repeat this) Mick gold 11:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Oscar Nemon
Is there anything remotely controversial about attributing the sculpture in Hampstead to its creator? Why was I summarily reverted?

If any citation is required - by which I assume the reverter means a footnote - I note in passing that much of the information in this article is not footnoted, and in particular there are no citations for any of the other captions. However, as it happens, this one already contains an inline external link (ugh) to the museum, where the FAQ tells you all you need to know (see "Where is Freud's statue?"). -- !! ?? 10:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * "...much of the information in this article is not footnoted": Inadequate sourcing elsewhere does not justify adding additional unsourced material.
 * "...already contains an inline external link (ugh) to the museum, where the FAQ tells you all you need to know (see "Where is Freud's statue?")": If the Nemon article had adequate citations, that might be sufficient. But an external link to the museum is inadequate as a citation. Please see WP:CITE for more details about properly citing sources in Wikipedia. Ward3001 17:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, thanks for the sideways dig at the adequacy of citations in the article that I wrote on Oscar Nemon. The information in that article is drawn from the cited sources - the article in the ODNB and a biography on the website of his estate - but whatever.


 * I think the three words that I added to this article are adequaute supported by the link that I gave above, and the ODNB biography ("his great brooding over-life-size seated figure of Freud himself (bronze, 1930–31, corner of Fitzjohn's Avenue and Belsize Lane, London)"). But far be if from me to insist on adding anything to this article when it is clearly being so fiercely defended against "anyone" editing it. -- !! ?? 09:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Legacy
I removed the following paragraphs: "However, despite the aforementioned criticisms, scientific research has provided some support for Freudian theories[citation needed]. Indeed, recent research on the neuropsychology of dreaming indicates that Freud's dream theory (long thought to be discredited) is consistent with what is currently known about the dreaming brain[citation needed]. These findings have lead to the development of a new discipline, neuropsychoanalysis, which seeks to discover the neurological foundation of psychoanalytic theories[citation needed].

"Freudian theory has given way to dozens of other theories during the 20th century."

Such bold claims certainly need to be supported with evidence. Please cite the research or summaries of it, and please name the dozens of theories and show how Freudian theory has led the way to them. Or just name a few, and ditto. Thanks! NuclearWinner 19:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Georg Groddeck
Maybe the correct spelling is Groddeck, with double D.

This spelling leads to a different link in Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Merquior 17:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC)Merquior

Richard Webster
I think the comments of Richard Webster is nonsense. Richard Webster is not a notable figure. RS1900 05:38, September 12, 2007 (UTC)

Unfair comments
I think the comments of Richard Webster is totally unfair. Richard Webster is not a notable figure. RS1900 —Preceding unsigned comment added by RS1900 (talk • contribs) 05:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC) Who defines who is a notable figure? What does it matter how notable Richard Webster is? I don't understand why he is being unfair. He is another in a growing list of Freud debunkers (Is it true to say that Freud is the most debunked doctor in recent history?). What you need to address is: is he correct? If not, why not?MarkAnthonyBoyle 08:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Richard Webster is not a major academics. His views are not accepted by the academic community. RS1900 02:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * One more thing: You asked 'Who defines who is a notable figure?' Well, Richard Webster has contributed nothing to humanity. Freud was a genius and Webster is a clown. Webster doesn't understand anything about psychoanalysis. RS1900 03:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I just have not read anything by Webster (about Freud, can't speak for his other work) that is original. I have never seen his work cited in any academic discussions about Freud, either. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Unlike, for example, A. C. Grayling, Richard Webster is a highly prominent critic of Freud. His Why Freud Was Wrong, although not actually a very good book, was a major success on a popular level. In that sense, regardless of what might be wrong with his work, Webster is a notable figure, and there's no reason why the article shouldn't mention him.Skoojal (talk) 06:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed unfair comments
The work of Hans Eysenck was highly controversial. Eysenck was famously punched on the nose during a talk at the London School of Economics. If I were there, I would have done the same thing.

Frederick C. Crews is a professor of English and his is not a psychologist.

Richard Webster is a non-notable figure and he is not a psychologist.

I removed their totally useless comments. RS1900 03:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I have no problem with removing Crews and Webster, but Eysenck was a notable psychologist. You're going to have to have much more substance to this allegation of racism, especially how it relates to his opinions about Freud. It's a serious accusation, and you're saying it doesn't make it true. As soon as I find a source I'm restoring information on Eysenck. Ward3001 03:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Hans Eysenck was a supporter of astrology, a pseudoscience. In 1994 he was one of 52 signatories on "Mainstream Science on Intelligence". I don't respect Eysenck. RS1900 03:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

At the time of his death, Eysenck was the living psychologist most frequently cited in science journals. Apart from reviewing the evidence for astrology, Eysenck (& Nias) made two original and important refutations, both of which were subsequently confirmed by others. First, the Mayo zodiac effect was shown in two separate studies to be an artifact of prior knowledge. Second, the claims of John Nelson (that planetary positions can be used to predict shortwave radio quality with about 90 per cent accuracy) were shown to rest on an artifact in calculating the accuracy rate. With respect to other claims, Eysenck & Nias were able to point to various non-astrological explanations, for example much of the acceptance of astrological readings was explained by the Barnum effect. In other words he was investigating any empirical evidence for Astrology, and if he found claims that were unsupported he refuted them. It seems to demonstrate two things: 1, an open mind and 2, scientific integrity. His criticisms of Freud are valid because he examined the evidence and found fraudulent activity on behalf of Freud and no support for his(Freud's) claims (and he is not alone in that!). As for him being a racist, he only reported the facts as he found them (I assume you are referring to his studies of IQ). You can argue with his method and argue that there may be good reasons for the results he found that have less to do with race and more to do with socio-economic factors, which is fine. But I think you need to find actual evidence that he was a racist, and I don't think you will. Furthermore, I don't see what his ideas about race (whatever they were) have to do with the validity of his criticism of Freud. I don't think you can ignore criticism of Freud, from any quarter, just because you don't like it. Just because you say it, doesn't make it so. And just because Freud said it, doesn't make it so. Look at the evidence. If you can do that with an open mind and with all your critical faculties intact, you may find, like Eysenck, that Freud is just like Scientology, persuasive pseudoscience.MarkAnthonyBoyle 06:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The Freud criticisms seem valid to me. I say: put them back in. Roger 06:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

