Talk:Sigmund Freud/Archive 4

Suicide? Isn't it better to use the term euthanasia?
Wouldn't it be better to say his doctor euthanized him rather than that Freud committed suicide? He was suffering from severe cancer. I see that as putting him to sleep rather than that being suicide.63.89.177.229 (talk) 07:15, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Concerns about Related Articles
Would people who watch this page please check out the articles Psychohistory and Early infanticidal childrearing? They seem to claim or suggest some relation to Freud. But I have concerns that they marginalize notable (let alone majority or mainstream) views in favor of one person's fringe view, and may present pseudoscience as science. I was once involved in a flame war with one of the principle authors and it would be inappropriate for me to speedy delete or even nominate for deletion either of these. This may not be apparent as someone recently archived most of the talk history. Be that as it may, these are two articles that have somehow been off the radar. I would appreciate it if well-infrmed editors would look at them and comment, or discuss the appropriate course of action. thanks, Slrubenstein  |  Talk 23:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I have moved Richard Webster's remarks
And I mean moved, not deleted. His remarks are still in the article, just in a different section. Before anyone decides to shift them back to where they were, please consider the comments I have made about this in the 'Let's remove the reference to A. C. Grayling, shall we?' discussion above. Richard Webster does not represent Freud's critics, and it is a serious mistake to suggest that he does. Skoojal (talk) 20:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Reply to NuclearWinner on the editing of this article
NuclearWinner, I am afraid that your comments sound to me like a threat of edit war. I would just as rather not get involved in an edit war, and I hope that you don't want to either. This is an important issue, so I am going to explain in some detail why I made those changes, and why you would be making a mistake in changing the article back again. Here goes.

Criticism of Freud is not a new phenomenon. People have been attacking Freud and his theories, on different grounds and in a variety of different ways, for many decades. The 'different grounds' part of that has to be stressed. Freud's critics are a rather diverse bunch, and the criticisms they make of Freud are sometimes contradictory and incompatible with each other. To give two examples, some people have attacked Freud for being too liberal, while other people have attacked him for being too conservative; some people have attacked Freud for being too humanistic and orientated toward literature, while other people have attacked him for being too scientistic and reductionist. The fact that Freud's critics do not like Freud does not necessarily mean that they like each other. Sometimes critics of Freud dislike each other just as much as they dislike Freud.

One has to keep this in mind if one wants to understand the sort of criticism that has been directed against Freud over the last three decades. Especially during this period, critics of Freud have attacked and criticised each other almost as much as they have attacked and criticised Freud and psychoanalysis; this is one of the reasons why such an extremely large number of books and papers criticial of psychoanalysis have been written, many times more than the number that would have been written had critics of Freud only been concerned with criticising Freud and the Freudians. Thus, while the philosopher Adolf Grunbaum is a critic of Freud, his book The Foundations of Psychoanalysis is highly criticial of the way that Karl Popper, another philosopher who was also a critic of Freud, dealt with psychoanalysis (Grunbaum also criticised philosophers Jurgen Habermas and Paul Ricoeur, both of whom were also more or less criticial of Freud, but in a different way from either Popper or Grunbaum). The publication of that book lead to the writing of many papers dealing with the details of Grunbaum's arguments, some of which take sides with him and others against him, but all of them more directly concerned with Grunbaum than with Freud.

Another example of this is the controversy that has swirled around Jeffrey Masson. Jeffrey Masson is a well known critic of Freud, yet scholar Peter Swales, who is also a well known critic of Freud, is a bitter personal enemy of Masson. You can read about that in Janet Malcolm's book In the Freud Archives, if you want the grisly details. Indeed, there is no question that Jeffrey Masson has been by far the most controversial and divisive figure in the Freud critic versus Freud critic wars. Much of the literature about Freud that has been written since Masson's notorious book The Assault on Truth, which charged that Freud might have abandoned his so-called seduction theory because he did not have the courage to confront society with the reality of child sex abuse, has attempted to debunk both Freud's and Masson's versions of events. People have apparently been motivated to do this, in addition to the flaws and inaccuracies that they perceive in Freud's and Masson's accounts of this episode, by dislike for both men's sexual politics. This is where Richard Webster comes into the picture. His book Why Freud Was Wrong (which might more accurately have been titled Why Freud And Masson Are Both Wrong) is mainly a derivative popularization of the work of numerous other critics of Freud. Its lack of originality did not prevent it from becoming an enormous popular success, however. Why Freud Was Wrong was sufficiently sucessful that Masson felt the need to write a revised edition of The Assault on Truth responding to Webster's criticisms of him.

Masson's postscript to the revised 1998 edition of The Assault on Truth shows what he thinks of Webster: '...Webster repeats what has become a familar theme in recent years: Memories of sexual abuse are real, powerful, and have deep effects on the lives of those who remember, but psychoanalysis has been responsible, throughout most of its history, for denying this reality; therefore, when those memories have been retrieved via therapy, of any kind, they are suspect. Webster then puts the blame for the current interest in these "recovered memories" primarily on me and Judith Herman. I should make it clear that my interest in writing The Assault on Truth had nothing to do with the recovery of memories. I was interested in the reality of sexual abuse, so the topic of recovered memories is not one I address in any depth in this book.

Webster then goes on to claim that it is because of my stinging indictment of the profession that would not acknowledge the truth of abuse, that analysts and other therapists hastened to add the treatment of sexual abuse in childhood to their therapeutic armamentarium. He further claims that these therapists are deriving their inspiration from the early Freud, just as I suggested they do. The problem, he says, is that there is actually no evidence whatever that Freud's patients had been abused - and he claims, as do now a number of other scholars, that Freud foisted these memories onto his patients; that in fact, they are false memories. As proof, they point to several sentences in Freud's early papers where he does indeed refer to how active he was in bringing about the recovery of memories. But I must stress here that we do not at present possess, and probably never will, enough documentary evidence of how, precisely, Freud conducted his therapy in the early days, say between 1895 and 1900. All we have are his published writings, in which few particulars are given, and his far more detailed correspondence with Wilhelm Fliess, which I edited in a complete edition for Harvard University Press. That correspondence indicates that Freud had patients of both kinds: those who always remembered the abuse, and those who remembered it only during therapy. The letters, however, are so sketchy on this matter that it would be impossible to say anything definite about it.

