It’s fashionable to denounce Freudian psychology as far-fetched and out-of-date, but no discussion of psychological freedom would be persuasive without it. Freud famously wrote “where id was, there ego shall be” as the desired objective of psychoanalysis. As Bruno Bettelheim, in his whistle-blowing book, Freud and Man’s Soul revealed, the latinized terms id and ego promulgated by his misguided translators, lose the human flavor that Freud intended with the original German terms Das Ich and Das Es—”The It” and “The I,” or the experience of It-ness and I-ness.
In layman’s terms what did Freud mean by “where id was, there ego shall be?” In essence he was conveying that commitment to “free association” during psychotherapy—or speaking as honestly and freely about inner thoughts and feelings as possible, genuine emotional truth telling—allows for visceral, socially unacceptable urges and emotions to enter our awareness that typically leave a person feeling out of control. Freud was a staunch believer in the liberating effects of practitioners encouraging—if not demanding—clients to speak without pretense in psychotherapy, to think the unthinkable, feel the unfeelable, and say the unsayable.
Vague and simmering primal feelings like envy, lust, rage, sorrow, dread, and pride that typically are frowned upon by society, and get repressed, or get the better of someone, and are acted out in crude ways, causing shame and interpersonal strife, can be talked out and talked through. The visceral, animalistic, murky, awkwardly expressible nature of deep feelings is what contributes to an inner sense of It-ness, leaving individuals feeling like they are subjected to their emotions, rather than the subject of their emotions; feel controlled by, not adequately in control of their feelings; experience emotions as uncomfortable forces to avoid, deny, and make excuses for.
Plentiful receptive occasions to spontaneously tap into and verbally articulate a range of emotions as they arise in story telling about their past and present lives in psychotherapy helps clients feel they are the subject of their emotions, not subjected to them. As the folk saying goes: you gotta name it to tame it. This is one meaning of the Freudian dictum, in the original German: “Where the experience of It-ness was, there the experience of I-ness shall be.” Free from becoming emotionally flooded and overwhelmed, anxiously unsettled, on guard, closed off, the person feels a greater subjective sense of I-ness. Improvements in expressive mastery of a range of emotions acquired over time in therapy fortifies clients’ sense of I-ness, or personal agency, psychologically freeing them up to act from a place of tranquility and true desire, rather than just act impulsively and compulsively.
It should come as no surprise that not only do clients seek emotional intensity from their psychotherapy experience, but some data substantiate the fact that it is a prerequisite for a favorable psychotherapy journey. In a 2019 study published in Psychotherapy, a team of researchers spearheaded by Mick Cooper surveyed a representative sample of laypersons from the U.S. and U.K. about their psychotherapy preferences. They discovered that people seek out emotional intensity, or being coaxed by a therapist to face difficult emotions and express strong feelings. Also, a meta-analysis of 10 psychotherapy outcome studies involving over 400 clients conducted by Antonio Pascual-Leone and Nikita Yeryomenko at the University of Winsor, Canada, found that depth of emotional experiencing is “the most promising client process predictor of outcome.”
Another type of psychological freedom clients seek from their psychotherapy experience—that has a Freudian fingerprint—is freedom from endlessly engaging in the same tired old personal and interpersonal bad habits. A 2020 Psychotherapy Action Network consumer research study reveals that the majority of people considering or pursuing psychotherapy believe that “people should seek therapy when they want to change repeating patterns.” Freud’s concept of the “repetition compulsion” has relevance here. He shed light on the vexing human tendency to get caught up in the same relationship problems, career mishaps, and go-nowhere arguments with partners, parents, friends, siblings, or coworkers, despite years of life wisdom that tells us this is fruitless and our valiant efforts to finally turn things around.
Over my 35 years doing therapy I have been struck by how humbling, if not humiliating, it is for many clients to once again get attracted to lovers who are no good for them; feel like they are an imposter, even though by all accounts they are formidable in their careers; know they are being annoying, but do it anyway; feel entitled to react with rage, when it was a mere misunderstanding; offer a knee-jerk apology, even when they really have done no wrong; overspend, overeat, over imbibe, overtalk, overexercise, and overwork, even though they grasp this monopolizes their state of mind and harms those they love; or, any number of self-defeating habits. Clients ensnared in these struggles lack psychological freedom. They feel puppet-like, propelled by self-defeating invisible forces that act against their own best interests.