User:MarkAnthonyBoyle, it is clear that you don't like Freud. After reading your comments, I don't think you understand psychoanalysis. I would like you to look at the evidence. And, yes, an open mind and scientific integrity are very important. By making comment such as 'Freud is just like Scientology', you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge about Freud's work.

Sigmund Freud refined the concepts of the unconscious mind, of infantile sexuality, of repression, and proposed a tri-partite account of the mind's structure. His work is very important in the field of Developmental psychology. He showed that the unconscious mind contained repressed memories of childhood experiences, early childhood conflicts and emotions. He also believed that the first five years of life had permanent effect on development. Many psychoanalysts accept Freud basic approach and they have modified some of his ideas. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century.

I don't like Eysenck. However, he was a notable and a respected psychologist. I cannot push my point of view. I must respect Wikipedia's policy of NPOV. Thus, his criticism of Freud should be included. However, Frederick C. Crews and Richard Webster are not psychologists. Their views are irrelevant. Thus, I am removing their comments. RS1900 02:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC) I understand you might not like Eysenck, and I am not defending him other than to say what I did above. You are actually wrong about my understanding of Freud. I have more than a passing aquaintance with his ideas. It's just that I believe he has been shown to be incorrect on just about all of his original contributions. I understand that he is widely regarded, but he has been extensively criticised for quite some time now. In the interest of NPOV I think those criticisms must be noted. I am going to ask for advise here. I don't want to get into an edit war. I think you are wrong to remove the criticisms. It smacks of Hagiography.MarkAnthonyBoyle 03:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I also don't want any edit war. Freud's legacy is in dispute. There are two polarized camps: pro-Freud and anti-Freud. I am pro-Freud and you are anti-Freud! However, I don't want any enmity with you. RS1900 03:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I would like comment from other editors on this issue. RS1900 has removed this section twice. I think the criticisms are valid, they may be very strongly worded, but they reflect the other side of the Freud Wars quite well.MarkAnthonyBoyle 03:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC) According to Richard Webster, author of Why Freud Was Wrong (1995): -		 -	Freud made no substantial intellectual discoveries. He was the creator of a complex pseudo-science which should be recognized as one of the great follies of Western civilisation. In creating his particular pseudo-science, Freud developed an autocratic, anti-empirical intellectual style which has contributed immeasurably to the intellectual ills of our own era. His original theoretical system, his habits of thought and his entire attitude to scientific research are so far removed from any responsible method of inquiry that no intellectual approach basing itself upon these is likely to endure. Other critics, like Dr. Frederick C. Crews, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California at Berkeley, and author of The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute (1995), are even more blunt: -		 -	He was a charlatan. In 1896 he published three papers on the ideology of hysteria claiming that he had cured X number of patients. First it was thirteen and then it was eighteen. And he had cured them all by presenting them, or rather by obliging them to remember, that they had been sexually abused as children. In 1897 he lost faith in this theory, but he'd told his colleagues that this was the way to cure hysteria. So he had a scientific obligation to tell people about his change of mind. But he didn't. He didn't even hint at it until 1905, and even then he wasn't clear. Meanwhile, where were the thirteen patients? Where were the eighteen patients? You read the Freud - Fleiss letters and you find that Freud's patients were leaving at the time. By 1897 he didn't have any patients worth mentioning, and he hadn't cured any of them, and he knew it perfectly well. Well, if a scientist did that today, of course he would be stripped of his job. He would be stripped of his research funds. He would be disgraced for life. But Freud was so brilliant at controlling his own legend that people can hear charges like this, and even admit that they're true, and yet not have their faith in the system of thought affected in any way.

Remove these comments. There are two polarized camps: pro-Freud and anti-Freud. I am pro-Freud. I think the comments of Richard Webster and Frederick C. Crews are totally unfair.

Richard Webster is not a psychologist. He is not a notable person and we do not have his biography on Wikipedia. He studied English literature at the University of East Anglia. The academic community does not accept his comments.

Frederick C. Crews is a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California at Berkeley. His comments on Freud are totally unfair. He is not a psychologist and thus, his unfair comments on Freud are irrelevant. He is known for his highly critical attitude toward Freudianism. Yet in Crews' 1966 study, The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes, he himself took a Freudian tack.

However, the comments of Hans Eysenck are valid. He was a respected psychologist. I have to respect NPOV. RS1900 03:54, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

For those that want to follow some of the Freud Wars tennis match there is a lot of information here: []. MarkAnthonyBoyle 07:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a very interesting debate. I never thought that I will be involved in this type of debate. RS1900 06:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a very long quote which explains the background to the above (deleted) somewhat more pithy quotes. Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc by Malcolm Macmillan reviewed by Reviewed by Frederick Crews, University of California, Berkeley. Until his recent retirement, Malcolm Macmillan was Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Monash University, Australia; he now serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Psychology at Deakin University in the same country.

