Dave Lieberman wrote: [���. ] > Because of my particular background in psychology (reading Freud as a > teenager), I�d always taken it for granted that psychologists accepted the > existence of emotional repression, but I�m now wondering whether this > remains a much more controversial issue than I had realized. I wonder > what members of TIPS think about this? Specifically, from your > experience, do you think there are still powerful divisions between > experimental psychologists about the existence of repression or other > defense mechanisms? If so, what proportion of experimental psychologists > would you guess accept the reality of such processes? > > Note: I�m really asking about psychologists� current beliefs, rather than > whether these beliefs are valid, but it�s perhaps worth mentioning (as a > further blow against Stephen, for daring to disagree with me) several > recent reviews that argue that while Freud�s overall theory is undoubtedly > vague, there is nevertheless convincing experimental evidence for the > existence of at least some of the defense mechanisms he postulated: > > Westen, D. (1998). The scientific legacy of Sigmund Freud: Toward a > psychodynamically informed psychological science. Psychological Bulletin, > 124, 333-371. > > Baumeister, R. F., Dale, K., & Sommer, K. L. (1998). Freudian defense > mechanisms and empirical findings in modern social psychology: Reaction > formation, projection, displacement, undoing, isolation, sublimation, and > denial. Journal of Personality, 66, 1081-1124. > > Cramer, P. (2000). Defense mechanisms in psychology today: Further > processes for adaptation. American Psychologist, 55, 637-646. > > A common theme of these reviews is that defense mechanisms have been > widely accepted within social psychology, though they have often > masqueraded under other names such as the false consensus effect (a > version of projection) and positive illusions (a version of denial). > > Does anyone know of recent reviews that reach the opposite conclusion, > that there is no convincing evidence for defense mechanisms to avoid > experiencing painful thoughts or emotions?
Dave�s posting raises many issues (implicit as well as explicit), so I�ll try to restrict my response to a few points. I have not read Baumeister et al (1998) or Cramer (2000), but I can comment on Westen (1998). I can�t in a short space enumerate and rebut the long list of assertions in relation to which I would take issue with Westen (that would take a lengthy article), so I�ll choose a couple of points directly relevant to Dave�s concerns. But first some general observation on this paper. Westen acknowledges that most of Freud�s specific notions about human development have been dropped from the main revisionist strands of current psychoanalytic thought, and goes so far as to say in regard to Freud�s �general theory of psychopathology� that Fisher and Greenberg have recently distilled and laid out in propositional form�: �I can scarcely find any proposition on their three-page list with which I can even remotely agree.� (Which doesn�t stop him giving support to the Oedipus complex and other such Freudian notions in the body of the paper.) Where he does locate �the scientific legacy of Sigmund Freud� is in five �postulates� that he attributes to Freud and which �define contemporary psychodynamic theory�. They turn out to be a mixture of contentions of which some are so amorphous that few psychologists would take issue with them in general terms (and it is difficult to see why they should be attributed to Freud), a fundamental conception that is erroneously attributed to Freud, and one contention that has been strongly disputed in the psychological literature in recent years (though Westen presents it as if it were self-evidently true). Now to specifics. The recognition of many (most?) of the �defence mechanisms� utilised in psychodynamic writings is erroneously attributed to Freud. Examples of the conscious presentation of projection, ambivalence, rationalisation, and so on, can be found in literature from Shakespeare and La Rochefoucauld, through to Austen and Trollope. And, as Frank Cioffi has wittily noted, such expressions in popular literature were exploiting a commonplace, not augmenting our knowledge of the mind; in other words, these mental processes were widely recognized, even if few could exemplify them in the terms the great novelists (who were also, almost by definition, perceptive amateur psychologists) employed. Why should I be impressed by Westen�s appropriating �unconscious motivations� for Freud and psychoanalysis when I know that in *Framley Parsonage*, published in 1860, Anthony Trollope alluded explicitly to the unconscious motivation of one of his characters in terms that indicate that he took it to be a commonplace for his readers? Not to mention that Schopenhauer wrote explicitly about unconscious motivations in terms that his biographer Bryan Magee described as �an unmistakably clear and explicit exposition of an idea now generally credited to Freud, who was not yet born.� One of the five basic propositions that Westen claims for psychoanalysis is that �much of mental life� is unconscious�, a notion that Schopenhauer clearly expressed in his writings, as did Nietzsche. And if we want it to be psychologists and suchlike who express such conceptions, note that Maudsley wrote in 1867 that �the unconscious action of the mind� is now established beyond all rational doubt�, and that Galton�s conclusions following his �association� experiments included that there existed �still deeper strata of mental operations, sunk wholly below the level of consciousness, which may account for such mental phenomena as cannot otherwise be explained� (1883). In 1879 Galton had already published in *Brain* (a journal to which Freud subscribed at that time) his comparison of the mind with a house (conscious) having a basement (unconscious) containing a �complex system of drains and gas and waterpipes [etc]� which are usually hidden out of sight, and of whose existence, so long as they acted well, we never troubled ourselves.� It is true that Freud was the first to direct attention to these conceptions in an organised way in psychological writings, but at the same time his ubiquitous use of them for his own purposes (ie, to supposedly demonstrate his basic psychoanalytic theses) served to vulgarise them � and psychoanalysts throughout the twentieth century competed to take the vulgarisations further. My own view is that what psychoanalysts refer to as �defence processes� are better understood in the context of evolutionary psychology. As Michael Gazzaniga has written, �To disbelieve in the psychoanalysts� method of analysis of psychological states is not to deny the complexity of psychological states all humans experience. We are a marvelously complex bundle of desires, beliefs, loyalties, loves, hates, and so on.