I am 96% sure that I have read/heard from a reputable source that murderers, especially serial killers, are an inherent reflection of Western society, and that both actual murderers and fictional portrayals are important significant elements. Part A: Is this just a half-remembered bit of dialogue from some prime-time criminal procedural, and Part B: if not, where is it from? [more inside]
posted on Mar 24, 2008 - 11 answers

Freud and his followers have been thoroughly discredited for quite a while now. Our scientific understanding of the brain has grown by leaps and bounds since their heyday, and we now have treatment methods that are cheaper, quicker, and more effective than anything psychoanalysis had to offer. So why is psychoanalysis still practiced? [more inside]
posted on Feb 3, 2008 - 41 answers

I'm reading Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, and the jumps he makes in interpreting dreams -- from a dream image to someone's long-ago memory to some quote to another quote to a childhood wet-nurse -- strike me as absolutely ludicrous. How and why do any therapists put any faith in this method of interpretation (I know many don't)?
posted on May 9, 2007 - 20 answers

Is there any way to manipulate the unconscious on a micro scale? [more inside]
posted on Oct 10, 2006 - 14 answers

What are the various theoretical frameworks for understanding why victims of abuse often 'deal' with their trauma by becoming perpetrators themselves? What explanations have been suggested, for example, as to why sexually molested children often grow up into sexually-molesting adults? The one that comes to mind is that the victim somehow feels he can master the trauma by becoming its perpetrator. What, or who, is the origin of this theory? Is it Freud? Does it (still) have any currency in professional circles? What, if any, other theories have been suggested?
posted on Feb 18, 2006 - 22 answers