I don’t know about everybody else, but I felt kinda weird sitting in that communications session on Friday afternoon. You see, my undergrad was a double major in psychology and philosophy, so I spent plenty of time hearing about Sigmund Freud, unconscious emotions, and all that stuff that was taught to us on Friday. The difference though was when I learnt about the stuff in my undergrad it was mostly for historical purposes to highlight how psychology can go wrong.
Yes, Freudian psychoanalysis did improve certain people’s lives, but so does talking things over with a bartender after a rough day at work. As well, the underlying principles that were touted on Friday as truth (i.e. emotional instability is based on trauma at very young ages, etc.) have been quite successfully refuted. We were presented with this material like it was brand new, but the idea of psychoanalytic uncovering of emotions has been around for a long time, and has subsequently been dismissed as an effective treatment option for a long time as well. To be fair this wasn’t straight out Freudian (i.e. no Ego, Id, etc.) but it was textbook Neo-Freudian Psychoanalysis, which may not been as ludicrous as Old school Freud, it is still regarded as an inferior treatment option.
The lecturer highlighted the improvements that came about from therapy compared to no therapy but failed to compare it to the current “gold standard” therapies of psychology such as cognitive and behavioral treatments. Anybody else with a psychology degree has probably heard of plenty of meta-analyses that compare various psychological treatments, and while they often dispute which is the most effective (drugs vs. cognitive vs. behavioral), they all tend to agree on one thing, psychoanalysis (what we were just taught) is the LEAST effective. Yes, it is better than nothing, but since when do we base our treatment option as compared to nothing and not compared to the top treatment methods. This isn’t even getting into the issues of leading questions or coercive suggestions…
So after four years of learning how ridiculous psychoanalysis is, and learning about it as a humorous aside, it was quite odd to all of a sudden be in a class in medical school learning something that has been discredited for so long as if it was gospel truth.
8 Comments on “Communications Skills or Neo-Freudian Psychoanalysis”
I too was surprised to have psychoanalysis presented as a mainstream treatment option (like Tim, I also have an undergrad degree in psych.) Personally although I agree it may have some merits, I doubt that everyone’s emotional problems are all explained away by some incident that happened when they were 2.
But on the other hand, when I took a year of psychology in France, psychoanalysis was the mainstream there. Nearly every course was based in neo-Freudian theory. I was pretty surprised because I’d been taught in undergrad back in Calgary that psychoanalysis had been pretty much totally debunked, yet in France (and possibly the rest of Europe, I’m not sure) it is still the mainstay of psychology.
When I queried a prof about it, he chalked it down to “unlike us of the Catholic tradition, you uptight Anglo-Saxon Protestants are too squeamish to talk about sex” (if you’re confused, just google “Oedipus complex”, one of the more famous Freudian theories). Not quite sure I agree, but an interesting theory to be sure…
Thanks Tim and Heather for commenting on the Communications lecture. I took several psych courses at SMU back in the day (dating myself again) but pretty much forgot that info long ago.
On another note, my question for everyone is, did anyone else find the presenter to be very “leading” during the interviews. I mean, the patient would make a comment and then the doctor would say “You mean … blah, blah, blah” and usually the patient would agree with what the doc just said. To me it felt as if the interview was definitely going where the physician wanted it to go. Anyways, that is the impression that I got. Just wondering what others thought.
David
Dave, did you feel frustration while watching his leading questions? Was it like your frustration was leading to rage? Rage at the interviewer? Or was it maybe like a frustration you felt with your brother when you were younger? Did you ever feel frustrated at your brother? Maybe rage? Then guilt after the rage? Is it like the tension you feel in you neck right now?
If you looked up “leading questions” on wikipedia, you’d probably find links to his interview videos.
What would you find if you looked up ‘Tim Holland’ on wiki?
The entry under ‘Tim Holland’ looks a whole lot like the entry under ‘Doug Tuck’ only younger.
Ohhh… burn…
I’m not so sure you’ve got the right Tuck Tim!
Tuckster = Tucker?
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Today’s “Own Goals”:
Tim Holland: 1