When Freud declared that the unconscious draws no distinction between real and fantasized events, for example, he was not reporting a testable finding but concocting an excuse for the collapse of his seduction theory, sparing himself the embarrassment of admitting that he had secured no relation at all between supposedly repressed sexual material and the origin of psychoneuroses, and concealing the ominous tendency of his method of inquiry--the one that he kept right on using--to generate false results. 4 Likewise, as Macmillan shows, Freud was led into the conceptual maze of infantile sexuality not by any observation of children but by this same unwillingness to face the seduction debacle forthrightly. Rather than abandon his thwarted belief in the sexual meaning of symptoms, he chose to transplant the blame for precocious eroticism from the "seducer" to the child's own constitution. The result was a veritable funhouse of zones, modes, phases, and drives, proliferating with a wildly cavalier disregard for parsimony. Even "hereditary taint," the all-purpose diagnostic shibboleth that psychoanalysis had supposedly rendered obsolete, eventually found its way back into Freud's theory and acquired an unprecedented phylogenetic grandiosity as his here-and-now explanations, predictions, and therapeutic boasts continued to turn to dust. All in all, psychoanalytic theory became ever more Byzantine, and mental activity was alleged to be ever more "overdetermined," as a consequence of Freud's insistence on salvaging his far-fetched repression etiology by any means necessary. 5

But this is only part of the story. Macmillan's distinctive achievement is to have shown that Freud's excesses also derived from his loyalty to certain key assumptions that he could never bring into doubt. Chief among them was psychic determinism, which in Freud's apprehension meant not just that all mental events bear causes but that regularly observed phenomena must have invariable causes, rooted in physiology. In the tradition of Sulloway (1979), Macmillan shows that Freud remained faithful to the views of his early mentor Theodor Meynert, who conceived of the coupling between one association and its temporal successor as a literal matter of contact between cortical nerve cells connected to one another by nerve fibers. Thus, "[f]ollowing a train of associations in the way Freud did was equivalent to unravelling a chain of causes and so revealing the internal logic of hysteria" (p. 113). This assumption accounts for the bewildering doubleness of Freud's explanatory manner, whereby, for example, dreaming is ascribed both to a struggle over the expression of forbidden wishes and to a regressive flow of excitation.

We would be losing Macmillan's point if we took such parallel descriptions as a mere sign that Freud felt obliged to touch base with physiology from time to time. Rather, his determinism of successive and reversible innervations shaped the very heart of psychoanalytic theory. For a relatively simple instance, consider the idea that every dream expresses a repressed infantile wish. As an inference drawn from the consulting room, it is flatly preposterous; there is no thinkable way of discerning which element of the patient's dream report is a holdover from the nursery. But if we begin from Meynert's schema and assume, simplistically, that each associative chain is a row of dominos extending into the past, the notion becomes at least conceivable. So, too, does Freud's generous array of sexualized and desexualized instincts, none of which have anything to do with clinical observation; they were called into being by a felt need to make his imagined excitations run both forward and backward on the rails of a mechanized psyche.

It was precisely Freud's devotion to physiological determinism that, at the outset of his path toward psychoanalysis, prompted him to rule out suggestion as a possible source of the hypnotic effects induced by Charcot in Paris. Since suggestion varied from one hypnotist to the next, and since science deals with uniformities, suggestion had to be excluded as an insufficiently objective factor:

If the supporters of the suggestion theory are right, all the observations made at the Salpêtrière are worthless; indeed, they become errors in observation. The hypnosis of hysterical patients would have no characteristics of its own; but every physician would be free to produce any symptomatology that he liked in the patients he hypnotized. We should not learn from the study of major hypnotism what alterations in excitability succeed one another in the nervous system of hysterical patients in response to certain kinds of interventions; we should merely learn what intentions Charcot suggested (in a manner of which he himself was unconscious) to the subjects of his experiments--a thing entirely irrelevant to our understanding alike of hypnosis and of hysteria. (Freud, 1888, pp. 77-78; italics added)

If Freud Evaluated poses a cautionary moral, it is that Freud's fatal error lay exactly here. For, in Macmillan's words, "Freud was to be as wrong about hysteria as he had been about hypnosis" (p. 72)--and in just the same manner. Although he made token efforts to reason his way around the obstacle posed by suggestion, he refused to take the phenomenon seriously:

When Freud came to treat his own patients, he never accepted that influences transmitted unconsciously from him to them had important effects upon what they claimed to recall about the origins of their symptoms. His view was that the important determinants of remembering were internal, part of the very fabric of the patient's thoughts, and as impervious to outside influence as the processes determining the phenomena of hypnosis and hysteria at the Salpêtrière were supposed to have been. (p. 73)

The price of this mistake was a record of tragicomic blundering that Macmillan traces from Freud's cases of "Elizabeth von R." and "Dora" through his most arcane feats of system building and those of his successors, who themselves have evidenced a nearly total indifference to suggestion. 6

Freud's dogmatic determinism, Macmillan shows, not only rendered him complacent about the problem of suggestive influence but concomitantly imbued him with excessive trust in the "fundamental rule" of psychoanalysis, free association. Any gaps or peculiarities in a patient's ramblings, he posited, could be ascribed to the patient's enduring repressions rather than to constraints and proddings within the therapeutic dialogue or to trivial chance factors. Hence the central diagnostic claim of classical analysis: that a progressively narrowed study of associations can reliably uncover the causes of a neurosis lying in the infantile past.

