Is Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory Still Relevant in Modern Neuroscience?

[Imparcticle]

In last month's SCIAM magazine, there was an interesting article concerning the recent developments in neuroscience, in regards to the classical psychoanalytical (sp?) theories of Sigmund Freud. Unfortunately, SCIAM did not post the whole 4 page article online but it does have a summary and a few paragraphs of the article at this website: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00074EE5-1AFE-1085-94F483414B7F0000

Anyway, I wanted to know what you guys think. If you'd like to read the actual article, then please say so and I'll try to scan the article for you.

 

[loseyourname]

The two paragraphs linked to tell us nothing. Can you at least provide a synopsis?

 

[Imparcticle]

Sure. Uh, I think I'm better off typing an interesting part of the article from my magazine right now. I'm really too sleepy to bother writing a synopsis:

Unconscious motivation.
When Freud introduced the central notion that most mental processes that determine our everyday thoughts, feelings and volitions occur unconsciously, his contemporaroes rejected it as impossible. But today's findings are confirming the existence and pivotal role of unconscious mental processing. For example, the behavior of patients who are unable to consciously remember events that occurred after damage to certain encoding structures of their brains is clearly influenced by the "forgotten" events. Cognitive neuroscienctists make sense of such cases by dilineating different memory systems that process information "explicitly" (consciously) and "implicitly" (unconsciously). Freud split memory along just these lines.
Neurpscientists have also identified unconsciousmemory systems that mediate emotional learning. In 1996 at New York University, LeDoux demonstrated the existence under the conscious cortex of a neuronal pathway that connects perceptual information with the primitive brain structures responsible for generating fear responses. Because this pathway bypasses the hippocampus-- which generates conscious memories--current events routinely trigger unconscious rememberances of emotionally important past events, causing conscious feelings of that seem irrational, such as "Men with beards make me uneasy."
"Neuroscience has shown that the major brain structures essential for forming conscious (explicit) memories are not functional during the first two years of life, providing and elegant explanation of what Freud called infantile amnesia. As Freud surmised, it is not that we forget our earliest memories; we simply cannot recall them to consciousness. But this inability does not preclude them from affecting adult feelings and behavior. One would be hard pressed to find a developmental neurobiologist who ...it is becoming increasingly clear that a good deal of our mental activity is unconsciously motivated.

If our mental activity is indeed unconsciously motivated, then what if what we see as intelligent behavior is really a product of complex phenomena, based on a basic set of rules?

 

[wuliheron]

That Freud may have fairly accurately described a few basic principles of cognitive science comes as no surprise, after all, he wrote endlessly on the subject. Nonetheless, after a century of use no has yet proven psychoanalysis to be the slightest bit better than just allowing people to recover on their own. Evidently Freud's ghost will never die quietly. Not enough drama to satisfy his demanding audience.

 

[pocebokli]

imparticle; I've been thinking something about those same lines.

"it is becoming increasingly clear that a good deal of our mental activity is unconsciously motivated."

that's logical. one does not even need neuro/science to determine that.

All of my actions are driven by instincts.

I'm buying a good car at a reasonable price, that's reasonable. The men who built it are reasonable men.

nope. it's un-reasonable because the reason is used as tool for instincts, the ego, who is the one that "wants". you only bargained a reasonable price, thus providing a good car for your family. which may mean safety, or pride or whatever of the "feelings" that mix into more complex things that we call "values".

The body is our tool, but we can also use it to play football with it or have sex, which both give pleasure in a way. which does nothing else but satisfy the needs, the instincts. the instincts are very hungry. the want sensations, experience.

the reason is the same kind of a tool, with it you can also play games. which does nothing else but satisfy the needs, the instincts.

the reason is more and more capable as a tool, as we develop ourselves. But we are not able to leave behind the basics of our being, because that's what makes us "us". And if you leave yourself behind that's not you anymore.

 

[Imparcticle]

I'm buying a good car at a reasonable price, that's reasonable. The men who built it are reasonable men.

nope. it's un-reasonable because the reason is used as tool for instincts, the ego, who is the one that "wants".

Are you saying that "want" is unreasonable? How do you arrive at this conclusion? What is being reasonable?

 

[pocebokli]

that's all very relative, true...