Who was greater: Freud or Wundt? Who has more influence on psychology? Freud is an analytical psychologist, and Wundt is an experimental psychologist. I wonder why psychologists today like to do experimental research.
One thing I do admire about Freud was that he published six case histories and every single one of them describes a failed treatment. I believe that he wrote them up in detail because he wanted them to spark the interest of others. But it takes some courage to write at length about your failures. It goes against the cult of 'greatness'.
Actually they other thing I admire about him is that he is so easy to read. Far easier than the dull books explaining what he said.
Never heard about a Vont? What other methods are there to test behavioral issues than experiments?
Dear Duan,
We mapped our mice's aggression on a scale from 1 to 7; nevertheless it was an experimental design. Both Wundt and Freud contributed significantly to psychology, they are both great.
s. Béatrice Marianne Ewalds-Kvist
But, what do you think of this kind of quantification? "mice's aggression on a scale from 1 to 7 ",
Wundt is described as a "structuralist" He, in some circles, is considered the "father" of psychology. He is thought to have established the 1st "laboratory". He concentrated on sensations and conscious perceptions. This led to the notion of introspection/insight.
Freud was an analyst and concentrated on defenses and the unconscious. He offered dream interpretation. He was hung up on sex during the Victorian Age. And he is known for having a long-standing affair w/ a sister-in-law.
Rich
The aggression scale for mice is documented and works very well.
Richard Kensinger
Wundt's object of study is somewhat unrealistic. At present scientific level, "psychological elements, components of consciousness" is difficult to study. He underestimates the complexity of psychology
Yes, but remember he did this within the context of his time and culture. This occurred in Germany around 1879. The scientific method has advanced quite far since then.
Sensations from the various sense modalities are significant inputs, the raw data. When synthesized we form meaningful patterns or as Max Wertheimer indicates the Gestalt.
And the best paradigm to use is a biopsychosocial (cultural) framework. We still have a long ways to go to capture our complexity as a species.
Thanks for you input, Rich
what an interesting question! Freud didnt experiment in the same ways as Wundt however 'introspection' as a method has uncanny similarities to 'psychoanalytic observation'. how does William James sit between the two?
Manasi Kumar
"introspection" is "psychoanalysis" of himself, Wundt is not a thorough experimental psychologist, he also retains self-analysis.
I didn't mention William James.
i am not sure, by introspection i think wundt meant a process of how the 'participant' felt after the experimental exercise. there is introspection also for the experimenter who is observing the process and the participant. my understanding may be limited and i would like to be illuminated further on this.
Dear Duan Xian Xiang Wundt is mainly remembered for establishing Psychology as an independent science rather than his theoretical and practical contribution. Whereas Freud established psychoanalysis, both as a theoretical perspective and a therapy. For me what Freud did was like adding a brick to the building started by Wundt.
Dear Duan Xiang Xiang,
I think that both Freud and Wundt were highly in shaping psychological research. S. Freud was, say, the father of psychoanalysis and W. Wundt the father of experimental psychology. Freud much more cited because psychoanalysis is applied to domains other than psychology. To my understanding, Freud's work is, say, more a philosophical than a scientific approach to human behavior. I understand quite well that psychologists today like to do experimental research.
Actually, most of what we know about one's psychological functioning is due to experimental or empirical research. Note than many of Freud's assumptions, such as the existence of subconscious, unconscious are just assumptions, were not cooroborated nor can they be falsified. Even though I am a reseacher in the filed of psychology, I think that psychoanalysis also plays a role in the explanation of one's psychological functioning. To be sincere, I do not think much of Freud as a scientist. For example, he psychanalized her daugther, A, Freud, which I think to be something strange. In addition to this, he observed mainly children and yet he extend his "findings" to people of all ages.
KInd regards,
Orlando
Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies exclusively on observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's soul.