By now, of course, that pretension has been thoroughly refuted and, indeed, abandoned by most analysts. Yet their heightened diffidence about arriving at precise reconstructions of early trauma has failed to weaken their reliance on free association as a paramount investigative tool. As Macmillan reminds us, modern analysts fail to grasp that the privileged status of such evidence rested on a number of improbable conceptions: that the mind is a reflex apparatus for fending off stimulation; that memories are inextinguishable; that dreams and symptoms and associations transcribe remote memory traces; that symptoms are acquired from traumas in a fixed sequence of events; that symptoms reenact the sensory content of the original traumatic shock; and that motives or reasons can be treated as if they were physical causes. 7 Absent all that folklore, the probing of free associations dwindles to the amusing but expensive parlor game that, in fact, it always was.

Let us suppose, as a mental exercise, that Freud had not been such a prisoner of his billiard-ball determinism and that we could trust him as a reporter of his own and other investigators' findings. 8 Would his theory then have approached scientific respectability? The question is of interest because even the most orthodox contemporary Freudians acknowledge that Freud left them with a defective doctrine--though there is nothing resembling a consensus about the needed repairs. In Macmillan's view, the most serious demerits of Freud's way of gathering and evaluating data apply with equal force to the approach to psychoanalytic theory formation that prevails today. They are not specific errors of fact and emphasis but fundamental departures from the scientific ethos. For example:

1. Hypothetical entities or processes should be characterized; that is, they ought to possess attributed properties that lend themselves to confirmation outside their immediate role in the theory at issue. If they lack this quality, "[t]heir referents are the very relations they are supposed to explain" (p. 193); they are only placeholders for mechanisms that may not exist at all. 9 This is just what we regularly find in the case of psychoanalytic postulates. A term like repression, Macmillan notes, points to no independently known reality but merely gives a name to the questionable survival of traumatic memory traces in an unconscious which itself remains uncharacterized. Moreover, incompatible burdens are placed upon the term, indicating that the theory behind it is fatally muddled. 10 When repression is then invoked as an explanatory factor in new contexts, true believers may feel that fresh territory is being conquered, but the scope of Freud's circularity is simply being widened. The same flaw of empty conceptualization appears in virtually every feature of his system, from the preconscious through the ego, introjection, the death instinct, and so forth.

2. A theory should not create its own facts. Psychoanalysis, however, does so at every turn. For example, repression is invoked to account for the delayed effect of childhood trauma in producing adult psychoneuroses, but the only reason for believing that such an effect occurs is a prior belief in repression. A dream is regarded as a disguised representation of its latent content, the dream thoughts, but such thoughts can be detected only by Freudian dream interpretation. So, too, castration threats, real or fantasized, supposedly trigger the onset of the male latency period, but the latency period is itself a pure artifact of the theory. Or again, Freud invoked penis envy to explain female submissiveness, masochism, and incapacity for cultural strivings, but in this instance the theory and the "facts" alike derived from cultural prejudice.

3. A theory should have testable consequences; "only if the facts [to be independently verified] can be deduced from the fundamental statements of the theory can we say that they are explained by it" (p. 168). Notoriously, however, Freudian tenets are scarcely challenged, much less refuted, by unexpected outcomes. The vagueness of the theory is such that it can withstand almost any number of surprises and be endlessly revised according to the theorist's whim, without reference to data. Indeed, as Macmillan emphasizes, Freud drew on the same pool of evidence in offering three incompatible etiologies for homosexuality (pp. 352-353), and he did the same in proposing three incompatible paths for the overcoming of narcissism (pp. 358-359). Throughout his whole career of lawgiving, the linkage between evidence and theory was established by rhetorical guile and nothing more.

4. A hypothesis should be treated as such; that is, its adequacy ought to be methodically tested. Instead, Macmillan shows, Freud habitually offered postulates that he labeled as hypotheses but treated as firm expectations or even as certainties. Understandably, premature closure about one issue left him vulnerable to the same mistake with the next one. For example, all the while that he was pretending to be alarmed at his reluctant clinical discovery of sexual factors in hysteria, he was importing the conclusions he had already erroneously reached about the sexual roots of the (nonexistent) "actual neuroses."

5. Finally--though this list could be considerably extended--heed must be paid to the difference between necessary and sufficient causes. An assertion that factor x causes effect y in neurotic group A is vacuous if one merely establishes the presence of factor x in typical members of that group. Even on the most optimistic interpretation (that x is necessary to produce neurosis), x cannot be regarded as a sufficient cause unless, at a minimum, it is shown to be absent from non-neurotic group B. Never once in his psychoanalytic career, however, did Freud conduct such a demonstration or publicly indicate that it was called for. 11 On the contrary, he consistently maintained that all the reassurance of correctness he required was the stream of confirmations that flowed from clinical experience--in other words, from "group A" alone. At his most scrupulous, he was content to find a few cases in which the positive correlation he was seeking appeared, however momentarily, to obtain. A palm reader or faith healer could have done as well.

In summary, we learn from Macmillan that the founder of psychoanalysis, once he had forsaken laboratory work for the care and understanding of neurotics, neither thought nor acted like a scientist; he sincerely but obtusely mistook his loyalty to materialist reductionism for methodological rigor. In fact, it was just the opposite, an inducement to dogmatic persistence in folly. Thus we cannot be amazed--except insofar as we may be veteran subscribers to the Freud legend--that the product of his efforts proved to be a pseudoscience.