Webster, however, is convinced that "there is no evidence that any of the patients who came to Freud without memories of sexual abuse had ever suffered from such abuse." He is wrong, since Freud himself says very explicitly, in his 1896 paper "The Aetiology of Hysteria" (which I include as Appendix B in this book) that "I have been able to obtain an objective confirmation . . . in two. In one instance, it was the brother [who had remained well] who of his own accord confirmed . . . the fact that there had been sexual relations . . ." That is a very clear statement that Freud believed he had objective proof of the sexual abuse, apart from the memory, present or retrieved, of a patient.

Webster is not only wrong in his facts, however; he goes on to make an equally serious error of logic. For the fact that "there is no evidence" of abuse does not necessarily mean that there was no abuse. No evidence is not equivalent to "it never happened." But this is exactly what Webster goes on to say, for in the same paragraph where he says there is no evidence, he writes that "Freud frequently tried to persuade women who had not been abused [my italics] to believe that they had." So he glides from no evidence to no abuse. Webster cannot know whether these women were abused or not.'

(from The Assault on Truth, 1998 edition, pages 320-322).

This is one of several reasons why it would be a terrible mistake to represent critics of Freud with Richard Webster. Critics of Freud are divided into different camps on the basis, among other things, of sexual politics. By representing all of them with Richard Webster, the article was effectively siding with one brand of sexual politics against a different brand of sexual politics. That was a violation of neutrality. It was no more fair or reasonable than it would have been to, for example, represent Jeffrey Masson as Freud's main critic. There is an additional reason why it is wrong to represent Webster as Freud's main critic: his flawed theories about cultural history. Much of Why Freud Was Wrong is taken up with arguing that Freud was a 'Judeo-Christian' thinker and that psychoanalysis is really a disguised version of 'Judeo-Christian orthodoxy'. This is an extremely distorted and inaccurate view of cultural history, and Webster argues for it in a way that is amateurish and unscholarly, ignoring contrary evidence and distorting evidence to suit. Frederick Crews and Allen Esterson have both disassociated themselves from Webster's views on this matter (see http://www.richardwebster.net/freudandthejudaeochristiantradition.html and http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=151). This part of Webster's book is just an embarrassment.

Because Freud's critics are divided into different camps, it is wrong not only to suggest that Richard Webster represents all of them (I have given three examples of Freud's other critics distancing themselves from or rejecting specific claims of Webster's, so there can be no doubt about this), but to suggest that any one figure or couple of figures could properly represent them. Frankly, NuclearWinner, your comments show that you do not understand this problem. There simply is no way in which a short introduction to an article about Freud can include 'specific attributed criticism' in a way that does not drastically violate its neutrality. Skoojal (talk) 00:30, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I appreciate all the time and effort you put into the above paragraphs. I'm sorry to say that you do not convince me that it is preferable to refer to "...numerous critics..." with no further detail, than to include sourced statements spelling out the nature of the criticism. It is not necessary to "properly represent" ALL critics in the quoted statements in the lede. As you note, the task is herculean. It is only necessary to "briefly describe" the "notable controversies". You've removed specific description and left in its place a vague statement that is of no use to the reader ("...disputed by numerous critics..." begs the question "on what grounds"?). My invitation stands for you to research and include criticism that you feel is less idiosyncratic or more representative. Fortunately, there are a hundred or more critics whose opinions could be quoted. NuclearWinner (talk) 01:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * NuclearWinner, the statement that some critics question Freud is obviously of use to readers, since it indicates that more information exists if they want it. The question, 'on what grounds?', can easily be answered by any reader who takes the trouble to read the article. I think readers who actually care about the issue can be trusted to do that.


 * I will repeat what I think has already been made perfectly clear, which is that no criticism could be representative in the short space of an introduction. That is not, as you seem to be suggesting, because not absolutely all critics can be represented, but because not even the main different groups or tendencies of criticism can be represented. Even briefly describing the notable controversies is not possible. Your demand that one critic or two critics out of many must be selected destroys all possibility of objectivity. Richard Webster is a bit of a joke, and if he is the critic selected, then this article will become a bit of a joke. Skoojal (talk) 01:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I see a possible edit war brewing here. Without taking sides, I would like to avoid that, and I think we need a broader sample of opinions on this issue to develop consensus. I suggest that we make a request for comment on Biographies. We would need a "brief, neutral statement of the issue". If you agree, I suggest that each of you place such a statement on my talk page so that I can use both to develop a statement that is as neutral as possible. Ward3001 (talk) 02:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * All that this article needs to do in order to become neutral is for the introduction to say that Freud's theories are disputed, and direct them to the critical reactions section. Insisting that the introduction must mention the specific criticism of one writer or a couple of writers is simply a way of demanding that the article not be neutral. I think I can agree to Ward3001's suggestion, but only as a second-best option, if people are unwilling to do the sensible thing. Skoojal (talk) 03:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not asking for a neutral statement for the article. I'm asking for a one-sentence, neutral statement to post with the request for comment on Biographies. For example: "Should the lead of Sigmund Freud make specific mention of critic Richard Webster?" But I'd like to know what User:Skoojal and User:NuclearWinner think the statement should say. I personally am not jumping into this debate. I just want an RfC to get a broader consensus. Ward3001 (talk) 03:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ward3001 wrote, 'I'm asking for a one-sentence, neutral statement to post with the request for comment on Biographies. For example: "Should the lead of Sigmund Freud make specific mention of critic Richard Webster?" ' There should be no reason to do this, since, for all the reasons I have indicated, the answer to that question is no. Skoojal (talk) 03:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Ward3001, for your proposal. I can set your mind at ease about an edit war since I do not engage in them.  I am happy for you to craft the question to RFC, and I would suggest that it be along the lines of, "Should the lede 1) include specific critical quotes, or 2) exclude specific critical quotes and just refer to the numerousness of critics?"  Or even, "How might we best "briefly describe" the "notable controversies"?"  (I believe it is readily possible in this and indeed, any article.)  I am not proposing that Richard Webster or A. C. Grayling are the best critics by any means;  I am suggesting that any specific and cogent statements are much more useful to a reader than just a reference to numerousness of critics.  The field is wide open for anyone to propose quotes that would better illuminate the existence and nature of Freud criticism, and the grounds for it.  As Skoojal suggests, Freud's critics are numerous indeed, and highly varied in their tack on the topic.  No Freud supporter need fear this.  Thanks again for your very kind and constructive suggestion.  NuclearWinner (talk) 04:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The lead should definitely not mention Webster or any one critic by name. The ntroduction should introduce the article in a general way, and lay out the major elements of the article. that there have always been critics of Freud's work should be mentioned in the introduction but there is NO way to mention only one critic without violating NPOV. The real way to improve this article is to convince Skoojal to donate enough of his/her time to develop the section on criticisms, so that it provides an accurate, NPOV and encyclopedic account of the various criticisms and their context/background - in the body of the article. it cannot be fit into the introduction, and good introductions simply do not go into such detail. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 13:56, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Criticism in the lead
Should the lead to Sigmund Freud name specific critics, such as Richard Webster and A. C. Grayling, or should it make a general statement of the extent of the criticism without mention of specific critics? (For previous discussion, see here and here above.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ward3001 (talk • contribs) 00:57, 7 February 2008