Introspection - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introspection
Introspection shall not be confounded with Interpersonal psychoanalysis which accents the nuances of interpersonal interactions, particularly how individuals protect themselves from anxiety by establishing collusive interactions with others, and the relevance of actual experiences with other persons developmentally (e.g. family and peers) as well as in the present. This is contrasted with the primacy of intrapsychic forces, as in classical psychoanalysis. Interpersonal theory was first introduced by Harry Stack Sullivan, MD, and developed further by Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Clara Thompson, Erich Fromm, and others who contributed to the founding of the William Alanson White Institute and Interpersonal Psychoanalysis in general.
The idea of psychoanalysis (German: Psychoanalyse) first started to receive serious attention under Sigmund Freud, who formulated his own theory of psychoanalysis in Vienna in the 1890s. Freud was a neurologist trying to find an effective treatment for patients with neurotic or hysterical symptoms. Freud realised that there were mental processes that were not conscious, whilst he was employed as a neurological consultant at the Children's Hospital, where he noticed that many aphasic children had no apparent organic cause for their symptoms. He then wrote a monograph about this subject.[14] In 1885, Freud obtained a grant to study with Jean-Martin Charcot, a famed neurologist, at the Salpêtrière in Paris, where Freud followed the clinical presentations of Charcot, particularly in the areas of hysteria, paralyses and the anaesthesias. Charcot had introduced hypnotism as an experimental research tool and developed the photographic representation of clinical symptoms.
Freud's first theory to explain hysterical symptoms was presented in Studies on Hysteria (1895), co-authored with his mentor the distinguished physician Josef Breuer, which was generally seen as the birth of psychoanalysis. The work was based on Breuer's treatment of Bertha Pappenheim, referred to in case studies by the pseudonym "Anna O.", treatment which Pappenheim herself had dubbed the "talking cure". Breuer wrote that many factors that could result in such symptoms, including various types of emotional trauma, and he also credited work by others such as Pierre Janet; while Freud contended that at the root of hysterical symptoms were repressed memories of distressing occurrences, almost always having direct or indirect sexual associations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis
Orlando M Lourenço
What are the important achievements in Experimental Psychology?
The cult of greatness continues to haunt us.
I'm sure Dr Freud would have something characteristically humorous to say about that.
Dear Duan Xian Xiang,
Most of what we know in psychology is due to Esperimental Psychology, as you could see if you read a Handbook on Psychology. Milgram's experiments on obedience and Asch's experiment on conformity are telling examples. Most of what we know, for example, about memory is due to Experimental Psychology. To mention you the important achievements in Experimental Psychology, I woud have to write a big PDH. Psychology is considered to be a science mainly because of esperimental psychological.
Kind regards,
Orlando
One thing I do admire about Freud was that he published six case histories and every single one of them describes a failed treatment. I believe that he wrote them up in detail because he wanted them to spark the interest of others. But it takes some courage to write at length about your failures. It goes against the cult of 'greatness'.
Actually they other thing I admire about him is that he is so easy to read. Far easier than the dull books explaining what he said.
Orlando M Lourenço
Memory is indeed an important achievement in experimental psychology.
Ronán Michael Conroy
What do you think of his psychoanalytic the theory? I think his psychoanalysis opened a door, a door that began to look for people's psychological processes.
Ronán Michael Conroy
Although Freud's theory has many errors, the value of his theory is not in itself, but in its direction: the search for psychological processes.
Duan Xian Xiang : Freud belonged to a tradition that we are only beginning to rediscover – the tradition of listening to people. He and his contemporaries (Charcot stands out, as indeed he did for Freud himself) were painstaking phenomenologists, whose insights laid the groundwork for a systematic approach to the prevention and treatment of mental health problems.
He also put forth testable ideas about how the mind works. In the case of dreams, his ideas have found significant support in experimental research, while his ideas on resistance, on the other hand, have not. And while his book on jokes is a truly excellent read (and a wonderful compendium of 19th century Jewish humour!), current research doesn't really support his conclusions.
I would put the joke book and the Psychopathology of Everyday Life on anyone's reading list. They are splendid examples of a fine – and whimsical – mind at work observing the apparently ordinary.
