Monday, July 16, 2012

Freudian attachment theory

I have been tryihg to understand how the field of psychology got into such a morally depraved state. The 20th century history is explained partly by the vast influence and idolization of Sigmund Freud.

Brian Boyd writes this essay about Vladimir Nabokov:
Famously, Nabokov could not resist deriding Freud. And for good reason: Freud’s ideas were enormously influential, especially in Nabokov’s American years, but his claims were hollow. Nobel laureate Peter Medawar, perhaps the greatest of science essayists, declared in his book Pluto’s Republic, in terms akin to Nabokov’s, that Freudianism was “the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century.” Nabokov saw the intellectual vacuity of Freudian theory and its pervasiveness in the popular and the professional imagination. He thought it corrupted intellectual standards, infringed on personal freedom, undermined the ethics of personal responsibility, destroyed literary sensitivity, and distorted the real nature of childhood attachment to parents –- the last of which has been amply confirmed by modern developmental psychology.
Freud was indeed a quack and nearly everything he said was bogus. His meager alleged successes were faked. He was exposed as a scientific fraud in his lifetime, and no educated person could take him seriously.

My concern here is with Jewish and other psychologists and judges who use bogus attachment theory and other prejudices to take kids away from good parents.

Freud is described as a "secular Jew". That means that he was not religious in the usual sense of the word, but his Jewish identity was very important to him, and his Jewishness and his personal neuroses informed his teachings more than any scientific considerations did. Furthermore, Freud's fame and high reputation were almost entirely due to promotion from other Jews. The whole development of Freudian psychoanalysis was based on Jewish beliefs of superiority over non-Jews. See Chapter 4: Jewish Involvement in the Psychoanalytic Movement for details.

A psychology professor explains:
The central importance of child-parent attach-ment in Freud's theory of personality is perhaps best captured in his characterization of the infant-mother relationship as ~ without parallel, established unal-terably for a lifetime as the first and strongest love object and as the prototype of all later love relation-ships" (Freud, 1940/1949, p.188). This prototype not only forms the matrix on which subsequent personal-ity development builds, according to Freud, but also provides the motivational core of a great deal of be-havior throughout the lifespan. Moreover, the con-flicts and defenses rooted in early attachment rela-tionships continue to assert themselves throughout life in the form of various prosocial and antisocial behavior patterns. ...

The success of Freud's model in the empirical arena, however, was extremely limited. Not only was child-parent attachment poorly understood at the time, but the mechanisms of identification proposed by Freud to explain its influence on development proved inherently resistant to empirical scrutiny.
The phrase "resistant to empirical scrutiny" is an academic euphemism for pseudo-scientific nonsense.

Jewish Ideas Daily writes that Freud's psychoanalysis was a Jewish science:
Sigmund Freud, Anna's father, was unmistakably a fin-de-siècle Viennese Jew —- an ironic intellectual outsider in love with wit and literary interpretation, committed both to the liberating power of science and to the social norms of the bourgeoisie. But as for Judaism, he famously regarded it, like all organized religions, as one of the problems his insights were meant to neutralize and dissolve. At first, he saw religion as a neurosis-like expression of unresolved conflicts between instinctual drives and society-ordained values. His later view, famously expressed in Moses and Monotheism (1939), was that religion is an illusion, the projection onto the universe of an omnipotent and guilt-inducing father.
When Palo Alto psychologist Ken Perlmutter testified in family court in my case, he claimed to have some expertise in attachment theory. He was unable to explain what it had to do with my case, so I did not pay much attention to it. In retrospect, it was about like saying that he has expertise in the Jewish Talmud.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please..." a Psychology professor"..Kevin Macdonald, right ?

Why not cite his name ?

"A Cultural Critique" again Kevin MacDonald. Why not mention his name.

MacDoanld. You'd said that you weren't familiar with his politics. Well, you sure seem familiar with them after all.

You have to try to conceal the source you're citing ?

Is MacDonald the best you can do ?

Anonymous said...

