The Fallacy of Freud: Critique Part II

Another individual who made a remarkable contribution to humanity was Sigmund Freud. Freud studied psychology and discovered a latent mind, which he named “sub-conscious”. Freud and Carl G. Jung were the most respected and recognized psychologists of all times who spent almost their entire academic careers explaining the human mind.

Freud and Jung were friends and co-workers until they had a falling out. They met in 1907 and worked together until about 1912 when Jung decided to start his own school of psychology in Zurich. Jung's emphasis in the field in psychology had to do with dreams. Jung developed many theories about dreams, a lot of them disagreeing with Freud.

Unfortunately, not much original research has been done into the field of psychoanalysis after Jung and Freud. Their word on the subject has been treated as the final testimony and all studies in psychology and dream-analysis today is mere homage paying to those two great thinkers. There is another reason why dream-analysis became almost a taboo subject over the next few decades since Jung and Freud. There is an interesting story behind this great debacle of dream-analysis.

The friction between Jung and Freud was much deeper than simple arguments about their differing theories on dreams. In some ways they were just too smart for each other. They would often disagree with each other’s theories, however this was not the true source of their problems. When they worked together they took turns analyzing each other's dreams. Jung was getting suspicious about some of the things that Freud was telling him about his unconscious. Jung dug deeper and deeper only to find out that Freud was sleeping with Jung's wife. But while telling each other their dreams in their unconscious, Freud found out something about Jung also. Freud found out that Jung was sleeping with one of his younger female patients. Freud used this information against Jung, saying that if Jung told anyone about Freud and Jung's wife, Freud would also make his secret public. After all this the two went their separate ways.

When it came to the study of dreams, Freud and Jung had different ideas. Freud claimed that dreams were all about sex. No matter what the dream was, he could relate it to a sexual feeling or fantasy. Jung thought that dreams were a tool to help us grow, not just to release extreme sexual desires. Jung felt that dreams were more than about sex, they were about life. Jung said that sexual drive doesn't even motivate us as much as the fear of death. The theories of Jung and Freud continue to influence the dominant thought in the fields of psychology and psychiatry even today.