Can a pseudoscience be reformed into a science through piecemeal interventions? Freud's successors "tamper with the structures or alter the nature and status of the drives," Macmillan observes, "but their own concepts of drive and structure are inferred from facts gathered by a defective method" (506). A defective method can produce only ersatz results. Although Freud Evaluated shows that nearly everything that can be said against Freudian theory has been pointed out by one uneasy psychoanalyst or another, it also shows that analysis as a whole remains powerless to address the heart of the problem. And understandably so, since a thoroughgoing epistemic critique, based on commonly acknowledged standards of evidence and logic, decertifies every distinctively psychoanalytic proposition. As I indicated at the outset, Macmillan is hardly alone in reaching that conclusion. Now, however, he steps to the forefront of those who have offered a detailed rational basis for affirming it. MarkAnthonyBoyle 11:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I tend to think that Webster's critiques are not significant - or, at least, I see no reason why they are. Given Freud's importance in literary studies, though, and the popularity of psychoanalytic criticism, I do think that Crews's criticism is significant, though it should be contextualized properly. Phil Sandifer 18:07, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the removal of the Crews and Webster material. Full disclosure:  I was the editor who originally added them.  I believe that they add balance that is NPOV.  Some editors of this article want to discuss Sigmund Freud only from within his universe, i.e. accepting all his belief system as true.  This leads to a one-sided portrayal, and a strong pro-Freud POV.  Freud really IS history's most debunked doctor, and we need to make sure people understand - substantively - why that is so.  BTW, calling Richard Webster a "clown" does not inform the debate, unless you do have verifiable second party evidence that shows him dressing in a big red nose and floppy feet, and performing antics in front of a crowd, and further you have reliable evidence showing why this would render his opinions on Freud incompetent or POV.  Mark, please put the material back and let's get some more substantive discussions going. NuclearWinner 17:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, madam, did I ever suggested that everything Freud did was correct? No. How can you say that the comments of Crews and Webster add balance? Madam, they are not psychologist! Their comments are totally one-sided. Please read the this:. I called Webster a "clown" because his comments are so unfair and one-sided. And, he is not even a psychologist! As I said above, only the criticism of Freud by a notable psychologist is acceptable. RS1900 02:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

RS1900: You have made several times the point that Webster is not a Psychologist. It's true. Instead he is an author who has spent a great deal of time gathering reputable sources from a range of disciplines that show the depth and breadth of debate about Freud's legacy. The fact is that the scientific and medical world has moved on from Freud long ago.

A century has passed since Freud started publishing the works that established his reputation as a scientist, healer, and sage, as one of the major thinkers of the 20th century, and as, in the words of the Freudian literary critic Harold Bloom (cited by Webster, p3, ref 1), "the central imagination of our age". Although his standing as a clinical scientist and biologist of the mind has always been precarious among those capable of judging scientific competence, his admirers have by no means been confined to the laity. In 1938, the secretaries of the Royal Society brought him their official charter to sign, "thereby joining his signature with Newton's and Darwin's" (ref 1, p 430). Despite much early hostile criticism-sometimes motivated by overt or covert anti-Semitism-Freud's reputation simply grew. He was, and remains, more famous than his critics, who have often seemed mere detractors. And yet his reputation is deeply mysterious. Esterson (ref 2) has reflected that "the rise of psychoanalysis to a position of prominence in the twentieth century will come to be regarded as one of the most extraordinary aberrations in the history of Western thought". Medawar (ref 3) expressed similar sentiments:

"Opinion is gaining ground that doctrinaire psychoanalytic theory is the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century: and a terminal product as well - something akin to a dinosaur or a zeppelin in the history of ideas, a vast structure of radically unsound design and with no posterity."

The tide now seems to be turning against Freud as the long overdue detailed and systematic appraisal of his contribution to our understanding of the psychobiology and organisation of the human mind, of the place of reason and passion in human affairs, and of the aetiology and treatment of mental illnesses has finally been undertaken. The verdict has been uniformly negative: Freud as a scientist, metapsychologist, and diagnostician of society emerges as a quack. This view has not greatly perturbed true believers. Freud's theories, notoriously, have an inbuilt survival kit: disagreement with them is regarded as a symptom of the very resistance they themselves predict, and therefore counts as confirmatory evidence. Psychoanalysis thus enjoys an extraordinary ability to shake off decisive criticism. The American historian Paul Robinson (cited by Webster ref 1), writing as recently as 1993, asserted that Freud's critics "would do him no lasting damage": [] That was Professor R C TallisRC Tallis, MA, MRCP, FRCP, F MedSci, DLitt, recently Professor of Geriatric Medicine, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. 55 articles on pubmed, 13 citations on Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Guest speaker at The Royal College of Physicians, published in the Lancet, A very reputable source.