Dear Duan Xian Xiang
I took your main Question to be: "Who was greater: Freud or Wundt?" (which seems to be the case, looking at your follow-up question, which likely basically was meant to mean about the same, as the first). Hopefully, I am correct in what I assume you meant to ask by your first question; the revised question, I just stated (above), is what I answered in any case. "Greater" implies more than "influence".
Freud was a wonderful descriptive writer, even if just filtered to try to 'see' the phenomenology. His writings fill 24 volumes, and it's good reading. Freud influenced thinking (and language and concepts) in cultures and across cultures as a whole, as well as being more important in psychology than Wundt -- the latter just one of several/many "egg heads". Wundt is basically just a very early historical example of someone trying to do systematic psychology (in the lab) -- not very novel, as seen nowadays, but he was also more than dubiously speculative, in his "laboratory studies" (though still often, in a noteworthy sense, this is true of lab studies today). He supposedly wanted to disconnect psychology from philosophy, but failed to do so, judging by his friendly, way-over-generous quotes about philosophy, not to mention his engaging in philosophy itself.
Though I praise Freud for some very noteworthy things, I and many modern psychologists, do not "believe in" (i.e. see as conceptually necessary) anything like Freud's unconscious; sub-conscious, things that can be brought into consciousness with the right, sufficient cues/environmental aspects, SUFFICE for understanding -- with no need for Freud's "unconscious".
And, you ask: "why psychologists today like to do experimental research" to which I would answer, simply: they have labs and must look like they are getting something done ("learning" and sharing, after having an "experimental" group and a "control" group involved -- making for some kind of thought-to-be-impressive "dog and pony" show). [ Most often: they like making things up in their heads and then trying to provide what might look like evidence (or, actually, at least trends (p
Brad Jesness
Yes, it's " Who was greater: Freud or Wundt? "
Your view of experimental psychology is interesting, I agree.
Brad Jesness
I think, the purpose of Wundt's experiment is wrong. It is not possible for people to look for elements or components of human consciousness by means of experiments.
At least, at present scientific levels, the composition of the elements of consciousness is impossible to find. The origin and nature of consciousness, as well as its composition, are difficult to study at the present scientific level.
Dear Michael Uebel
You say: " For the 20th century, the top influencers are Freud, Piaget, Skinner, and Bandura. ". I literally at most only half agree (I could very likely agree with your first two). But, Skinner's ways of thinking and trying to find "laws of learning" are pretty much regarded as silly today. [After Pavlov and Thorndike, there is little mention of anything "gained" from Skinner -- whose caricature of 'science' I have always found loathsome (even as he was alive and working)].
I studied 6 years of Psychology in college and grad school (and decades on my own) and could never find any coherent theory associated with Bandura. As far as I can tell he just made the term "social learning" big and did some experiments that seemed to indicate that such 'learning' per se existed. (When I think of Bandura, only Bobo comes to mind.) The main difference between Bandura and Skinner is that : while Skinner may actually have been destructive (actually having held up any progress of Psychology towards science), Bandura (in any big science regard) was "nothing."
Brad Jesness
I have a new theory of psychology, which is very different from the previous one. Would you like to see it? Because I think you and I have a very close view of psychology, and maybe you're interested.
I love Freud but named my child after Wundt! As regards Wundt's ideas, I quote wikipedia:
Psychology is concerned with conscious processes. Wundt rejected making subconscious mental processes a topic of scientific psychology for epistemological and methodological reasons. In his day there were, before Sigmund Freud, influential authors such as the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann (1901), who postulated a metaphysics of the unconscious. Wundt had two fundamental objections. He rejected all primarily metaphysically founded psychology and he saw no reliable methodological approach. He also soon revised his initial assumptions about unconscious judgements [39][40] When Wundt rejects the assumption of "the unconscious" he is also showing his scepticism regarding Fechner's theory of the unconscious and Wundt is perhaps even more greatly influenced by the flood of writing at the time on hypnotism and spiritualism (Wundt, 1879, 1892). While Freud frequently quoted from Wundt's work, Wundt remained sceptical about all hypotheses that operated with the concept of "the unconscious".