Ideology:
White Nationalist

Kevin MacDonald is the neo-Nazi movement's favorite academic. A psychology professor at California State University, Long Beach, MacDonald, who also is a board member of the white supremacist Charles Martel Society, published a trilogy that supposedly "proves" that Jews are genetically driven to destroy Western societies. MacDonald also argues that anti-Semitism, far from being an irrational hatred for Jews, is a logical reaction to Jewish success in societies controlled by other ethnic or racial groups. After the publication of a 2007 Intelligence Report exposé detailing MacDonald's anti-Semitism, his teaching duties were reduced and many of his colleagues publicly condemned his racist research.

Greg said...

I don't think that attachment theory is bogus. Basically having a nurturing, responsive caregiver is important to a child's well-being. Kids who are neglected or abused tend to have adjustment problems later on.

I agree that Freud was pseudoscientific. A few of his ideas have merit, but most don't and he didn't test his ideas carefully in the lab.

I will also admit that attachment theory can be misused. (eg. the Attachment parenting thing is ridiculous). And it sounds like it was misused in your court hearings.

But I don't think it is bogus. Why do you think that? Freud isn't a major figure in attachment theory. It continues to be developed and refined in the 90s and this past decade.

Greg said...

Also wanted to add that it doesn't say the mother has to be the caregiver. A father can do so as well.

George said...

Yes, there are people who hate MacDonald for what he says. I don't know anything about the Charles Martel Society. If someone has refuted his academic writings, I'd be glad to post it.

George said...

Perhaps I was too dismissive of attachment theory. My court psychologist, Ken Perlmutter, claimed to have expertise in it. Maybe he does not know anything about how the theory was developed and refined in the 1990s. He did not show it. He did now apply any actually psychology knowledge to my case.

Anonymous said...

Yes, there are people who hate MacDonald for what he says. I don't know anything about the Charles Martel Society. If someone has refuted his academic writings, I'd be glad to post it.

Well, you said that you were unfamiliar with Macdonald's politics, too, so who knows what you know or don't know anything about. I wouldn't trust you to honestly tell me.

Post those who refuted MacDoanld ? It's been done. You simply, dismissed all the experts that disputed MacDonald's wacky theories.

So why did you leave out MacDonald's name as your source ?

Anonymous said...

MacDonald
"In the end, does it really matter if my motivation at this point is less than pristine?"

Anonymous said...

George,

It's starting to appear as though you're using your issues with the family court to advance your politcal positions.

George said...

That MacDonald quote is on an SPLC page attacking MacDonald. It was followed by, "Isn't the only question whether I am right?" I agree with that. I quoted him about Freudian attachment theory. If he is wrong about that, please let me know. I link to my sources so you can check them out. That SPLC page has nothing to refute MacDonald, but only some slimy guilt-by-association tactics.

Most academic psychologists have motives that are less than pristine. The SPLC seems like a racist hate group to me. Check out this video explanation from one of their leaders, Mark Potok.

Anonymous said...

If MacDonald is right about anything, let me know and post it.

"slimy guilt-by-association tactics."

Here's what you said about Leno..

Leno, who in 2008, served on the advisory board of the Revolutionary Communist Party‘s World Cant Wait, anti war front group, with jailed attorney Lynne Stewart, and R.C.P. leader Sunsara Taylor, is co-sponsoring the Bill with Equality California and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network.

And Mirkarimi..Mirkarimi has been involved in these civic and community service activities: Director for SF Nuclear Freeze Zone Coalition; union negotiator for DAI Association union; member of the IFPTE Local 2; member of the Harvey Milk Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Democratic Club; member of the Iranian-American Chamber of Commerce; environmental analyst for the Harvard Study Team (Iraq) Bayview Hunters Point, California Base Closures; and member of the National Organization for Women (NOW).[78]

So he subscribes to a bunch of dopey leftist-feminist causes. Some people only learn the hard way.

Lopez is from Venezuela and Mirkarimi's family is from Iran. These are the two most anti-American countries on Earth. He lives in a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, and he is a leftist politician who has allied himself with every anti-family and anti-American cause.

"The SPLC seems like a racist hate group to me."

If anyone knew what seemes like a racist hate group to me, it would be you.

Link your sources ? and omit the names.

MacDoanld motives are less than pristine. What's that tell you ?
He doesn't like Jews as he states, and he thinks he's unbiased.

Anonymous said...

Oh, no - not again, George......
Barbara