Freud 2006

Via Mind Hacks: Sigmund Freud's ideas have not aged all that well. And Prospect Magazine has an excellent article about why that is, and how cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) has replaced it.

From the article:

No one has fully explained the great riddle of how flesh became thought, but it is now perfectly possible to piece together a working model of the mind from neuroscience and cognitive psychology that contains no oedipal conflict, no thanatos or eros, no pleasure principle, no ego and—decisively—no unconscious. We may be emotionally attached to some of these ideas but, scientifically speaking, we don't need them.

Does this mean that the big dream of the talking cure inspired by Freud has been swept aside by a biology of the mind? Far from it.

It's an interesting historical survey of psychology and talk-therapy, as well as a good look at what the current state of the art/science is.

--YY