For Wundt it would be just as much a misunderstanding to define psychology as a behavioural science in the sense of the later concept of strict behaviourism. Numerous behavioural and psychological variables had already been observed or measured at the Leipzig laboratory. Wundt stressed that physiological effects, for example the physiological changes accompanying feelings, were only tools of psychology, as were the physical measurements of stimulus intensity in psychophysics. Further developing these methodological approaches one-sidedly would ultimately, however, lead to a behavioural physiology, i.e. a scientific reductionism, and not to a general psychology and cultural psychology.
s. Béatrice Marianne Ewalds-Kvist
Would thinks " lead to a behavioural physiology, i.e. a scientific reductionism, and not to a general psychology and cultural psychology. "?
In my opinion, Jung presented a better way of examining an individual's personality and behaviour. Freud laid too much emphaisis on the sexuality of the person.
Jung's work on the concept of collective unconscious and the archetypes are really revealing aspects of behaviour.
I believe that Jung presents a better way to study behaviour and personality.
s. Béatrice Marianne Ewalds-Kvist
Would thinks that people, like "physics" and "chemistry" entities, have the same elements as "chemical elements" in human consciousness, and he wants to find out through experiments that they are obviously inspired by the periodic table of chemistry, but that people is not chemistry.
I inherited Jung's works from my father but I like Freud more.
Sadanand Pandey
Yes, Jung is very useful in classifying personality.
Can we evaluate Wundt and Freud using contemporary parameters of science ? I think we have to consider their contribution in relation to the time, when they worked. What both of them did appear to be great in relation to psychology or even science of that time.
Sadanand Pandey While you may believe in things like the collective unconscious (and I absolutely support people's right to have beliefs), Jung's theories have made no contribution to our empirical understanding.
I find Jung's theories on women and on the inherent superiority of white western civilisation abhorrent. In it he describes how white europeans, when they are surrounded by in black culture in Africa can lose their higher reasoning faculties of civilisation and revert to the primitive state of humanity. "There is a technical term for this," Jung writes, "it is called 'going native'".
He goes on to explain how women occupy a place half way between the civilised western man and the primitive african native. Only partially rational, and prone to reverting to the mental state of 'our ancestors who sat on stones around the camp fire'.
I thoroughly recommend Woman in Europe (1927, Vol X of the collected writings) for an insight into Jung's deeply entrenched racism and sexism. His notions of white superiority are understandable in that he was in the same cultural milieu that produced Nazi ideology, which his cultural theory closely resembles, so I don't so much view him as an original thinker as a product of his time.
Interesting paper https://jungstudies.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Farhad-Dalal-Jung-a-Racist.pdf
One important aspect of Freud's work is self-analysis. What do the other psychologists mentioned say about this?
Rudolf Pfister
Woudt is looks for elements and ingredients of consciousness.Hull abused mathematics to build unscientific models.
Really I can't judge who is the greatest. Freud had developed theories about the mind and its functioning and founded psychoanalytical treatment for psychological problems.
While Wundt approached the study of the mind from a scientific perspective. He distinguished Psychology as a Unique Science.
I think Ronán Michael Conroy wrote a very objective and informative response to this discussion. We are in the 21st century of knowledge and research in regards to behavioral awareness. Our empirical understanding of human personality and psyche is on a much higher level today. Neuropsychology is emerging as the most respected area of psychological study/research. Duan Xian Xiang, you asked a question in regards to a comparison of two clinicians of the early 20th century. You asked which one of the two has had the most influence on psychology? I am not sure if you meant today's psychology or the psychology of yesterday? Do you mean the spread of western psychology, or the advancement of psychology as an accepted science? Do you also mean to ask which of the two had the greater influence on experimental research? I think your question needs to be a bit more narrow and specific. In my opinion, Freud had a much greater impact on the widespread of psychology in the western hemisphere. His name alone is far more popular among students and non-students alike than that of Wundt. Everyone has heard the name Freud. Ask a common person on the street, and you will see my point. However, keep in mind that Freud (like so many others) did a lot of learning/research in Egyptian literature on the mind. Many of his theories were actually borrowed from ancient Egyptian philosophies, he simply changed many of the words around and presented it as his own. So many of the books in Freud's personal library would later verify this, as so many of them were about Egyptian philosophies and ideologies on the mind and behavior. In any event, Freud used what he learned to market his own brand and gain popularity in Europe and the west.
