I apologize, yes I was defensive. Probably because I need more practice having my ideas challenged. Thank you for bringing this to my attention and I will work on it. (and thank you HN for somehow cultivating a community where we can have such a forum).
Absolutely, I agree that the field is not perfect. Let me address the link you sent (I haven't read the book):
Psychoanalysis (also called the psychodynamic method) is but one of several prominent forms of therapy. I've never undertaken it, as I cannot afford to go 3hrs/week for a year or more, so I cannot talk from experience.
I have read quite a bit about it from textbooks and I see a lot of merit to at least the theory. Merit, I say, because it appeared to corroborate with anecdotal evidence from my own life. I have seen the pattern in people, over and over again, who re-enact the behaviors they learned during their youth. You particularly hear about it with domestic violence: girls that grow up seeing mommy getting beat up (somehow) (very often) seem to become attracted to violent men and repeat the cycle. Boys who grow up seeing daddy beat up mommy (tend to) become aggressive toward women when they are adults.
So I don't personally think the entire field of psychoanalysis is bullshit. The books I've read said that a good psychoanalyst can shake the patient to their core. It sounds like they are trained to sniff out the patient's malignant / self-defeating behaviors and show them how they are reenacting them in the therapeutic relationship. From there, I don't know exactly how they motivate change, but once they break you down on such a primitive emotional level, once your defenses are removed and layed before you, it makes sense that you would be weakened enough to consider making a change.
So that's my case for psychoanalysis. Now, of course someone could take advantage of that. Maybe a patient is simply bipolar and their problems have nothing to do with reenacting their mom's abuse cycle. An unethical therapist could take advantage of that and milk the patient for 3 years' therapy and then say "oh yeah actually you just need to be on meds". It's malpractice and I'm sure it goes on every day in the medical field. MD's milking medicare. experienced dr's running unnecessary tests "just to be sure" when they know exactly whats wrong. Doing an X-ray in the hospital instead of an outpatient clinic so they can charge 3X more. Malpractice will always be around both in medicine and psychology.
Absolutely, I agree that the field is not perfect. Let me address the link you sent (I haven't read the book): Psychoanalysis (also called the psychodynamic method) is but one of several prominent forms of therapy. I've never undertaken it, as I cannot afford to go 3hrs/week for a year or more, so I cannot talk from experience. I have read quite a bit about it from textbooks and I see a lot of merit to at least the theory. Merit, I say, because it appeared to corroborate with anecdotal evidence from my own life. I have seen the pattern in people, over and over again, who re-enact the behaviors they learned during their youth. You particularly hear about it with domestic violence: girls that grow up seeing mommy getting beat up (somehow) (very often) seem to become attracted to violent men and repeat the cycle. Boys who grow up seeing daddy beat up mommy (tend to) become aggressive toward women when they are adults.
So I don't personally think the entire field of psychoanalysis is bullshit. The books I've read said that a good psychoanalyst can shake the patient to their core. It sounds like they are trained to sniff out the patient's malignant / self-defeating behaviors and show them how they are reenacting them in the therapeutic relationship. From there, I don't know exactly how they motivate change, but once they break you down on such a primitive emotional level, once your defenses are removed and layed before you, it makes sense that you would be weakened enough to consider making a change.
So that's my case for psychoanalysis. Now, of course someone could take advantage of that. Maybe a patient is simply bipolar and their problems have nothing to do with reenacting their mom's abuse cycle. An unethical therapist could take advantage of that and milk the patient for 3 years' therapy and then say "oh yeah actually you just need to be on meds". It's malpractice and I'm sure it goes on every day in the medical field. MD's milking medicare. experienced dr's running unnecessary tests "just to be sure" when they know exactly whats wrong. Doing an X-ray in the hospital instead of an outpatient clinic so they can charge 3X more. Malpractice will always be around both in medicine and psychology.