James Joseph Emerald said:
That is very true. In fact, if you actually started talking about the 'id' in front of real psychologists, they would laugh your ass out of the building. It's like talking about creationism around biologists. Nobody takes Freud seriously any more. Psychoanalysis in general is considered totally obsolete. The stuff that worked was incidental, like using leeches to remove "excess humours" once a week.
Well I wouldn't go as far saying that it's like talking about creationism around biologists. After all, as a psychology student you have to learn about Psychodynamics, Sigmund Freud as well as a plethora of other psychological perspectives. It's just something everyone has to go through. But it's not really intended to educate the student that psychodynamics is considered an applicable science today, it's more about learning about the history of psychology as a subject (sort of like reading about Pythagoras and René Descartes in mathematics), it's mandatory in order to understand the development of the subject and why certain theories have grown to becoem obsolete while others are still used.
Still I should mention that modern psychology as well is FAR FROM being above criticism. In fact, im highly critical if it myself and have even gone so far as declaring it to be a pseudo-science in many aspects and that a lot of supposedly "modern" psychologists aren't much better than Sigmund Freud because they practice equally flawed and nonsensical science as he did, and make similarly nonsensical and illogical claims about how the human mind works.
A lot of psychologists are also incredibly bad at admiting the importance of the biological brain in relation to the human psyche. I mean one of the most scientific facts is the one that the brain is EVERYTHING. Yet some psychologists still insist on that cute "tabula rasa" bullshit (the idea that everyone is a blank sheet of paper in the beginning and that enviroment and heritage determines how your psychological profile will look like).
If you are like me however, and try to separate ideological bullshit from science it's pretty clear that tabula rasa is far from everything. The biological brain obviously holds PLENTY of influence on our psychological profiles and even the most imperceptible and minute changes to the brain chemistry can have dramatic effects on behaviour and thought patterns in individuals.
The problem is, we know way too little of how the human brain works to determine why certain things happen. Our understanding of the anatomy of the brain is limited and pretty ham fisted when you think about it. We might have a rough outline about what large portions of the brain govern, but does any scientist really know EXACTLY what a particular axon and synapse govern? Of course they don't. The brain and nervous system is like an incredibly complicated central processing unit in a computer, but made up of vastly more complicated parts than miniature transistors.
We know how a central processing unit works because we designed it (i.e we can calculate what a particular "1" or "0" of machine code does to the computer because someone originally built the thing, and if you have the necessary skills in mathematics you can even determine it on your own without asking the original designer). But we didn't design the human brain, and where transistors are so clear cut that they work with only 1's or 0's (i.e either there IS current, or there ISN't any current) the smallest components of a human nervous system and brain seems to work with a lot more numbers than that, since the passing of a bioelectrical current is determined by exact amounts of hormones/signalsubstances which cancel eachother out.
So even after having spent more than a century examining and poking the brain with all manner of ham fisted approaches, we've only learned very basic principles of it so far. It's a complicated piece of biology, and it will take a shitload of time before we can even begin to make accurate claims about how it works on both micro and macro levels.
Which is why the field of Psychology is something I consider to be an EXTREMELY iffy field of study that makes far too many arrogant claims about the human mind and nature. Often they have only the most rudimentary understanding of the biological brain, yet they think that they can tell us something substantial about the human perception.
Would you trust a guy who can only view a room through a keyhole to be able to tell you exactly where a rat on the floor in that room is going to run across? Because that's pretty much what psychology (arhcaic as well as modern) has always been about. Skepticism is therefore extremely warranted when it comes to any psychological theory.