How does Freud weigh in here? The answer does not square with your typical quick-fix, get-over-it, buck-up, use-an-App, will-yourself-to-change, journal-your-progress, correct-your-cognitive-distortions, double-down-on-the-CBT-manual, approach to self-improvement and psychotherapy that are popular in the Western world. He basically argues that we unconsciously normalize childhood experiences of mistreatment, neglect, disappointment, and invalidation because we have to adapt to the limitations of parents and caregivers inasmuch as that’s all we know. We simply have to find a way to attach for survival reasons. Loud protests can lead to dangerous loss of needed love and support. As we age, childhood templates for how we should act in relationships and what we should expect from them, invisibly and tenaciously govern our ways of being in the world. These are discouragingly difficult to change.
Psychotherapists who incorporate psychoanalytic thinking into their approach are trained to encourage clients to talk about their childhoods, yielding material to point out similarities between what occurred in the past and how it has shaped self and other expectations in the present: “Your father seemed so charming and laid it on thick with praise about how you could do anything with your life; yet, he was unreliable, uninvolved and frequently disinterested in what you did in your everyday life. Is it any wonder you are attracted to men who “love bomb” you, but fail to make plans, cancel at the last minute, and avoid getting together with you and your friends to have fun times.”
Psychotherapists working with an understanding of the “repetition compulsion” offer insights sourcing the childhood roots of current troubling relationship dynamics, trying to convert the insensible into something sensible, the confusing, into something not so confusing. When insights lead to catharsis, or a burst of emotions about these childhood events, it can bring about a real reckoning with how their family-of-origin experiences hurt them, helping them literally putting the past behind, rendering it less likely to control their present. Indeed, a 2018 American Journal of Psychiatry meta-analysis provides solid empirical evidence for the curative role of insight into connections between present problems and past experiences in psychotherapy.
While insight into the childhood roots of recurring interpersonal problems and better expressive mastery of primal emotions are not the only pathways to greater psychological freedom, we are hard-pressed to deny how much they are cornerstones of effective psychotherapy.
Yet another self-serving, platitudinous justification for the alleged benefits of talk therapy. I’m not at all convinced that the legion of psychologists, psychoanalysts, licensed social workers, counselors, and other purported experts on the workings of the human mind actually possess the superior insight, knowledge, and wisdom to pass judgment on the appropriateness or validity of their clients’ thinking processes and behavior. This assessment is entirely a matter of subjective, culturally conditioned opinion, which of course evolves over the course of time. Jeffrey Masson’s “Against Therapy: The Myth of Emotional Healing” provides a trenchant critique of the so-called mental health industry and its fallacious premises.
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Yes, one more promo piece for the psych industry. It’s amazing the way MIA keeps churning out one self-congratulatory psych article after another, which kinda makes me wonder who’s pulling the strings…
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“He basically argues that we unconsciously normalize childhood experiences of mistreatment, neglect, disappointment, and invalidation because we have to adapt to the limitations of parents and caregivers inasmuch as that’s all we know.”
Not to mention, the DSM deluded psy industries can NOT even bill to help child abuse survivors.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1
And the psy industries have literally been, and still are, functioning as systemic child abuse cover uppers for over a century.
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/01/23/18820633.php?fbclid=IwAR2-cgZPcEvbz7yFqMuUwneIuaqGleGiOzackY4N2sPeVXolwmEga5iKxdo
… so Freud was part of a systemic, and continuing, paternalistic system of covering up child abuse, thus they are people who perpetuate generational family disfunction.
“… that’s all we know,” so what makes you “professionals”? Certainly, I know the psy “professions” are now claiming ignorance of the common adverse and withdrawal effect of the drugs they force on innocent others.