� (*Nature�s Mind: The Biological Roots of Thinking, Emotions, Sexuality, Language and Intelligence*, 1992, p. 173.) Sorry, Dave, if I�ve moved away from the central point you wanted discussed, but at least the above serves as a background to the issues you raised � and a warning not to take Westen�s contentions as generally accepted, however confidently he presents them. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10 > Stephen Black had a TIPS email a few weeks ago in which he listed myths > that many students believe, one of which is that children can repress the > memory of having been sexually abused, only for this memory to resurface > for many years. > > He and I got into an extended correspondence about whether the repression > of painful memories should really be regarded as a myth (from my point of > view, very enjoyable), and in the end it seemed to me that we differed not > so much in our interpretations of the evidence (though we did) as in our > fundamental assumptions about whether it was plausible that people could > inhibit or repress memories about traumatic events. As we continued to > discuss this, it seemed to me that this might be part of a much wider > division between psychologists about the reality of repression�that is, > not simply whether memories can be repressed, but more broadly whether > emotions can be suppressed, so that people are not consciously aware of > them. > > Because of my particular background in psychology (reading Freud as a > teenager), I�d always taken it for granted that psychologists accepted the > existence of emotional repression, but I�m now wondering whether this > remains a much more controversial issue than I had realized. I wonder > what members of TIPS think about this? Specifically, from your > experience, do you think there are still powerful divisions between > experimental psychologists about the existence of repression or other > defense mechanisms? If so, what proportion of experimental psychologists > would you guess accept the reality of such processes? > > Dave Lieberman > > Note: I�m really asking about psychologists� current beliefs, rather than > whether these beliefs are valid, but it�s perhaps worth mentioning (as a > further blow against Stephen, for daring to disagree with me) several > recent reviews that argue that while Freud�s overall theory is undoubtedly > vague, there is nevertheless convincing experimental evidence for the > existence of at least some of the defense mechanisms he postulated: > > Westen, D. (1998). The scientific legacy of Sigmund Freud: Toward a > psychodynamically informed psychological science. Psychological Bulletin, > 124, 333-371. > > Baumeister, R. F., Dale, K., & Sommer, K. L. (1998). Freudian defense > mechanisms and empirical findings in modern social psychology: Reaction > formation, projection, displacement, undoing, isolation, sublimation, and > denial. Journal of Personality, 66, 1081-1124. > > Cramer, P. (2000). Defense mechanisms in psychology today: Further > processes for adaptation. American Psychologist, 55, 637-646. > > A common theme of these reviews is that defense mechanisms have been > widely accepted within social psychology, though they have often > masqueraded under other names such as the false consensus effect (a > version of projection) and positive illusions (a version of denial). > > Does anyone know of recent reviews that reach the opposite conclusion, > that there is no convincing evidence for defense mechanisms to avoid > experiencing painful thoughts or emotions? > > Dr. David A. Lieberman > Department of Psychology > University of Stirling > Stirling FK9 4LA > Scotland > U. K. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Dear David, > > It is practically axiomatic among cognitive psychologists that cognitive > *processes* (can) take place unconsciously. (Retrieve the capital of France > from memory. How did you do it?). Indeed Zenon Pylyshyn made it virtually > definitional of fundamental cognitive processes that they be "cognitively > imprenetrable," as he put it. > > That said, the main problem with "repressed memories" is that cognitive > psychologists know more about memory than almost any other aspect of > cognition, and "repression" (as laid out by its advocates today) simply > doesn't make any sense given what we know (and Beth Loftus' reconstructive > account of what is *taken* to be "repression" makes a whole lot of sense). > Defenders of repression have been forced to such blatantly ad hoc attempts to > shore up their foundering position as: "there's a whole separate memory system > to handle traumatic memories that operates unlike any of the other memory > systems." > > In short, and to answer your question directly, in general, I think, > experimental cognitive psychologists (I can't speak for *all* experimental > psychologists) have no problem at all with unconscious mental processes. They > have a profound problem, however, with the latter-day accounts of repression > that take their lead from Freud. > > Regards, > -- > Christopher D. Green > Department of Psychology > York University > Toronto, Ontario, Canada > M3J 1P3 > It might be better to restate the myth to say that repression is the > _typical_ result of traumatic events; child abuse in particular. > I don't think that many experimental psychologists (certainly not > this behaviorist) would argue that unpleasant events _can_ be less > likely to be recalled, even to the point where they are not recalled. > The question (and ultimately an empirical one) is whether this is the > most likely outcome. > Specifically, when an individual (under prompting from a therapist) > recalls unpleasant earlier experiences that she did not recall until > then, is the most likely hypothesis: > 1. Repression. > or > 2. The sort of suggestion effect that Loftus has documented. > > -- > * PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * > * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University * > * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * > * http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html * --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