 * No to the first, yes to the second There is a great body of criticism of Freud; the kinds of criticisms vary widely, and often include criticisms of other critics of Freud. This should be coveredin a section in the body of the article, in detail.  But it cannot be explained in the introduction.  And to single out one, two or even three critics would violate NPOV by giving them undue weight when there are so many other kinds of criticisms. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:38, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * In the lead, the reader wants to read about Freud, not his critics. I agree that naming individual critics in the lead is undue weight and that a survey of criticism should be carried in the body of the article. Wm (talk) 08:41, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I concur exactly with the two editors above: provided that the detailed criticisms are present in the body of the article, to place them in the lead would give undue weight. Kim Dent-Brown   (Talk)  01:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Count me as number four. The article should attribute the criticisms (especially if you can bluelink their sources).  The lead should not. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 05:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Winnicott a Freud student...???
Does anyone know if there is a good reason to have Donald W. listed among Freud's students in the Freud infobox? There's no mention of him studying with Freud in his own article, and the chronology is hard to reconcile anyway... Pfistermeister (talk) 03:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * According to Martha Nussbaum's introduction to the Routledge Classics reprint of Winnicott's The Family and Individual Development, Winnicott was an associate of Melanie Klein. There is no mention of him having studied directly under her, and certainly no mention of him having studied under Freud.  I will delete the ref in the infobox. Lexo (talk) 00:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

overemphasis on negative criticisms and "Gossip"
There are more internal links in the section devoted to negative criticisms than the entirety of the discourse on Thoery ,Practice, and Philosophy. In both Theory and Biography, this contribution has strikingly negative "gossip"-like tendencies.

J.I.Flores —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.151.21 (talk) 16:30, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I have removed all mention of A. C. Grayling from the article
I have a good reason for doing this. In his article in the Guardian, Grayling does nothing except to repeat and endorse criticisms of Freud already made by other people. It is inappropriate for the article to cite Grayling, instead of the other, more distinguished critics of Freud whose views he simply repeats, in some cases without mentioning their names. Original criticisms of Freud are fine; however, it is an insult to the people Grayling is merely echoing to mention him rather than them. Skoojal (talk) 05:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Can I add a section on Sigmund being a nut? (Just Kidding)
I think we need a bigger section on arguements against Freuds thoughts. I think much of the world does not accept some of his ideas, and we should explain that.Monkeymonday (talk) 20:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You're quite right Monkeymonday; much of the world indeed does not accept some (or any) of Freud's ideas. However, I think that this is already made sufficiently clear in the article. Skoojal (talk) 21:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Freuds theories, especially his model of the psychodynamics of the human personality, still affect modern psychological models (whether they acknowledge it or not). He was a very wise and a very influential nut. CWatchman (talk) 14:59, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Universalism
Maybe this article should be mentioned somewhere, too. Though I have not read it until now I am quite sure that it will be worthwhile reading. And, maybe, some quotation of/from Bose about the Oedipus complex should be cited.
 * 1978. "Buried Memories on the Acropolis. Freud's Relation to Mysticism and Anti-Semitism", International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 59 (1978): 199-208. (Jeffrey Masson und Terri C. Masson)
 * Austerlitz -- 88.72.30.107 (talk) 13:55, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe the article should be mentioned. Many articles have been written about Freud, however, and Freud page cannot mention all of them. What is it specifically about this article that you think makes it worth mentioning? Skoojal (talk) 20:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Psychology Conference, Clark Univeristy, September 1909
I have a copy of a copy of a photo of the large group at this conference. It was given to me in a pile of things from an estate. About 35 people in the picture. I wonder which article it might be relevant to upload to. I looked around the web and did not see a similar large group photo anywhere. I think it is pretty interesting and worth seeing. It has William James, Franz Boaz, McKeen Cattel, Ferenczi, Jastrow, Meyers, Seashore, Titchner, Jones, lots of others. Suggestions please. Fremte (talk) 21:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I am completely new to Wikipedia in this regard. Someone has, rather unamuslingly changed Freud with penis, throughout the entire article. How can that be changed back? Is there a function that allows someone to change the article to an earlier version?

Jung a doctoral student of Freud!?!?
Jung, by the time of his association with Freud, was already a medical doctor practicing psychiatry. They were always more colleagues than they were master and disciple. Jung eventually left the psychoanalytic movement to persue his own ideas.

138.89.41.119 (talk) 21:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * You make a good point, not only for Jung, but also for others listed as his "doctoral students". The same holds true for "doctoral advisor": Although Freud collaborated with and drew ideas from Charcot and Breuer, I would not say that they were his "doctoral advisors". I hope others will respond here. If not, I think if there is not any cited evidence for each of the names in the lists of both "doctoral students" and "doctoral advisor", they should be deleted. Ward3001 (talk) 22:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Freud May Not Have Been Wrong
What Freud is most famous for with the general public regarding his theories, is all that stuff about "size compensation" and "penis envy," etc. Another thing he is famous for is how some of what he taught was sumed up in "men marry their mothers, and women marry their fathers" because, according to the theory, men and women secretly sexually desire the parent of the opposite sex, but, the ego rechanels that unaceptable energy into something more socially acceptable. Regarding that theory, that is that people "marry their parents," the theory may not be wrong, although, not so much because of some "secret sexual desire" but because of genetics. Simple common sense dictates, that if we get a set of genes, we get a set of acquired characteristics, and with those characteristics certain preferences are also inherited. If a guy likes tall blondes, chances are his son will have a genetic predisposition for liking tall blondes. That is, men do not desire their mother, and women do not desire their father, and it may not be so much this, so much as an acquired genetic predisposition to be attracted to a given type of individual. Because our understanding of human genetics is still limited, this is all conjecture.

