Focuses on the contents of the book 'Freud Scientifically
Reappraised,' by Seymour Fisher and Roger Greenberg. Anal personality
types; Male homosexuality.
By
PT Staff, published on July 01, 1996
He frequently concocted elaborate theories based on only a few case
studies.And some of his ideas sound positively daft in this era of
high-tech neuroscience. But overall, Sigmund Freud "turned out to be
surprisingly right," insists Seymour Fisher, Ph.D., a psychologist at the
State University of New York at Syracuse. In Freud Scientifically
Reappraised (John Wiley & Sons), Fisher and colleague Roger
Greenberg, Ph.D., stack Siggy's theories against a century's worth of
scientific inquiry. Here's how Freud fares:
THEORY: Anal personality types
PREMISE: Anal individuals--one of Freud's four proposed personality
types--are especially orderly, frugal, and stubborn.
THE DATA: These traits do generally coincide in people.
GRADE: A
THEORY: Male superego formation
PREMISE: Men develop a conscience through fear of being castrated
by their fathers.
THE DATA: A father's warmth and nurturance, rather than fear, helps
a son acquire moral values.
GRADE: F
THEORY: Male homosexuality
PREMISE: Stems in part from an erotic attachment to mother and a
hostile relationship with father.
THE DATA: Studies consistently reveal antagonistic relationships
between dads and gay sons, even before fathers know their son is
homosexual. But mothers show no pattern.
GRADE: C+
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Sigmund Freud
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