Why Do We Still Teach Freud If He Was So Wrong?

352,992
783
Published 2019-05-23
Go to curiositystream.com/psych to start streaming Light On Earth. Use the promo code ‘psych’ during the sign-up process to get your first 31 days free!

Freud is one of the most famous psychologists ever, but a lot of the things he taught are just… well, wrong. So why do we still spend so much time talking about this dude in psychology classes?


Hosted by: Brit Garner
----------
Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: www.patreon.com/scishow

SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It's called SciShow Tangents. Check it out at www.scishowtangents.org/
----------
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever:

Adam Brainard, Greg, Alex Hackman, Sam Lutfi, D.A. Noe, الخليفي سلطان, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, Charles Southerland, Patrick D. Ashmore, charles george, Kevin Bealer, Chris Peters
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook: www.facebook.com/scishow
Twitter: www.twitter.com/scishow
Tumblr: scishow.tumblr.com/
Instagram: instagram.com/thescishow
----------
Sources:
www.simplypsychology.org/psychosexual.html
www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Freud
www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~jfkihlstrom/PDFfiles/Atkinso…
icpla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Weston-D.-The…
www.thenational.ae/uae/science/freud-he-wasn-t-all…
www.researchgate.net/publication/226524345_The_dis…
www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-feb-18-oe-duf…
www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/online/inge_o…
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23660968
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22227111
www.maisondesolenn.fr/IMG/documents/515d575896a2f-…
www.researchgate.net/publication/22234005_Meta-Ana…
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/why-freud-su…
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15328023top1…
www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/weekinreview/25cohen.ht…
www.researchgate.net/publication/5415594_Access_To…

www.claytonschools.net/cms/lib/MO01000419/Centrici…
pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0aa5/18b6dda4917ff48163ed…
www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140421-does-freud-stil…
io9.gizmodo.com/why-freud-still-matters-when-he-wa…

IMAGE SOURCES:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud#/media/File:Si…
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Sigmun…
www.istockphoto.com/vector/side-view-of-abstract-h…
www.istockphoto.com/vector/psychologist-couch-blac…
www.istockphoto.com/photo/we-all-know-the-answer-g…
www.istockphoto.com/photo/statue-of-sigmund-freud-…

All Comments (21)
  • @FabioLeprechaun
    Freud himself pointed out that his work was introductional and will be dismissed when "the sciences of the mind" develop more precise understanding about how its objects works. But, despite this development, his ideas stuck. The problem of "I didn't read the Terms and Conditions" is older than we thought.
  • @jerry3790
    So that others don’t make the same mistake about sharing their secret attraction to their mother through their work
  • If you don't understand the history of your field, you can never learn from the mistakes.
  • My psychology course taught Freud as if he was right. So I was really confused as to why I learned about him if he was actually so wrong.
  • @NewMessage
    "Sometimes a thumbnail is just a thumbnail." -Sigmund Fraud
  • Studying Freud is a great example of science done right: ask questions about what we know, alter the hypothesis that doesn't stand up to testing, and accept what does.
  • @Babarudra
    A lot of early science was wrong and strange by todays understanding. It's always good to have a broad understanding of a subject and how we go there. I'd imagine that in another 100 years, a lot of what we "know" today will be seen as just as wrong.
  • @curlyprivat22
    Surprise! In Vienna Freud isn't taught -simply because the founder of the faculty of psychology did not like him. xD
  • @Natasha-ex4lt
    "We are never so vulnerable as when we love, and never so hopelessly unhappy as when we lose the object of our love." - Freud
  • @Jeff121456
    I thought my unconscious mind was my mind when I was unconscious.
  • We studied Freud for a different reason. The clinical section of the psychology course (as well as the others) started from the beginnings which in this case was Freud and Yeung. It set up a framework whereby you could figure out the roots of each theory and thereby estimate validity, especially when coupled together with later research etc.
  • The problem with Freud is that he was genuinely creative. And creatives have lots of unapologetic nonsensical ideas all the time. But jus like all creatives do, he eventually had his one brilliant idea. That's the price we pay as a society for having creative types. And this won't be the last.
  • @Makkushimu
    Sure psychology has grown, but the huge reliance on quantitative data is causing a field-wide epidemic of generalizing personality traits and making causative statements. There are professors out there making connections between psychological features based on percentages from quantitative research. "If you have trait X you also have trait Y" basing that causation on a 90% likelihood. How do so many psychologists forget the very basic tenants of quantitative research: Correlation is not causation? Not all psychologists do this, of course, but the trend is there and it's very concerning. Maybe psychology has a bit of an inferiority complex towards other fields of science, where it's trying to "prove" it's just as much of a "hard science" as biology and math? The problems, though, come when the numbers take precedence over the person. I feel that a new wave of qualitative research needs to sweep over psychology for a while, where the heavy reliance on and habit of generalizing a person's self based on data gathered somewhere, sometime, needs to take a huge step back and be studied far more meticulously BEFORE making a statement about the person. It's a lot more work, but considering the field and how those statements could ruin a person (because anyone listening to the psychologist will consider him/her an expert), being "anal" about it is definitely the only way. I somehow managed to connect my rant to the video lol.
  • Interesting, I'm teached about Freud in psychology, but they didn't point out what was right and what was wrong. So some people believed his theories (we are also though to be critical about theories, but I don't think everyone applied that skill)