Again; a man marries a tall blonde because that is what he likes, just because his son likes tall blondes that does not mean he has an "oedipus complex" so much as the likely fact that he inherited his dad's predisposition for liking that particular type of woman. Freud's observations may not have been wrong after all, if you throw genetic inheritance into the mix. Women may be similarly affected; if a woman is attracted to a given type of man, it probably only means she shares personality characteristics with her mother. It would be nice if a Psychologist would explore this more deeply; at the risk of breaking the rules of protocol, I had to throw this out there, for anyone interested to pick up. I figure, Wikipedia is widely read so, any Psychology student, hopefully a grad student, should explore this further for their disertation or something. We do not know for sure though, if sexual attraction is also governed by DNA, that is, sexual attraction to a specific combination of physical and personality traits. Regarding his other theories I am not sure, but, on a genetic standpoint, while I feel Freud may have been correct about people marrying people similar to their parents, I believe the man's interpretation was wrong. It is not so much "secret but unaceptable" attraction, which causes the so-called "Oedipus" and "Elektra" complexes, but, I have to insist, its all genetic. It may be possible, given this argument, that men may even marry their fathers. Not so much a homosexual thing, but, sometimes certain personality traits may be inherited from a parent of the opposite gender. Say, a woman likes her partners mentally tough but deep down kind hearted. If that woman gives birth to a male child, and he grows to manhood having inherited more his mother's personality traits and tastes than his father, it is entirely possible that in women he may look for the "mentally tough but deep down kindhearted" personality traits. That is, who we are attracted to may not be entirely restricted to gender.

It would be interesting if someone out there could explore this. My apologies for violating protocol, but, if any Psychology grad student can get their hands on this, hey, feel free to steal it. That is why I posted it.

206.63.78.51 (talk)stardingo747 —Preceding comment was added at 06:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Freud wasn't wrong, per se, and I'm sure studies have been done on this. There is probably a fancy name for this theory that we don't know. I've also heard it theorized that people strive to create a new home life (as in, once they move out of their parents' houses) similar to their own, and thus assume the role of the parent of the same sex as them, and subconsciously look for someone with qualities similar to their parent of the opposite sex. Maybe not physical qualities, but say, mental, like in the way women whose mothers were victims of spousal abuse from their fathers generally end up with abusive husbands. Hence the whole cycle of abuse thing.


 * Does anybody know if there is a specific name for this, or are we just crazy? Agelseb (talk) 23:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This is all fascinating, but this isn't supposed to be a page for general discussion about Freud. Skoojal (talk) 08:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Anna O / Breuer relationship
See Lucy Freeman book Freud & Women (or Women and Freud cant remember). This book details the way that Anna O (real name Bertha who may even have been distantly related to him), projected onto Breuer - for example she had suffered from paralysis and loss of vision which when B hypnotised her in an attempt to cure her - she then began the mumbling thing, he would ask her (for eg with vision 'when was the last time you could see?' and in her reply - which Freud later suggested had to evoke an emotional connection in the response other wise wouldnt work - after she came out of the hypnotic state she was no longer vision impared) she apparently named it 'the talking cure' herself. What I think is important to mention is that the last visit Breuer made to Bertha he ran out on her (they hadn’t got the projection thing down yet), he ran because she instead of being paralysed, having vision issues she was in a phantom child birth with his baby, apparently his wife also asked him to stop seeing her every day. She moved away and ran a safe house for women and has been recorded as stating - when it was suggested that one of the girls in her care go to a psychologist - something along the lines of over my dead body. Projection should be clearly outlined or linked and stubbed for more work to be put on / into it. if thats cool will check the reference Beatdizzy (talk) 00:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Cocaine
The article says, 'Chronic cocaine use can produce unusual thinking patterns due to the depletion of dopamine levels in the prefrontal cortex.[citation needed].' I question whether this should be in the article; this isn't an article about cocaine, so it seems gratuitous. That sentence follows a criticism of Freud, but the criticism would be clear enough without it. Skoojal (talk) 07:21, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Impressive -- I actually agree with Skoojal about something :) csloat (talk) 10:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

"Related News"
I removed the following section entitled "Related News":


 * ==Related news==

Freud was a member of B'nai B'rith order in Vienna. In 2004 the seat of French lodge in Paris was named after Sigmund Freud.

From 1921 until 1937 Freud and Girindrasekhar Bose used to write letters to each other. Bose was the founder of Indian Psychoanalytic Society,. The correspondence between Freud and Bose is to be found in the Sigmund Freud Archives.

Edward Bernays was Freud's nephew. His father was Ely Bernays, brother of Freud's wife Martha Bernays, and his mother was Freud's sister Anna.

I really don't understand what this section was trying to accomplish. None of the facts related seem very important to include in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BrownApple (talk • contribs) 02:07, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Connection
B'nai B'rith order in Vienna, Girindrasekhar Bose, Sigmund Freud Archives, Edward Bernays. Maybe they should be connected to the article in other sections or another one.
 * Austerlitz -- 88.72.27.200 (talk) 21:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

about Freud, B'nai B'rith order and his membership
 * Austerlitz -- 88.72.27.200 (talk) 22:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

book: Freud e l'ebraismo, http://www.ponsline.de/cgi-bin/wb/w.pl 1. Religione : Judentum 2. Linguistica: Hebraismus —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.72.21.154 (talk) 09:27, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The correspondence between Freud and Bose and the correspondence between Freud an his nephew Edward L. Bernay are both to be found in the Sigmund Freud Archives. Neither of them have been of public interest until now, the same with Freud's membership in B'nai B'rith which has been known since the Jones biography.
 * Austerlitz -- 88.72.21.154 (talk) 23:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe there is kind of taboo about it.