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The author seems to regret that Freudian psychoanalysis is now often regarded as far-fetched and out-of-date. I would agree with that general view of Freud’s misogynistic (penis envy, really?) and wholly subjective unproven hypotheses (death instinct, really?). Every kind of psychotherapy without exception is necessarily colored by the prevailing mores and socio-cultural prejudices of its time. I see absolutely no reason why psychiatrists or any other so-called mental health professionals should enjoy their exalted status as the arbiters of what constitutes sound, proper cognition and conduct. Why not give more credence to cultural anthropologists or philosophers, who, I dare say, have a much broader education and perspective than the motley purveyors of speculative, often harmful pseudo-scientific nostrums?
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Emotional excavation therapy with a therapist didn’t do me any good. Most of the time I couldn’t help feeling the therapist or psychiatrist couldn’t wait to hear some emotionally gory details.
Wisely, I kept most to myself, something that most of them seemed to resent. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t my job to emotionally entertain them, that I didn’t enjoy being their emotional laxative for the day.
However, I did get a lot out of exploring my childhood on my own.
Experience has taught me to be skeptical of those who listen to people’s sob stories for a living, something that in my opinion makes the whole therapy schtick even more questionable.
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Please let me know borrow this term for future usage: “emotional laxative”
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Please be my guest! 🙂
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Bonobos inherited a better set
of genes from chimps than we
did. I had a couple of sessions
with Jung the year before he died. He told me we’re not going to make it.
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Hahaha! I agree bonobos are infinitely more beautiful, perfect and loving then the human species, but probably we’d be just as happy if we were mere happenings in the forest and if everything in our lives were mere happenings in the forest. Imagine the beauty of waking up among green leaves filled with light with a little bonobo clinging to your breast. Admittedly when they all start having bisexual and age indiscriminate sex with each other we may raise an eyebrow (they are the only species I know of which do that), but let’s be honest – sex takes the place of violence in bonobo society and I know which one I’d prefer. And one could only guess what humanity would be like sexually if we were as liberated as them. I should know – I live in Brighton, UK, undoubtably the most liberal city in the UK, and you can barely see the beach in the morning because of all the used and discarded condoms.
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Quote: “In layman’s terms what did Freud mean by “where id was, there ego shall be?” In essence he was conveying that commitment to “free association” during psychotherapy—or speaking as honestly and freely about inner thoughts and feelings as possible, genuine emotional truth telling—allows for visceral, socially unacceptable urges and emotions to enter our awareness that typically leave a person feeling out of control. Freud was a staunch believer in the liberating effects of practitioners encouraging—if not demanding—clients to speak without pretense in psychotherapy, to think the unthinkable, feel the unfeelable, and say the unsayable.”
Psychotherapy is a service that originated within a specific culture. Its initial purpose was to encourage individuals to express their innermost thoughts and feelings. This process often involved patients sharing their most visceral emotions, which the therapist would then interpret. Although Freud did not explicitly state this, it is evident that the culture in which he lived influenced this approach, particularly in how it dealt with various societal groups in adverse environment. It makes sense that someone might think of ways to bring out these underlying feelings to the open. However, while it may be framed as a method to heal individuals, it is also a way to standardize society and remove originality in systematic manner.
In reality, the privacy of the mind is more important than the ‘mind farming’ that psychotherapy can sometimes become. Psychotherapy is unique in that many psychotherapists write books, essentially mining their clients’ minds for content. Therefore, one does not need to go to a therapist, share all their innermost thoughts, and have the therapist analyze and define them. This is not the true essence of psychotherapy; it is more about how cults are created. Anyone can perform such an act convincingly by reading the same books, but that does not constitute genuine psychotherapy. A group with equal amount of power and vulnerability can do so much more than in a room with an adult and the dissociation related to the removal of the power structure in the room.
Quote: “Over my 35 years doing therapy I have been struck by how humbling, if not humiliating, it is for many clients to once again get attracted to lovers who are no good for them; feel like they are an imposter, even though by all accounts they are formidable in their careers; know they are being annoying, but do it anyway; feel entitled to react with rage, when it was a mere misunderstanding; offer a knee-jerk apology, even when they really have done no wrong; overspend, overeat, over imbibe, overtalk, overexercise, and overwork, even though they grasp this monopolizes their state of mind and harms those they love; or, any number of self-defeating habits. Clients ensnared in these struggles lack psychological freedom. They feel puppet-like, propelled by self-defeating invisible forces that act against their own best interests.”