and then there is Dylan Evans, who wrote the accepted text on Lacan: Today, the idea that the mind is a computer is central to much work in artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience and even anthropology, but psychology has been the biggest beneficiary. By providing psychology with a precise language in which testable hypotheses can be clearly formulated, the computational theory of mind has given birth to a new field – cognitive psychology – which is arguably the first truly scientific account of how the mind works. People have often attempted to understand the mind by comparing it with the latest technology. In the past few hundred years, the mind has been described as a clock, a watch, a telegraph system, and much else. Freud was not immune to this trend. Borrowing heavily from the science of his own time, the nineteenth-century developments in hydraulics, he conceived of the mind as a system of channels and waterways. The waterways could sometimes be blocked, in which case the fluid would soon overflow into another channel. The problem with all these comparisons is that they were little more than interesting metaphors. They did not help very much to advance understanding of the mind because there was no clear way of generating testable predictions from them. In particular, there was no quantitative dimension to these models. The pressure (Drang) of the ‘mental water’ in Freud’s hydraulic model of the mind was, theoretically, a quantitative (or ‘economic’) phenomenon, but Freud failed to specify a way of measuring it. All this changed with the ‘cognitive revolution’. Comparing the mind to a computer was different from previous technological analogies because the precise language of information-processing allowed testable hypotheses about the mind to be clearly formulated, often in ways amenable to investigation by quantitative methods. Also, there was intuitively much more to motivate the comparison of the mind to a computer than to a clock or an irrigation system. After all, the function of the mind, like that of the computer, is to process information – it is not to tell the time or to distribute water. Unlike earlier comparisons, then, the computational theory of mind could be taken literally; the mind is not just like a computer, it is a computer. The cognitive revolution swept through psychology in the 1960s, displacing the behaviourist paradigm that had held sway since the 1920s. Today, the dominant paradigm in psychology is cognitive. Not only is the mind compared to a computer, but the programs that govern hundreds of specific mental processes have been described in algorithmic detail."[]

NuclearWinner is just reflecting the fact that Freud, while immensely important in cultural terms, is just an historical figure in the wider scientific and medical community. Science has moved on. The article should, at least in some small way, reflect that.MarkAnthonyBoyle 03:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I know that Science has moved on. I also like to make one thing clear: I do not believe that Freud was as great as Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, James Maxwell, Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling. However, I do believe that he was one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. Freud was the first person who tried to explain the unconscious mind in psychological terms. His contributions to psychology cannot be dismissed by non-psychologists. Look at his contributions to developmental psychology. His work has a long-lasting impact on so many different fields. As I said above, Crews and Webster are not psychologists. Their comments are clearly misguided. However, the criticism of Freud by notable and respected psychologists should be included. RS1900 12:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, Crews is not particularly notable as a critique of Freud's psychology. But, properly contextualized, I think he does provide a vital critique of Freud's application to the humanities and to literary study. What is wrong with this approach? Phil Sandifer 13:08, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Restored pseudoscience quote in lead
In keeping with |Wikipedia guidelines for lede section, which says "...The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describing its notable controversies...", I'd like to keep this indication of its notable controversy here in a clear and attributed form, rather than a vague "some critics" remark. See |Avoid weasel words. NuclearWinner 00:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with having that quote in the intro. I am not an adherent nor a great admirer of Freud, but clearly a quote from someone who is not a recognized, rock solid, accomplished person with academic credentials in the field that the article discusses is simply not appropriate for the intro.  For a spot later in the article about critics (literary and professional)?  Certainly.    Ryoutou 07:39, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I acknowledge your disagreement. Is there a specific Wikipedia policy that requires academic credentials for persons quoted in the lede?  Or for that matter, that defines which credentials would be appropriate?  I haven't seen it but would appreciate a pointer.  I agree that Wikipedia guidelines require that the person be someone whose opinion is widely considered of interest or value;  in other words, not an obscure or discredited commentator.  Of course, Richard Webster is not obscure or discredited;  he is a leading Freud critic and commentator, and his books are widely respected and praised.  I'll dig up references supporting these statements when I can.  I have restored his quotation because I believe it is a pithy and specific summary of a major view about Freud.  In comparison, "Some theories are controversial" is vague and unsupported.  NuclearWinner 16:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The two keys I see them are 1) that Richard Webster has no formal professional credentials in the field that I have seen (biographer vs academic), 2) that a direct quote from a vehement critic in the lead would be borderline in an of itself - in any article, and that 3)this specific quote seems particularly POV shifting. I ask myself, would anyone not familiar with Freud progress from the lead without thinking him a quack?  A quack he might have been, but if the answer is no, than it is NPOV.   I'll leave the quote alone until we can build a better consensus.  The best, Ryo 18:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
 * er, not NPOV I mean =) Ryo 19:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the Webster quote and replaced it with a quick mention of the charge of pseudo-science. I certainly wouldn't mind it being reworded a bit from here, but the point is that Webster's quote contributed nothing, the above comments notwithstanding.  NuclearWinner argues that it gives some specificity, since a general mention of criticism is not sufficient; if that was the intention, this particular quote was very poorly chosen, for its only content is the accusation of pseudo-science, and its tone, on the other hand, is so highly polemical as to sound a bit unacademic.--Phillijv (talk) 05:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I put back the Webster quote again because including text like "numerous critics (say...)" without attributing it to anyone specifically runs into problems with the Avoid weasel words guideline. Including a quote from an expert in the subject helps make the statement more specific and provides verifiability for the claim. --  Hi  Ev  15:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S. If you don't think the author is a reliable source then replace that reference to him with someone else, instead of simply removing the text relating to him. Some sort of verification for the "numerous critics" statement is still necessary, and if the critics actually are numerous then it shouldn't be hard to find a replacement. --  Hi  Ev  17:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, replacing Richard Webster with another source referring to the crux of criticism of Freud would be fine. But to replace a specific quote from a valid source with unattributed and vague weasel words....it's just weaselly.  As to Ryo's point, he asks a good question:  "Would anyone not familiar with Freud progress from the lead without thinking him a quack?"  My answer to that is:  YES!  I believe an unbiassed reader would learn from the lede that he has been very influential (very few people dispute that), and ALSO that he is the target of serious criticism going to the heart of the worth of his oeuvre (also rarely disputed).  Hence, we are "briefly describing [the topic's] notable controversies..." as the guidelines require.   Re the claim that "Webster's quote contributed nothing", that point seems untenable.  How is a major expert's trenchant opinion of someone's body of work "nothing"?  Do you claim this statement is irrelevant, not of interest, not encyclopedic, trivial, unsupported, unverifiable?  If so, please be specific in your criticism.  (Otherwise, it looks like you just don't like or approve of the quote, but have no fair grounds on which to attack it.)  Thanks! NuclearWinner (talk) 19:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The tremendous problems of the Webster quote are quite clear, and I gave an indication of my reasoning above, but I will elaborate here. The content of the quote can be summed up in two points: (a) Freud's body of work is pseudoscience, and (b) it is one of the greatest follies of history.  The former claim is one shared by many of Freud's more vehement critics, and may warrant mention in the article.  The latter, however, is, as I stated above, so overblown as to be unacademic.  Certainly we should avoid 'Weasel' statements, and some attribution could be used to avoid generalities of what "the critics" say, yet in the case of the Webster quote there is a problem which, I would argue, is far more detrimental to a serious academic article than even "weasel" statements:  polemics.  The quote is not only heavily polemical, but is aggravated further in its placement here in the lead without context.  You claim that its author, Richard Webster, is a "major expert," yet that is also somewhat debatable.  As others have noted, his training is in Literary Theory -- not psychology, not psychoanalysis.  The work from which the quote is drawn is Why Freud Was Wrong (not, in point of fact, the article cited - it is secondarily quoted there as part of a debate), of which I have read several long sections, and which attacks Freud from two angles - the first is an accusation of a lack of scientific rigor, and the second is a half historical, half speculatively psychological portrait of Freud's motives.  The latter is not particularly nuanced, insightful, or balanced; here's another, more telling excerpt for you:


