Monday, June 17, 2013

Repressive or Creative? (3.2)

Sigmund Freud 
According to Mlodinow, Sigmund Freud mistakenly thought that "repression, rather than a dynamic act of creation on the part of the unconscious, was the reason for the gaps and the inaccuracies in our memory "(62).

Why is this distinction important?

How might his mistake have led Freud to overestimate the importance of helping patients become conscious of their unconscious anxieties and fears?

(Don't know much about Freud?  Click on the video below, a lecture by Paul Bloom, recorded in the Spring of 2007 at Yale University.)   
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousAugust 13, 2013 at 1:01 PM

    By thinking that repression was the cause for memory lapses, Freud dug deep into the unconscious mind of his patients searching for something which all along was not there. This reminds me of the question earlier on the blog regarding each person's thoughts and feelings about whether he or she can be easily manipulated into thinking a certain way. Perhaps Freud was so egotistical that he created a problem and tried to solve the problem instead of admitting all along that he is ruled by an unconscious mind that is extremely impressionable.

    -Emily Davis

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