it is difficult to view repression as common a defence mechanisms as Freud said if painful memories are not repressed statistically more times than not. Therefore a supposed basic but major concept of Freud’s work can be easily criticised by modern psychologists, showing his work to be less substantial and therefore less relevant than first assumed.
Often with Freud’s therapy patients would undergo two to three sessions a week over a period of several years. However most people would struggle to attend this many sessions within a week for that length of time and more recent psychologists have successfully attended to this. Therapy is now available to couples, individuals and families unlike Freud’s sessions which were only carried out on the individual (Edelson, 1988). Sessions can also be either short or long term, making them more convenient for clients yet just as successful. Although based on Freud’s work, this modernisation of psychoanalysis evidences that Freud’s methods are not very practical within modern day society.
Moreover, given the strong attachment that can form in therapy, it is even argued nowadays that it is possible that termination from long term therapy may be more complicated and difficult when compared to short-term psychotherapy (e.g. Marx & Gelso, 1987; Roe, Dekel, Harel, & Fennig, 2006), showing that Freud’s psychoanalysis procedure could actually have a negative rather than positive impact on patients. It has also been frequently found that the therapy does not even work for all types of disorders and people. It provides little help for those with specific anxiety disorders such as OCD (Salzman, 1980) and so suggests alternative methods would be more useful, implying Freud’s psychoanalysis is out dated.
Despite having many female clients, a further criticism of Freud's theories is that they are male focused. He had a very sexist approach to his work, saying women are at a biological disadvantage due to not possessing a penis (Reiff, 1959, p.174). Rather than having separate ideas of sexuality for men and women Freud simply used his views of male sexuality to explain women, believing women were men without penises (Cohler & Galatzer-Levy, 2008). He said up to the phallic stage of psychosexual development sexuality is the same for both genders but from this stage women experience penis envy and resent their mothers for them not having a penis. Freud believed penis envy could never be resolved and so women’s superegos would be underdeveloped and would always be morally inferior to men (Schultz & Schultz, 2009). Yet it is clear women have the ability to develop, grow and overcome problems as easily as men and are by no means less moral. Therefore as an explanation for women’s behaviour and sexuality, psychodynamic theories hold very little significance and so more modernised theories that can explain personality in a way that encompasses the personality differences between women and women are far more relevant for modern psychology than Freud’s theory.
Freud said hysteria and inner conflict were due to the sickness of society (Bocock, 1976) and did not believe therapy would bring about a major transformation. The aim was simply to move someone from ‘misery to common unhappiness’ (Freud, 1895, as cited in Frosh, 1987). However, compared to the era Freud lived in, the 21st century is vastly more liberal, with female oppression being greatly reduced and the following of individual desires being more encouraged. We are now free to express ourselves much more openly, with particular relevance being the ability to express ourselves sexually. Due to social change and the belief we can make the most of a situation and reach levels above common unhappiness, therapy now has a much more positive aim with a goal orientated focus such as Roger’s person centred therapy. Rogers did not enjoy working psychoanalytically, unable to accept Freud’s idea that our early years of life largely dictate adult development. He believed we do not play a passive roles and can actively make a difference to our lives, focusing on the power of the individual. He felt that the therapist acted as much more of a facilitator than Freud did, and that the individual knows more about themselves than the therapist. Rogers also claimed we all have the ability to reach self-actualisation (Maltby, Day & Macaskill, 2013). Roger’s therapy has proven to be extremely popular. Therefore if therapy can now be carried out in a more positive manner, it must be said that this form of therapy would be more popular and more relevant than Freud’s psychoanalysis.
One of the most important criticisms of Freud's work is the lack of empirical support; ‘Psychoanalysis cannot fit within empiricist models of science of knowledge’ (Flax, 1990, p….). Flax argued that with the analytic situation of psychoanalysis, the knowledge generated cannot be understood within traditional concepts of science. Freud could not explain a central phenomenon of the analytic situation and so could not explain the therapeutic result of psychoanalysis. This then resulted in the inability of psychoanalytic theorists to make full use of the rich detail uncovered within therapy, limiting the usefulness of the therapy.
Kazdin (1982, as cited in Greenwood & Loewenthal, 2005) argued that despite Freud’s claim psychoanalysis was part of a scientific discourse, the case study approach failed to meet the requirements of a research method designed to contribute to scientific knowledge due to the subjective account of the observer and analyst. Freud assumed his observations could be reported in the form of an observation, presuming that if another researcher had been present they would have observed the same experience as he recorded. However there is no evidence the other observers’ perception would correspond and no means for Freud to assure the reader what he has written is the truth (Greenwood & Loewenthal, 2005). How can a theory hold relevance if it has no empirical grounding?
Much of Freud’s work came from self-analysis. Not only is there the criticism that introspection often leads to the provision of inaccurate information, due to the denial of certain issues and an incorrect analysis, but in Freud’s case the use of self-analysis was a greater problem because he took cocaine for several years as a euphoric. Thornton (1983) claimed that Freud’s theory was created because of his extensive use of cocaine. It is well known cocaine causes hallucinations and extensive fantasies in those who frequently use it as well as the sexual preoccupation to become obsessive (Martinez 2007). A further symptom is the strong belief in having discovered the great factors of life and by combining all these symptoms it is evident that Freud’s theories could have easily been influenced by his cocaine usage, questioning whether psychologists can trust his findings and hence apply them in modern psychology.
From this evaluation of Freud’s work the overall conclusion reached is that Freud’s work does not make a contribution significant enough to be relevant to modern psychology. He was unable to fully explain repression despite it being one of his major theories and modern psychological research undermines his theory on the unconscious. His focus on men and discrimination towards women makes his work too old fashioned to be used by modern psychologists. The combination of his use of cocaine and a lack of empirical evidence to support his theories means it must be questioned how trustworthy his work is and whether his theories are worth using or hold any resonance in modern day.