Hasan Shabazz
Freud's greatness was that he opened a door, his job is actually looking for a "psychological process," and the disorder of the psychological process is the cause of the mental illness.
Hasan Shabazz
Psychologists now do not know how important Freud's work is. They only know that Freud's theory has made a big mistake, but he has opened the door to the search for "psychological processes.
In our country, Wundt is regarded as a god by psychology students, Freud's theory is called pseudoscience, they think that only experimental psychology is science, and other psychology is pseudoscience. So, I'm very disappointed in the students in our country. They're hopeless.
Duan Xian Xiang please don't be disappointed. The important thing is not reverence for the past but respect for the truth, and the knowledge that all truth is provisional.
As Piaget pointed out, we have to make a trade-off between assimilation, where new data are absorbed into our old theories, and accommodation, where we need to change the old theories to respond to the new data. This is science. While we may respect our scientific ancestors (and as you can see I have studied Freud quite intensively in my youth, and still find him a likeable character) the importance of their legacy is not whether they were right or wrong but whether they encouraged us to challenge certainty, to shine a light into the darkness of dogma.
As I said, I admire Freud because he was more concerned to transmit a method of enquiry than a dogma. Not only did he change his mind a lot, he published his unsolved cases for others to try to solve. It was his followers, I believe, who tried to elevate his thinking to the status of a religion (something he foresaw, too, in Totem and Taboo).
And why I despise Jung is that he offers us simple answers, based on an irrationalist epistemology and closely in tune with the nazi ideology of his time.
My own keen research interest in phenomenology, and my own research in the area, are indebted to Freud. Not to his theories, but to his enquiring spirit and his belief that we must learn by listening to how people describe their experiences.
Ronán Michael Conroy
Thanks. I'm not superstitious about authority or traditional theories, I just think that Freud and Wundt reflect a big problem: the methodology and direction of psychological research. The limitation of experimental method is very large, and many fields of psychology are not suitable for experimental research.
Ronán Michael Conroy
If psychologists cling to the experimental approach, and even consider it the only research method, then I think the future of psychology is worrying. For example, I wrote the theory of "psychological program", if I use experimental method, I can hardly write it out. Experimental research is damaging psychological research.
Freud & Wundt Senior scientists have added great and influential psychologists, depending on the school to which they belong or the school they founded, I can not say that one is more important than the other.
Afraa Ibrahim
Freud was greater, even though he made a lot of mistakes.
A survey published in American Psycologist in 1991 ranked Wundt's reputation as first for "all-time eminence" based on ratings provided by 29 American historians of psychology. William James and Sigmund Freud were ranked a distant second and third. But my personal opinion is that Freud's work as changed our culture, has been fundamental for modernity and is more important from this point of view. Anyhow theories and experiments are both important. We must learn to identify scientific evidence from quantitative, qualitative, and mixed‐method studies in the same way.
Those are nice sentiments! Totally agree- both were refining methods too!
Conceptual psychology-- in my opinion, although Wundt is regarded as the father of Psychology and a major proponent of one of the former schools of thought (Functionalism), Freud's establishment of psychodynamic psychology revolutionized society as a whole. The blending of Hobbes' conservative view of man with the ideology that man is in constant inner conflict with itself was never previously established. It changed the way psychologists interact with patients suffering from depression by putting an emphasis on early childhood experience as, according to Freudian psychology, unexpressed emotions can be 'pushed down' to the unconscious mind and can bounce back in the future. Freud's students who didn't agree with him formed 'social psychodynamic psychology'. It's such conflict of ideas and the expression of conflict that is vital for progress-- Freud facilitated it.
Experimentally-- I can't say. Both had their own flaws; society learned from each.
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