 * "The tragic predicament of such intellectuals is that, driven by terrifying feelings of emotional emptiness and insecurity, they mistakenly conclude that intellectual truths can be an adequate substitute for emotional warmth."


 * I also searched for reviews of Webster's book, to gain a bit more perspecive, and turned up two reviews in high profie scholarly publications. One was printed in The Quarterly Review of Biology, and is overall favorable - yet the author of the review admits from the start that he has only a general understanding of Freud based in secondary literature; also, the focus is on the more scientific sections of the book, not the historical critique of Freud that in fact occupies such a prominent place in Webster's text.  The other review is from Isis, an academic journal whose focus is the history of science, medicine, and technology.  This reviewer, who in the same issue criticized another writer for not being at all critical of Freud, heavily faults Webster's book for exaggerating what would be sound criticisms to the point of absurdity, and also for repeated factual errors regarding Freud's theories.  I mention this to bring some context to the claim that Webster is a noteworthy scholar in this field - he is noteworthy in general, yet the reception of this book is clearly mixed, and you only make the problem far worse by taking an inflammatory statement out of context.


 * In short, all the quote adds to the article is the claim of pseudoscience, which is fine in itself, yet the quote also detracts from the tone of the intro and attempts, I would say, to bowl over the reader by offering a hyperbole.  Webster's statement that Freud is one of the greatest follies of our intellectual history is not necessary and not, I would argue, shared by Freud's more sober critics.  It should, without question, be removed.  Again, regarding this claim of Weasel words, I have no problem with mentioning Webster's name in passing and citing pseudoscience as a criticism, but the quote performs exactly the same negative funciton as "weaseling" due to its placement here -- it suggests to the uninformed reader that Webster is regarded as a scholar in this subject area, which is disputable, and then hangs a polemical quote from this authority.  It must be removed in order for the intro to regain a measure of integrity. --Phillijv (talk) 13:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Colorized photo
I reverted the colorized photo of Freud back to the black and white version for several reasons. First, the page with the copyright info on the colorized photo links to the black and white version at the Library of Congress. My assumption is that the editor who added the color photo did the colorizing, which is original research and against Wikipedia policy. Secondly, there is no evidence that Freud actually looked like the new elements of the colorized version. My personal opinion is that his hair looks blond in the color photo, and I feel quite certain Freud never had blond hair. And finally, there is no reason to believe that the Wikipedia community wants colorized photos. This should have been discussed here on the Talk page before it was added. Ward3001 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Some changes in spelling
Some prankster was changing "as" to "ass". Example: Psychoasslyst. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.226.249.122 (talk) 08:40, October 18, 2007 (UTC)

Also in the Notes section under number 25 it says: Corey, Gerald (2000). Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy. 6th ed. ISBN 0534348238 should be changed to: Corey, Gerald (2000). Theory and Practice of Counselling and Psychotherapy. 6th ed. ISBN 0534348238 Because Counselling is spelt wrong. TheMightySultan 04:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)TheMightySultan


 * Counseling is the correct form. Thanks for finding the Psychoasslyst prank, though. Master of Puppets Care to share?  04:18, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

"Some of his theories remain controversial."
Rather an understatement, no? 71.167.62.213 20:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)


 * No kidding. the man was retarded, and just about every one of his theories hold about as much water as darwinism. DurotarLord (talk) 17:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Wrong link
The link to the book psychopathology of everyday life is wrong(goes to an album)! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.49.187.51 (talk) 14:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's remove the reference to A. C. Grayling, shall we?
A. C. Grayling has no particular importance as a critic of Freud. Grayling's criticisms of Freud and psychoanalysis are not original, he has never written a full-length book about them, so there is no good reason why he should be mentioned, along with Webster, as one of Freud's main critics. The article as it stands gives Grayling a prominence he hardly deserves.