As it is to be seen from the Catalogue of The London Freud Museum there are also some letters from B'nai B'rith; maybe there are more, I have not checked systematically. 
 * Austerlitz -- 88.72.12.22 (talk) 14:33, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Delete Critical Reactions?
I've started to wonder whether there would be any real loss if most of what is in the 'critical reactions' section (including nearly everything after the first few sentences) were deleted. The stuff about Karl Popper belongs in the article about Popper and/or the article about psychoanalysis (I believe something like it is already there). The stuff about the feminists belongs in the articles about them (and may be there already, for all I know). Any comments? Skoojal (talk) 00:25, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, there is something seriously wrong with a 'critical reactions' section that mentions a minor figure like Richard Webster but does not mention several more notable or important critics of Freud (I can think of two especially well known critics of Freud who aren't mentioned). This strengthens my impression that that section is of questionable worth. Skoojal (talk) 00:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite it? It is like Trivia, a collection of different events without any connection between one another. Since it is -other than Trivia- a lengthy section, it should be rewritten. Why not mention Popper or the feminists, but one should be able to understand how the "critical reactions" fit or non fit together.
 * Austerlitz -- 88.72.22.208 (talk) 08:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * My view is that nearly everything in that section should be deleted. Probably only the first two sentences of it belong in the article. Criticisms of Freud made after Freud's death belong in the article on psychoanalysis, and as I said, many of them are already there. Skoojal (talk) 08:38, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Your position makes sense to me. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me too. The first half is simply a list of unexplained opinions (and that includes the first sentence which quotes someone with one of the smallest stub articles I have seen). The second half should be put into an article of its own. However there needs to be something sensible to address the issues or else in time we will end up with another selection from the millions of personal views on Freud. Motmit (talk) 22:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No one seems to be disagreeing, so surely the criticial reactions section should now be deleted, with the exception of the first couple of sentences? I think the preceding section, 'Philosophy', could also perhaps be cut back. Like criticial reactions, it does not seem properly balanced (why mention Derrida and Lyotard but not Bachelard?). Skoojal (talk) 05:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. "Critical reactions" section needs to be either balanced or removed trimmed, and "philosophy" section--especially the "rationality" subsection--looks slightly like WP:OR. Cosmic Latte (talk) 11:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I am not sure how the section could be made balanced without duplicating the article on psychoanalysis. Skoojal (talk) 21:09, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I first made this suggestion nine days ago. Since then, there have been no objections, and several other editors have indicated at least partial agreement. I am therefore going to carry out my suggestion. To anyone who thinks that this material is important I can only say: put it in the article on psychoanalysis. Skoojal (talk) 05:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and added back a few of the critiques as they were directly about Freud and his life, not about psychoanalysis generally. I've put them in appropriate places in the article rather than a separate "Criticism" section.  Also, I restored the material you deleted about his influence -- the comment did not say these were the only relevant influences he has had, and other editors are welcome to add more. csloat (talk) 05:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't even disagree with you, in regard to some of the things you re-added. You're right - they are criticism of Freud personally and there's no reason why they shouldn't be in the article (except possibly for the remarks by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen - isn't it just a little odd that they are sourced to an issue of The London Review of Books rather than to a published book?). On the other hand, the mention of the Frankfurt School, Derrida, and Lacan gives them more prominence than they are worth, so I removed that. Skoojal (talk) 05:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't find the sourcing odd -- in fact, I think it shows that the material is more widely available than something buried in one of Borch-Jacobson's rather dense books. As for the mention of the extremely widely read schools of thought Freud was well-known to have influenced (*particularly* Lacan, but certainly the others too), why are you deleting it?  You're welcome, of course, to your personal opinion that a single mention of such figures is "more than they are worth," but that is your personal opinion, and it is frankly contradicted by the quite obvious prominence of these figures in academic literature in various disciplines. csloat (talk) 06:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, it may well show that the material is more widely available than something buried one of Borch-Jacobsen's rather dense books. So what? That does not make it an appropriate source. The 'extremely widely read schools of thought' are maybe not as widely read as you think - try having a sense of proportion. Jacques Lacan was not Arthur Janov, and his Seminar is not The Primal Scream. In the end, Freud's influence on Janov is of greater importance than his influence on Lacan, but as Janov is not mentioned here, why should Lacan be? Skoojal (talk) 07:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What is inappropriate about the source? It certainly meets WP:RS as far as I can tell.  As for Janov, please feel free to add him to the list, but to say that his influence is of "greater importance" than Lacan is your personal opinion and really not relevant to the discussion. csloat (talk) 07:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not saying that the source is necessarily inappropriate or should not be used. I am saying that it is not the best source - it would be vastly preferrable to use one of Borch-Jacobsen's books. A magazine or newspaper article looks like a concession to amateurishness. I fail to see how my 'opinion' (actually just a matter of objective fact) that Janov is more important than Lacan is irrelevant. You didn't seem to think that your opinion about the importance of the Frankfurt School and Derrida was unimportant or irrelevant. Skoojal (talk) 07:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Relative importance is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. In this case, your opinion flies somewhat in the face of reality; here on earth, Lacan's work is taken far more seriously in academic circles than Janov's.  But that is not important; what is important is that you are deleting verifiable and significant information without even attempting to justify your deletion except for a red herring about primal screams.  Your behavior is unacceptable. csloat (talk) 08:35, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The fact that Lacan's work is taken more seriously by academics than Janov's is does not mean that Lacan is of greater historical importance or interest than Janov; he most certainly is not. Janov's work is more influential on a popular level than Lacan's, and that is of much greater consequence than what academics think. But the correctness or incorrectness of such opinions should be irrelevant. It would be no more right for me to edit the article to imply that Janov's work is the most important part of Freud's legacy than it is for you to edit the article to imply that Lacan et al are the most important part. Neither should be there. Perhaps we should ask some other editors what they think, so that this doesn't just turn into a disagreement between you and me? Skoojal (talk) 08:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to debate Janov vs. Lacan with you. Janov may be more visible in Anglo-American popular culture but we are talking about two different realms; besides, Lacan is quite visible in French popular culture as well.  But who cares -- you've raised the point as a red herring; I never suggested that you couldn't add Janov to the list, and even invited you to do so.  