My Irritation With Freud

The most important part of this reading, for me, was the part that detailed the psychosexual theory of Sigmund Freud. The reason that I said that it was important was because it made me the most frustrated. Why do we still talk about Freud when many points of his theory were wrong?

For example, I understand the different psychosexual stages going from oral to anal to phallic, latency, and then genital, because of the different major stages that a child goes through in his or her life; however, nowhere in my life was I ever jealous of boys because they had penises. I would think that this is an archaic jump that Freud made, because it was not as great to be a woman in his time as now. It would have been slightly more sensible for him to make this connection, if quite arrogant. Honestly, if men had been looked down upon as women were, then perhaps a woman would have suggested that men had vagina envy.

I even understand that Freud should still be in psychology textbooks because his theories caused Neo-Freudians and opposition in the form of other branches of psychology, but I maintain that some critique of the man’s work should have been discussed in the reading instead of just rattling off what the theory is. After all, times have changed. It’s important that we look back at the past to grow from the future, not give the illusion that we accept all of the notions from the past still.