This is not about clients only. This is a normal human condition! You only had access to hearing it while you sat safely in your practice, and self regulated. Are you implying you do not do any of these things ever?
If we have two people in a space where one speaks vulnerably while the other listens = exactly what you described and it is not psychological freedom. It sounds more like psychological porn.
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Psychological porn is right.
Psychotherapy amounts to a one-way psychological peep show, that’s for sure. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think emotionally disrobing for strangers is a good idea for anybody. The whole “therapy” set-up gives me the creeps.
IMHO.
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It sounds like your readers have very strong feelings about the process of therapy. I have had wonderful self-exploring experiences in therapy and I have had therapists who were only interested in talking about themselves. Some thought they should lead and were angry if I did not follow. One precious person saved my life. She gave me the space to simply sit like a flower and open up as I received vital “nutrients” from our many-layered discussions. She was honest without being harsh. She was supportive without being a crutch. For the first time, I saw it was possible to be myself. I don’t think it was at all a peep show on her part, she wasn’t writing books using my stories as anecdotes, and she didn’t give me the impression that anything about my life was abnormal.
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Let me ask you something: How do you think you’d feel if you hadn’t found your miracle therapist?
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I’m glad that you had a positive experience with the precious person who saved your life. But, judging from the harrowing stories featured on this website by survivors of the mental health industry who have been physically harmed and/or emotionally traumatized by its dubious practices (which are based on wholly subjective criteria), I strongly believe that genuine emphatic support is much more likely to be found in a non-hierarchical, non-judgmental peer group.
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Talk about psychological disrobing and “emotional laxative”! Look at what a simple articulation of the process and value of psychotherapy has brought forth: vitriol, prejudicial, reductionistic perspectives (“Against Therapy”, as if that sums it up), and disrespect for both the author and the profession. Overall, the gist of these comments evidence a lack of civility. As a practicing philosopher-psychologist for over two decades who has been ever-critical of both psychology and the profession, and who detailed my criticism of the profession and education of psychologists in a dissertation, I appreciate the author’s perspective. Psychotherapy has value and needs no defense from either its beneficiaries or its practitioners who have contributed and will continue to contribute to the relief of human suffering and the betterment of humankind. It is this dehumanizing, disturbing, utter-whatever-you-think, naysaying culture that is devoid of value to humankind.
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My goodness! I must have struck a nerve…
Could it be that words like “psychological disrobing” and “emotional laxative” ring true on some level?
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The philosopher-psychologist, Healing Relationships, claims that other people’s opinions are “devoid of value to humankind” whilst simultaneously failing to realise that their accusations “lack (the) civility” of which they accuse those who demonstrate freedom of speech. Classic psychologist.
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For some reason, the psychology profession seems to attract more than its fair share of judgmental idealists, whereas compassionate realists find better things to do.
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More questions for Healing Relationships:
You claim that psychotherapy needs no defense (does that mean all its conflicting, ever-changing hypotheses and treatment modalities are irrefutable and eternally valid irrespective of time and place?) from either its practitioners or beneficiaries. I find that sweeping assertion irritatingly vague and devoid of concrete evidence. Could you please be a little more specific?
1. Which practitioners are you referring to? Is every single person in this host of mental health professionals (e.g. Freudians, Jungians, Primal Therapists, Core Energetics and Reichian bodyworkers, Neurolinguistic Programmers, behaviorists, Rational-Emotive therapists, Transcranial Magnetic machine operators, licensed social workers, etc. etc.) equally effective and trustworthy?
2. If the DSM is nothing but a pretentious “work of fiction” (to use Dr. Jeffrey Schaler’s apt expression), what credible, verifiable scientific findings can you cite to substantiate the mental health industry’s supposed contribution to “relief of suffering” and the “betterment of mankind?” Have we in general become demonstrably more virtuous, wise, creative, and otherwise admirable as a result of proliferating psychiatric treatments? What is the exact ratio of “beneficiaries” to physically and emotionally harmed victims?
Unless you can answer these basic questions, your uncritical support of psychotherapy as a valid discipline would seem to be just a self-serving rationalization for what is essentially an intellectually bankrupt, morally compromised pseudo-religious cult.
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