Shamelessly acknowledging his malicious desire to annoy me, on 29 July Stephen Black quoted one G. Gabbard as follows:
"Modern neuroscience has confirmed many of [Freud�s] basic tenets. Freud predicted that psychoanalytic understanding would ultimately be wedded to breakthroughs in the study of brain mechanisms, and his dream is now coming to fruition." Gabbard, G. (2004). Images in Psychiatry: Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 232 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/161/2/232 Paul Akami responded: > If you had to estimate the percentage of psychologists who would endorse > this statement, what do you think it would be? I'm including psychologists > broadly as psychological scientists, licensed psychotherapists, instructors, > etc. Taking Paul�s comment first, assuming we could get even a rough answer to that question, I would then enquire how many of these people had taken the trouble to investigate the evidence for Gabbard�s assertion. My guess is that, in percentage terms, it would be in the low single figures! To my knowledge, most of the claims that brain mechanisms are consistent with Freud�s psychoanalytic theories tend to come from the field of neuropsychoanalysis. Someone who has for many years looked closely at these claims is G. William Domhoff. In a forthcoming article, �The Neuro-Sophistry of Dreams: A Critique of the Hobson vs. Solms Debate�, to be published in *Dreaming* (vol. 15, no. 1, March 2005), Domhoff writes of the views of one of the foremost advocates of neuropsychoanalysis: �Solms labors mightily to try to prove that Freud�s theory of dreams is consistent with modern-day neurobiology, but he never once looks to see if it is consistent with 50 years of empirical dream research at the psychological level, a testament to the distorting lens of neuro-sophistry.� On the disputes between dream researchers J. Allan Hobson and Mark Solms, Domhoff concludes: �None of their neurophysiological speculations, which also turn out to be dubious on neurophysiological grounds alone, has much credibility because the main findings on dream content are at odds with their versions of brain-mind isomorphism or dual-aspect monism. If there is to be an eventual synthesis of dream findings with neurophysiological results, it cannot be based on Hobson�s anti-cognitive reductionism or Solms�s attempt to revive psychoanalysis as neuropsychoanalysis.� Again, in his examination of the relevance of psychoanalytic ideas to modern dream theory in �Moving Dream Theory Beyond Freud and Jung�, Domhoff writes: �As can be seen from this brief overview of the relevant scientific literature on dreams, there is no reason to believe any of Freud's specific claims about dreams and their purposes.� (http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/domhoff_2000d.html) See also: �Why Did Empirical Dream Researchers Reject Freud? A Critique of Historical Claims by Mark Solms�, by G. William Domhoff (Dreaming, March 2004, Volume 14, Number 1) http://www.apa.org/journals/drm/304tc.html One final quote to indicate that vague claims such as that expressed by Gabbard are suspect. The cognitive neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel wrote in 1999 that �the neural basis for a set of unconscious mental processes� provided by current discoveries in neuroscience �bears no resemblances to Freud�s unconscious�. Kandel continues: �[This unconscious] is not related to instinctual strivings or to sexual conflicts, and the information never enters consciousness. These sets of findings provide the first challenge to a psychoanalytically oriented neural science.� (�A new intellectual framework for psychiatry�, Am. J. Psychiatry, 155:4, p. 468) 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 http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=57 http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=58 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
