Hysteria

[petrushka.googol]

Is hysteria linked to the uterus in women as documented in ancient Egypt and the writings of Plato ?

[fiveworlds]

No

[petrushka.googol]

Freud linked hysteria to problems with libido and an Oedipus complex. Any truth in that ?

[fiveworlds]

No. Hysteria was a broad and wrong definition which defined most women with a mental problem. These mental problems have more recently been linked to illnesses such as schizophrenia, down syndrome etc. A drop in hysteria is noted during the 1800s but it also coincides with the life of Florence Nightingale and the establishment of training schools for nurses in America. Also we didn't realize how forcing women to live in the home would affect their mental state. Studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between bad social circumstances i.e. living in poverty and mental illness. These studies show that it is particularly most prevalent in cities. Florence Nightingale was a mathematician who studies demographics to identify the cause of illnesses. One account of hers tells of how she lived in a town with an unusually high level of mental illness on one half of the town while the other half experienced no symptoms. She found that a local factory was dumping their rubbish into the river and had polluted one of the town's wells. The 1800s was the time we really started to cop on a bit about drinking polluted water. http://www.epa.gov/safewater/consumer/pdf/hist.pdf

Edited September 26, 2015 by fiveworlds

[Strange]

Freud linked hysteria to problems with libido and an Oedipus complex. Any truth in that ?

 

Like everything Freud said, this was just made up. I don't think anything he said has any truth in it. (If it does, it is purely by chance.) I find it hard to understand how he is still treated with any sort of respect.

[petrushka.googol]

 

Like everything Freud said, this was just made up. I don't think anything he said has any truth in it. (If it does, it is purely by chance.) I find it hard to understand how he is still treated with any sort of respect.

 

Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis.....it is widely used to treat anxiety disorders.

[John Cuthber]

Freud made up psychoanalysis.

It may well be used to treat anxiety, but I don't know of any evidence that it works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis#Criticism

[petrushka.googol]

Freud made up psychoanalysis.

It may well be used to treat anxiety, but I don't know of any evidence that it works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis#Criticism

 

Some of Freud's work is still relevant.

http://psychology.about.com/od/sigmundfreud/fl/Is-Psychoanalysis-Still-Relevant-Today.htm

[John Cuthber]

Did you read the page you cited?

"Part of the problem stems from psychoanalysis's failure to test the validity of its therapeutic approach and failure to ground the discipline in evidence-based practices."

i.e there's no reason to believe it works.

"Part of the reason many are so skeptical of psychoanalysis today is that the body of evidence supporting its effectiveness tends to be relatively weak."

ditto

"However, some of the research on the effectiveness of psychoanalysis has yielded limited support for this treatment modality. "

Curate's egg at best

"Using the criteria established for evidence-based treatment, traditional psychoanalysis alone does not in fact pass muster as a method of therapy for the large majority of psychological disorders,"

 

I.e. it still does not work.

 

you seem determined to believe that Freud's "work" is valid.

Why is that?

[petrushka.googol]

Did you read the page you cited?

"Part of the problem stems from psychoanalysis's failure to test the validity of its therapeutic approach and failure to ground the discipline in evidence-based practices."

i.e there's no reason to believe it works.

"Part of the reason many are so skeptical of psychoanalysis today is that the body of evidence supporting its effectiveness tends to be relatively weak."

ditto

"However, some of the research on the effectiveness of psychoanalysis has yielded limited support for this treatment modality. "

Curate's egg at best

"Using the criteria established for evidence-based treatment, traditional psychoanalysis alone does not in fact pass muster as a method of therapy for the large majority of psychological disorders,"

 

I.e. it still does not work.

 

you seem determined to believe that Freud's "work" is valid.

Why is that?

 

Please peruse the article carefully.

I quote from the same article "Recent reviews of neuroscientific work confirm that many of Freud's original observations, not least the pervasive influence of non-conscious processes and the organizing function of emotions for thinking, have found confirmation in laboratory studies,"

[Strange]

I quote from the same article "Recent reviews of neuroscientific work confirm that many of Freud's original observations, not least the pervasive influence of non-conscious processes and the organizing function of emotions for thinking, have found confirmation in laboratory studies,"

 

That is a pretty general statement, and a fairly obvious one that almost anybody could have made a guess at. If that was his one lucky guess, I suppose it proves he wasn't 100% wrong about everything. That is not a great recommendation.

[iNow]

No. Just... No. This whole thread. From Freud as a valid descriptor of human mentation and neurobiology to hysteria as an accurate descriptor of females and the behavior of a human without a Y chromosome. Good grief. Never before have people had access to so much information yet still been so misinformed.

Edited September 27, 2015 by iNow

[CharonY]

Re: Freud, it is widely accepted that his main contribution is the realization that a lot of is going in the subconscious. Anything else has been pretty much superseded with finding in neurobiology as well as psychology. As such Freud is more of historic value than anything else.

 

 

Good grief. Never before have people had access to so much information yet still been so misinformed.

 

I guess it is somewhat to be expected. There is now too much info. Without some at least some background it is often not that easy to filter out the nonsense and even if you get legitimate sources, it may not be easy to understand it.

However, since you can get access to so many sources easily it can give you the illusion that you understand the topic. On a high level I see a similar issue with students. The ability to actually sift literature for relevant info has been declining in the past 10 years or so.