And your claim about "the most important part of Freud's legacy" is another red herring - I certainly never advocated adding that language to the article. csloat (talk) 16:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Mentioning Lacan but not Janov suggests that Lacan is somehow more important than Janov, a major misjudgment. I could add a mention of Janov, but lengthening the article with more material that probably belongs in a different article is not the way to go. I could add Janov to the psychotherapy section, but to mention him without mentioning anyone else would strongly suggest that Janov's work is the most important thing in psychotherapy since Freud, something the article shouldn't suggest, even though it might be true. Skoojal (talk) 04:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * <<<<<<<<<<As one of the most influential collators and presenters of ideas in the 20th century Freud inevitably had an influence on perhaps an almost limitless number of people and subject areas. There are far too many to list individually and selecting one or two just ends up in the sort of debate as above. Any discussion of Freud's influence belongs in the dependent articles (and some of those currently do little more than mention Freud's name). I agree with Skoojal that an article on Freud can do without hanger-on links which risk distorting the tone. Motmit (talk) 10:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * So your position is that since Freud influenced too many people, we should pretend he influenced nobody? Intriguing. csloat (talk) 16:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Not worth a response Motmit (talk) 18:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Regarding the specifics of the above debate, I'm more inclined to side with csloat. But, regarding the spirit of the debate, I think Skoojal and Motmit have the most NPOV approach. If we really get into the specifics of whom Freud influenced, the article could go on forever, or at least for long enough to be a WP:SS concern. Take a look at the "influences" section of Carl Jung. Even it is pretty long, and obviously non-exhaustive. I guess we could try something like that for Freud--i.e., assemble a random-ish (emphasis on the "ish") assortment of Freud's influences in various aspects of culture. Even then, Freud's influences have indeed been so great that, if the Jung section isn't already out of control (and I'm not sure that it isn't), a comparable Freud section would certainly be difficult to contain in this article. I actually think that a separate article about Freud's influence might be warranted. Anyway, we can't just hand-pick our favourite notable heirs to Freud's ideas, as there are just too darned many of them to list in a WP:SS article about Freud himself. Cosmic Latte (talk) 14:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree with the idea of a second article, but all we have right now is a sentence. We can expand the sentence to add Jung and Janov and a dozen others that come to mind and still just have a stub.  I think we really need to worry about a separate article once we start adding a paragraph of explanation to each person Freud influenced.  I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, only that we shouldn't do that now.  I think for now what we should do is restore the sentence Skoojal is insistent on deleting and begin to expand it.  The list of authors Freud has influenced may be large, but it is finite, and I think it would be reasonable to limit it to folks he has influenced in a major way, and even break it down in terms of categories (psychologists, academics in other fields, artists and movements, popular culture figures, etc.).  Janov and Jung would obviously be on the list as would Lacan and Bataille; however, folks he has influenced in a secondary or indirect manner (e.g. Foucault) probably don't belong on it.  (For that matter I would take Derrida off the list, for example, though there might be some debate about that from certain Derrideans). csloat (talk) 16:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That sounds reasonable to me. Although I'd recommend initially doing at least a few of these things (e.g., restoring the passage, removing names of those who were influenced indirectly, adding a couple who were influenced directly) all on the same edit or within a reasonable time frame (making sure to state your intentions within that time frame either here or in the edit summaries, and always aiming for WP:CON), just so we can stay out of WP:EW territory. Cosmic Latte (talk) 17:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, I'll work on that before restoring any of that section; I think there is plenty of ground for reasonable consensus on this issue. csloat (talk) 18:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * After looking this over I have another suggestion. It would not be appropriate to add Janov and Jung, for example, to the passage where the influences Skoojal deleted were, since that passage is under the heading of "Philosophy" and specifically in a sentence about Freud's influence on the Humanities.  So it is entirely appropriate that that particular section mention Freud's influence in critical and social theory but not psychotherapy and popular culture.  So there are a couple options -- we could include a separate section listing influences (which does not make sense; this whole section is already called "Freud's legacy"), or we could add philosophical influences to the philosophy section (which is what was originally happening before it was deleted), psychotherapy influences to the psychotherapy section, and add a section for art and popular culture (we would be remiss in not mentioning surrealism for example, as well as just about the entirety of the film industry).  There should probably be other sections as well; Freud's influence in sociology, for example, is also quite significant. csloat (talk) 19:22, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * There are many people who could be mentioned in the 'philosophy' section aside from Derrida and the Frankfurt School. I already mentioned Bachelard - what's the logic behind including Derrida and Lyotard but not Bachelard? Then there's Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, Habermas, Jaspers, de Beauvoir, Irigaray, Deleuze, Zizek, and whoever else. Try to make that section balanced, and it would quickly become obvious that it would be better as an independent article. As it stands, I don't think it should include only Derrida and the Frankfurt School because that exaggerates their importance out of all proportion. Skoojal (talk) 03:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the Borsch Jacobsen source is inappropriate; someone should look at the book and provide a reliable account with an appropriate suggestion. I strongly disagree that Janov is more notable than lacan, and as editors it is not our place to make these judgements. If there is any doubt, do not subtract, rather, add. That said, I continue to believe as I stated earlier that critical responses to psychoanalysis rather than Freud personally do not belong here. But we should not simply delete them. Research that complies with our main policies should not be deleted. It should be moved to other articles (e.g. on Lacan, etc., and the article on psychoanalysis). Slrubenstein  |  Talk 18:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you state a reason why the source is "inappropriate"? I agree that Borsch-Jacobsen's work is far more rewarding to read in its original context; however, the fact that a particular passage is cited in a more popular (but nonetheless somewhat highbrow) reliable source seems to suggest that that particular passage has more salience in an encyclopedia, not less.  In any case, I agree with the rest of your comments, and I think it would be worthwhile to cite B-J directly in addition to (rather than instead of) the London Review. csloat (talk) 18:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * A review of B-J's book is an appropriate source for what the reviewer thinks, but not what B-J thinks. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 19:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * But we are not talking about what the reviewer thinks; we are talking about a direct quotation from B-J. csloat (talk) 19:22, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Quoting is an interpretive act. The context of a quotation influences its meaning. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * True, but hardly relevant here; unless you're suggesting that we should quote the entire book, the quote is taken out of context either way. And the fact that this particular passage is quoted in the Review is a fact that makes it more relevant here than some random quote you or I pull out of one of B-J's books  Anyway I'm certainly not opposed to including the original source of the quotation if you find it, as I noted above. csloat (talk) 20:42, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that any of what got deleted couldn't be found already in the articles where it would be more appropriate. But if it can't, it would be a simple task to go through older versions of the article, retrieve the material, and put it somewhere else. Skoojal (talk) 03:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Skoojal, first, please stop equating Lacan with Janov in your comments in your little crusade to erase Lacan's name from this article. It is insulting to those of us who have actually read this stuff. csloat (talk) 11:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Please try to keep your responses civil and to the point. Skoojal (talk) 04:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see the rationale for removing references to Lacan. (This might not be saying much, but I hadn't even heard of Janov until I read this discussion.) If the point is that an attempt to list all of Freud's influences is impossible under WP:SS, I'd agree. But I see no reason at all not to go along, at least as a WP:SS-testing experiment, with csloat's idea of listing some of his notable influences on various aspects of culture. Sure, you could go on all day trying to list Freud's influences on, say, film, but Hitchcock (Psycho, anyone?) would be an obvious example. As for philosophy, I don't really have anything to say about Janov (well, apparently John Lennon took primal therapy, and I'd guess that that probably counts for something), but Lacan, I'd say, qualifies as obviously as Hitchcock does for film. Cosmic Latte (talk)
