@Evil lol "post freudian"? surprised you feel that way. it seems to me, to the contrary (and as/ is more widely asserted these days) freud is pre-scientific in some ways... was even told something like that in my freshman psychology class a few decades ago :|

@vzn I do not know what you understood, but seems totally wrong ;)

@vzn yes, he was pre-scientific. He have got magnificent ideas, but not exactly the algorithm for therapy. And the followers misunderstood the concepts, tried to improve it, but totally failed making it harmful. At first it was just long, not needed in the most of the cases, but working to some extend (provided that therapist was sane...), but the modifications were disaster. The psychodynamic approach is one example of post-Freudian therapy that works. I hope it is clearer now.

@vzn there is for example the Rorscach test - the idea is good, one of the first widely known projective tests. The test itself has no psychometric value at all, but years later it was a basis to start research and led to the priming concept. So in overall it is good idea, good it was created, but it can be at most used as screening tool or toy. It was hilarious that it was once used in court...

@Evil agreed psychology has been misapplied over the decades, eg shifts in DSM are one prominent example of this, and ofc there are even much greater abuses. even in modern times with greater insight/ improved scientific approaches, psychology will always be something between a "soft/hard" science. therapy in particular will always be hit-or-miss no matter what the technique. some techniques have value, others may be "red herrings". some techniques are better for some than others. etc.

would not label freud as prescientific, think he deserves credit for largely succeeding in his singular/ very ambitious attempt/ effort to bring psychology under scientific study/ method. there are some who say (eg my freshman psychology teacher) eg his focus on sexuality was misplaced, but personally think he is mostly/ largely vindicated wrt a lot of that with the new study of evolutionary psychology.

@vzn some schools (therapeutic directions) are hard ones, purely algorithmic and well tested, some are soft and the other are none at all, but all of them work, there was a huge experiment conducted with different schools vs different problems, including talk with a friend as baseline to compare. A talk gives some benefits, about 40% of therapy on average.

The problem is, that partially it works, partially the common understanding is the misconception, but those who understand mainly state the Freuds point - "you deny so something is going on...", no, this is not valid explanation and gives further misconceptions.

The evolutionary psychology covers some Freuds concepts 1:1, but with soft and comprehensible explanation. It is less excentric and covers biological foundations - that much easier to read and harder to deny. The package that wraps this part of knowledge matters the most, since it is a touchy subject