(And I see that someone has just put the reference to Grayling back in. In response to the editor who re-inserted it, let me remark that the problem is not only that it's Grayling who is saying this, the problem is that 'the judgment of time seems to be running against him' is a vague, rhetorical and unclear observation that doesn't belong in a serious or objective article.)

Skoojal (talk) 05:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As I said in the edit summary, it seems a correct observation - an equivalent more appropriately sourced would be better, but it is an important point, rather pithily put I think, and Grayling is a serious figure. It should not just be removed. Johnbod (talk) 23:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It is hard to say whether the observation is correct or not, since is so vague that it could mean any of several rather different things. That is a good enough reason why it should not be there. My guess is that all it amounts to is that Freud got it all wrong, but since that is also what the quote from Webster amounts to, the article is saying the same thing in two slightly different ways. It simply does not need both quotes. Regardless of whether he is a 'serious figure' or not, Grayling has never contributed anything original or significant to criticism of Freud, and it is obviously totally inappropriate to include his musings in this article.

(I have again removed the comments by Grayling from the introduction to the article, among other reasons because they are also included in the 'critical reactions' section. If anyone is going to re-insert them, I challenge them to explain why this article should repeat the same comments by Grayling twice).

Skoojal (talk) 04:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, this may not NEED to be in the lede. But it does seem helpful as a pithy summary of a typical critical viewpoint.  I don't agree that it is hard for you or me to say whether or not "the judgment of time is running against ".  (I can readily assert that the judgment of time is running AGAINST phrenology).  However, even if it were, the point is that A. C. Grayling thought about it, and said it, and had it printed in a serious publication with a wide circulation.  No reader needs to AGREE with this point, and no editor needs to be able to make this assertion independently;  in fact, readers and editors can draw their own conclusions, as long as we give them enough information.


 * The same quote definitely should not be in two places though.


 * As far as describing Grayling as a person "who has never written a full-length book on Freud", it seems to be POV to use that yardstick as the chief descriptor, so I have removed it. It would be more helpful to say what he HAS written about Freud, psychoanalysis, other "philosophies that capture the imagination", philosophy of science, etc. and let the reader judge whether that qualifies him as a useful commentator.  Or we could just let his reputation stand on his Wikipedia entry.  NuclearWinner (talk) 01:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think there was any necessary reason to remove my remark about Grayling; it is a relevant piece of factual information that readers of the article may find helpful. However, I don't intend to reinsert it.Skoojal (talk) 08:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your edits skoojal regarding AC Grayling. His quote was a sourced addition to a rounded criticism of Freud's theories, and gives the reader an idea of the frequency and consistency of such criticisms. I agree with Johnbod that it should not have been removed and the inserting of a criticism of Grayling was not appropriate and came across as misleading.  Psychmajor902 (talk) 08:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Johnbod made an error of judgment in re-inserting Grayling's comment, since, as I pointed out, it is included elsewhere in the article. My opinion remains that the comment should not be in the article at all. Nothing that you say, Psychmajor902, helps to make your case. The point that criticism of Freud is widespread can, and should, be made without mentioning the views of someone who has never contributed anything of significance to that criticism. As for my remark about Grayling, relax, for heaven's sake. Accurate though it is, I've already said that I'm not going to put it back in. Skoojal (talk) 04:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * As I've said elsewhere, the problem is that the degree of detail (actual names and quotations!) at that early point reflects not some desire to inform the reader, but rather an aggressively anti-Freudian desire to 'get your retaliation in first': nothing as detailed about *any* of Freud's actual ideas has yet been presented -- and we are *already* being treated to specific utterences of Webster and Grayling! It's *out of proportion*, and demagogic in effect.


 * The solution would be to retain mention of the widespread and continuing 'controversy' and 'criticism', but *not* to include specific examples or quotations of either in the lede. As it stands, the lede is outrageous. Seriously: it's the kind of thing no-one would ever think of writing in the case of a worker in any other investigative field. Pfistermeister (talk) 19:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Criticism of Freud should certainly be mentioned in the article. The question is exactly how it should be represented. I have no problem with Webster being mentioned, but his comments should not be in the introduction to the article. To mention Webster there suggests that he is representative of Freud's critics in general, which, as a matter of fact, he is not. Some of Webster's views are idiosyncratic, and many of Freud's critics would be eager to disassociate themselves from some of the claims he makes in Why Freud Was Wrong. Giving Webster such prominence does an injustice both to Freud and to Freud's other, less idiosyncratic critics.Skoojal (talk) 04:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * In keeping with |Wikipedia guidelines for lede section, which says "...The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describing its notable controversies...", notable controversies should be DESCRIBED, and they should be done in a specific and attributable form. As it stands, your edits take away specific attributed criticism and replace it with weasel words.  See |Avoid weasel words.  Since you object to Grayling and Webster, you are encouraged to find other Freud critics who you feel are more representative or less idiosyncratic.  I'll continue to look myself, and I hope you will too, but if in a week's time, all we have of criticism in the lede is vague weasel words ("...some critics..."),  then I will feel that restoration of those quotes is in order. NuclearWinner (talk) 18:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * In this case the lead cannot stand alone as a concise overview of the article, or not in the form that you suggest it should. I have included a longer response in a new section explaining why not. Your suggestion that 'some critics' (I'm not sure why those quotation marks are there, because that is not an actual quotation from the article) is weasel words seems wrong to me. Certainly you do nothing to explain why it is correct.


 * Skoojal (talk) 00:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)