[hexxiiiz]

While I did not find this article particularly deep, psychoanalysis has hardly been discredited. The core of the theory has been infused into almost every psychological modality practiced today aside from CBT, and studies have shown its general efficacy as a practice to be on par with others and in some cases superior. For the past 20 or so years, the field of neuropsychoanalysis under Mark Solms et al. has done a lot of good work understanding memory, dreaming, and higher cognitive processes stemming from Freud's ideas. Nobel Laureat Eric Kandel wrote in the 90's that psychoanalysis still constitutes the most intellectually satisfying model of the mind; Kandel has gone on to promote studying psychoanalytic ideas with modern neuroscientific techniques. Although several authors have been critical of psychoanalysis, having been criticized by some does not make an idea instantly discredited. There remains no clear way to verify a model of higher cognitive processes in the same fashion as a physics formula.

[Ygg2]

> Hardly been discredited.

In 2015, psychoanalyst Bradley Peterson, who is also a child psychiatrist and director of the Institute for the Developing Mind at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, said: "I think most people would agree that psychoanalysis as a form of treatment is on its last legs."

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/magazine/tell-it-about-yo...

Not really singing its praises.

> Nobel Laureat Eric Kandel wrote in the 90's

Sure and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman said:

> If you look at all of the complicated ideas that they have developed in an infinitesimal amount of time, if you compare to any other of the sciences how long it takes to get one idea after the other, if you consider all the structures and inventions and complicated things, the ids and the egos, the tensions and the forces, and the pushes and the pulls, I tell you they can't all be there. It's too much for one brain or a few brains to have cooked up in such a short time.

[hexxiiiz]

The difference between Kandel and Feynman is that Kandel is a neuroscientist who understands psychoanalysis and Feynman clearly hadn't really read Freud's work, only expressing skepticism on the basis of his vague intuitions about how long it should take to come up with a theory.

[Ygg2]

Kandel got Nobel for medicine, namely memory physiological basis of neuron storage, not for proving psychoanalysis correct. His thoughts on it are as relevant as Feynman.

A counterexample - Tesla was also a genius Engineer but he also believed in Aliens, and doves with laser eyes, being infused by Cosmic energy.

[hexxiiiz]

Kandel's obvious expertise on the functioning of the brain puts him in precisely the right position to give an assessment of how realistic Freud's models in describing what happens in the brain. More specifically, his expertise on the neurology of memory is directly connected to a lot of what Freud hypothesized about how memory functions. In fact, in his 99 paper on psychoanalysis and neuroscience https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/ajp.156.4.... Kandel cites specific neuroscientific mechanisms that connect with mechanisms in the paychoanalytic model. This is very much his area of expertise and far more relevant than Feynman shooting from the hip about something he does not really know much about. Kandel is an expert in neuroscience and from the literature very well versed in psychoanalytic work, and makes actual arguments salient to both disciplines to justify his opinions, as can be seen in the above article.

In general, a lot of work has been done in this area, particularly by Solms https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vD4p8rQAAAAJ&hl=en...

Apropos of Tesla, this is far more than the paranoid spiritual fantasies of a genius struggling with mental illness.

[Ygg2]

Ok, but did Kandel proved Freud right? Did he found proof for ego, id, super-ego, Thanatos/Eros in brain morphology? Me skimming it shows little to no evidence of so, hence his contributing to prove Freud right is no more different than what Feynman did.

I did found this gem though:

> Thus, unlike various forms of cognitive therapy and other psychotherapies, for which compelling objective evidence now exists—both as therapies in their own right and as key adjuncts to pharmacotherapy—there is as yet no compelling evidence, outside subjective impressions, that psychoanalysis works better than nonanalytically oriented therapy or placebo.

So wait. Even he admits Psychoanalysis is less useful than what we have currently. Way to bury the lede.

From what I see, this is more a rally to revive psychoanalysis on solid biological grounds, than confirmation of psycho analysis as such.

[hexxiiiz]

The question is not whether Kandel proved anything, but merely whether psychoanalysis has been discredited. I am not making the case here that it is proven, verified, or completely substantiated in any particular way (here at least). That people are still taking its ideas seriously in mainstream research fields is enough to show that it is not discredited. The whole point of the aforementioned article is argue that psychoanalysis has credibility as a theory.

Kandel points out several connections between ideas from Freud's model and potential neuroscientific correlates. The subsequent works of Solms have further pursued these connections as a rigorous scientific project. How can you compare all of this to Feynman arguing against psychoanalysis on the basis of personally doubting someone could come up with it?

These are not marginal outsiders doing basement research. A theory being discredited means that there is a consensus in research against it. There is plenty of active research in reputable institutions both in psychoanalysis and neuroscience as I linked to explicitly, as well as in therapy research (which could be surfaced pretty easily). Many may have contested psychoanalysis, but tis is not what a discredited theory looks like.