 * That's about right. I'm not totally opposed to mentioning Janov but the problem is his influence is far more through popular culture than through any kind of scholarship.  The fields just can't be equated, it's apples and oranges.  Anyway, the scheme described above is essentially what the article currently has -- a section on "Freud's legacy" that is broken into subcategories; we just need to add "popular culture" and/or "pop psychology." csloat (talk) 21:11, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The rationale for removing references to Lacan is that this is an article about Freud, not about Lacan. Lacan is certainly not a more important part of Freud's legacy or influence than Janov (quite the reverse, in my view). I don't want to get off topic too much, but if you've never heard of Janov, it's time you learnt something about him. He is of absolutely fundamental importance to anyone interested in the history of psychoanalysis. Skoojal (talk) 00:55, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No offense, but your view is wrong. But I'm not going to argue with you -- as I said, I'm not opposed to mentioning Janov too, as long as it's in a different section.  If you don't think this article should mention key figures in Freud's legacy, are you suggesting we delete the entire section entitled "Freud's Legacy"? csloat (talk) 02:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know which of my views you think is wrong - I expressed several views. Keep in mind that, in the opinion of many people, any post-Freudian theory is totally discredited and that a debate over the relative merits of Lacan and Janov is like debating Godzilla versus King Kong (it's not my view, but realizing that this is what many people think helps put things in perspective). I don't think the 'Freud's legacy' section should be deleted altogether - perhaps instead it should be turned into a different article, as Cosmic Latte suggested. Skoojal (talk) 08:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The view that is wrong is the view that Janov is a more important legacy than Lacan. It's demonstrably and verifiably wrong, unless you insist on equating apples and oranges, in which case you can say any damn thing you please.  But really, there's no point in debating that; I've re-added Lacan and the Frankfurt school (leaving out Derrida and Lyotard) to the section on philosophical legacy, specifically on Freud's impact on the humanities.  Please don't start another edit war on that material.  If you want to add Janov go for it -- probably you should start another section on "Popular culture" as discussed above, or perhaps he could be included in the section of legacy called "psychotherapy" since the whole primal therapy thing was briefly a phenomenon among pop psychologists in the 1970s, mostly due to Janov having John Lennon as a patient. I think there are still some problems - after all, is Freud more of an influence for Janov than for pretty much any pop psychologist? - but I don't plan to delete mention of Janov here. csloat (talk) 00:05, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 'Don't start an edit war' is something that works both ways. As a matter of fact, you are restarting an edit war. I am definitely not going to add a 'popular culture' section to the article, nor to try to balance references to Lacan with references to Janov, which would be ridiculous and would only go to show the pointlessness of adding a mention of either of them. Skoojal (talk) 02:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, Skoojal, I asked you nicely not to start an edit war because it seemed we were making progress on the arguments here. If you wish to remove the Freud's Legacy section entirely please state your reasons for doing so, but you cannot deny that Lacan is an important and notable part of Freud's legacy no matter what you think of Janov or anyone else. Now, I restored my edit (which was a compromise version of the text you were removing; I took out Lyotard and Derrida); please do not remove that material again, or at least please indicate here why you think it should be removed.  Thank you.csloat (talk) 05:39, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Did it occur to you, Csloat, that perhaps we are equally responsible for the edit war, if there is one? I have already given my reasons for removing the material: I consider that mentioning Lacan and the Frankfurt School gives them undue significance, given what is not mentioned in the article. I have to ask, why them in particular, rather than the other names I mentioned? Any attempt to create balance by increasing the list of names and schools would only strengthen the case for removing the legacy section altogether and turning it into a different article. Skoojal (talk) 08:19, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What occurs to me is that I voluntarily withdrew from the edit war, left your version up for days while we discussed on talk, and listened to your comments as well as the input of others, and then added the material that it seemed a consensus favored (an organized discussion of Freud;s legacy that included mention of Lacan as well as other important figures influenced primarily by Freud). You reverted me in less than four hours, and didn't even bother to explain why other than a snide comment about who is starting an edit war.  Your claim that mentioning Frankfurt school and lacan gives them "undue significance" is completely false.  Your only support for that claim has been the absurd contention that Janov is more important than them (and then when invited to include a category where Janov would be represented, you snub the suggestion).  Now you ask "why them in particular" -- the answer is that the article at that point is specifically talking about Freud's legacy in philosophy, and in the "humanities."  If there are others you would suggest including in that category, I would love to hear your suggestions, but I think we can all agree Janov is not a serious contender for that part of the article.  I also don't object to creating a different article on Freud's legacy, but we are far from the point of needing one yet.  In either case, your deletion does not help things. csloat (talk) 09:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The bottom line is that we are both edit warring. It would be useless for either of us to place all blame on the other side. You appear to have misunderstood my stance. I objected to including Lacan and the Frankfurt School in the philosophy and humanities section because a large number of other people were not mentioned there. I gave a long list of names ("'Bachelard? Then there's Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, Habermas, Jaspers, de Beauvoir, Irigaray, Deleuze, Zizek, and whoever else"). "Whoever else" could include, for instance, Richard Wollheim. It did not mean Janov, who is a different issue entirely; I never suggested adding Janov to that section. I could have added him to the psychotherapy section, but doing so would have created exactly the same problem there that including only Lacan and the Frankfurt School in the philosophy and humanities section created: it would suggest that his work is the most important thing in that area, a violation of NPOV. In my opinion, neither the philosophy nor the psychotherapy sections can be balanced by the inclusion of more names, so it is best not to include any. Skoojal (talk) 03:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Some though by no means all of the people you named would be appropriate on such a list. But you are flat out wrong that it suggests that Lacan or the Frankfurt school is "the most important thing" anywhere.  It doesn't say that and it doesn't imply it in any way, and you can clear up any misconception with a phrase like "among others."  The list of people Freud has been a major influence on is long, but it is finite, as I have said before.  This isn't an issue of balancing; it's an issue of having an extremely vague comment about Freud's legacy in the humanities, and you censoring any attempt to make the section less vague by providing examples. csloat (talk) 08:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Part of the problem is that it is not clear what the 'philosophy' section is really about (surely not the "humanities" in general). I thought the material there was somewhat confusing, and I have cut it back, as you can see. The one sentence that remains there is, 'Freud's model of the mind is often considered a challenge to the enlightenment model of rational agency, which was a key element of much modern philosophy.' I have to ask, how does a list of the names of people who have been influenced by Freud have anything to do with that sentence? Unless their relevance to that sentence is properly explained, I am not sure that they should be there (at least not unless the sentence is replaced by something else, in which case the issue could be reconsidered). There already is a list of people influenced by Freud elsewhere in the article. I'm not sure what creating another such list would accomplish. Skoojal (talk) 00:54, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I see what you've done; you're losing the argument about including Lacan so you decided to butcher the entire section about Freud's philosophical legacy in order to obviate the need to discuss Lacan at all (or the Frankfurt school, or whoever). This is ridiculous Skoojal; some of your edits are useful here but you clearly have ownership problems with this page, and I'm not interested in yet another pissing contest with you.  If you don't think Freud's legacy is important in this article just remove the section entirely; but butchering it beyond the point of legibility is not helpful to anyone.  Good day. csloat (talk) 02:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I removed what I considered questionable content, and gave my reasons. I am not saying that some version of what I removed cannot be in the article; a reworded and fact-checked version of it might be fine. Skoojal (talk) 02:18, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I have shown your reasons to be fallacious, so I have restored the content, which is not "questionable" at all. We can add sources to it but please do not delete it again; thanks. csloat (talk) 18:26, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * We have a disagreement. It is common, when there is a disagreement, for each side to announce that it is right and the other is wrong. In reply to your edit summary comments: I do not believe that your changes are supported by consensus. Skoojal (talk) 21:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What you believe is immaterial at this point Skoojal since your actual arguments have been refuted. You are now editing disruptively and I am formally asking you to stop it.  Thank you. csloat (talk) 21:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What I believe is relevant, since I have as much right to edit this article as you. Please try to keep your comments civil. Skoojal (talk) 21:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * My comments are civil; it is your disruptive editing that is not. If you are unable to explain your persistent deletion of relevant material, please stop doing it.  Thank you and have a good day. csloat (talk) 21:33, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Involvement of other editors is obviously needed here. Skoojal (talk) 23:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Certainly. Though some have already spoken up; I don't see any supporting your deletion of most of this section, and the few who did speak up clearly agreed that Lacan and the Frankfurt school belong in that section.  Your solution - deleting almost all of the section as "questionable" (a term you never define or explain how it applies) - is disruptive.  Please stop. csloat (talk) 23:51, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * As I said, more needs to be done to determine what the consensus is (or to create consensus if one doesn't yet exist). I will soon make a longer post in a new section explaining my position. Skoojal (talk) 00:49, 26 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I have already stated that this article should focus on Freud and that a detailed discussion of psychoanalysis including the way it was developed after Freud, and critical responses afte Freud, belongs in another article.
 * But I acknowledge that most major debates over psychoanalysis today refer to texts written by Freud, so it makes sense to have a concise summary of Freud's influence on later scholars and later critical reactions to Freud, if they are reacting to Freud's specific writings. That said, it seems to me that IF the article says "Freud's theories have had a tremendous effect on the humanities. Freud's model of the mind is often criticized as an unsubstantiated challenge to the enlightenment model of rational agency, which was a key element of much modern philosophy," then it ought to mention Lacan and the Frankfurt School who, based on all my research, are the most influential Freudians in modern philosophy and the humanities.  There is a more general tradition of Feminist Freudianism but much of it engages Lacan; there is a more general tradition of marxist feminism but it always acknowledges the Frankfurt School.
 * Skoojal seems to be deleting one sentence. Honestly, one sentence seems to me to be the bare minimum and I do not see how it gives undue weight.  What other names is Skoojal proposing? Janov?  Frankly, I too never heard of janov until this discussion - and in adition to tking a post-graduate seminar in psychology (which included lectures and participation by clinical psychologists, including various strands of the psychodynamic tradition) and reading very widely in Freudian theory especially in the social sciences and humanities, I regularly find references to the Frankfurt School and Lacan, but not Janov.  Maybe there is a place somewhere for an article that discusses Janov, but the notability of Lacan and the Frankfurt School is evident.
 * In this specific context, if we want the article to say that Freud has had a continuing influence on the humanities and social sciences, it seems appropriate to mention - just mention, one sentence - Lacan and the Frankfurt School. Detailed discussions of their work, the ways they departed from Freud and the ways they draw on Freud, of course belong in other articles.
 * I think it would also be wise to mention Deleuze and Guattari as people influenced by Freud, especially since Anti-Oedipus explicitly grapples with several texts by Freud. I think all these people engaged Freud far more than Derrida or Lyotard, or more consistently, or in a more sustained fashion. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 08:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Slrubenstein, with all respect, a less rambling and more focused post would have been more helpful and easier to respond to. To address what I think are your main points: If 'a detailed discussion of psychoanalysis including the way it was developed after Freud, and critical responses after Freud, belongs in another article', then that's a good enough reason for giving Lacan and every other post-Freudian only the most minimal of mentions. Where influence on philosophy and the humanities is concerned, I mentioned quite a long list of names, including Ricoeur. I wasn't thinking of Janov particularly (although he is important in other ways; research criticism of psychoanalysis, and sooner or later you'll come across that name). The Frankfurt School, incidentally, aren't all 'Freudians', or anything like it. Thus, the mention of them as Freudian-influenced, while not exactly false, is potentially misleading. Skoojal (talk) 09:08, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, we should definitely include Ricouer in that section. Again, your argument supports adding names to the section, not deleting the ones you don't like.  And there is nothing misleading about the Frankfurt school reference -- the point is not to list "Freudians" but figures who have significantly been influenced by Freud but have been important in their own right.  A simple list of "Freudians" is in itself not all that interesting. csloat (talk) 09:48, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree about Ricoeur!! And I think the early Frankfurt School was pretty Freudian - especially if we are talking about social sciences and humanities and not clinical practice. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 09:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Lacan straw poll
Skoojal apparently feels that any mention of Lacan should be censored in this article. I'd like to find out what other editors think; please take part in the straw poll below just so we can get a sense of the consensus here (this is not binding, nor is it meant to preempt discussion; I just want to get a sense of whether I am crazy here. I think Lacan is an important part of Freud's "legacy."). csloat (talk) 05:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Lacan should be mentioned in the article as part of "Freud's legacy".


 * Yes. csloat (talk) 05:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Lacan should not be mentioned in this article as part of "Freud's legacy".



I am not going to participate in the above, however, I will note that csloat is misrepresenting me. I've never tried to remove all mention of Lacan from the article, as those who look at it carefully will realize. Skoojal (talk) 08:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That is why I included "as part of "Freud's legacy"" -- you are erasing his name in that section. What's more, you're refusing to justify your edit.  I waited several days with your version of the page up while we hashed it out, and then I put up a compromise version that took into account our discussion as well as the input of others; you reverted me in under four hours and yet you accuse me of edit warring. csloat (talk) 09:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)