Courses Discount Freud's Theories

Psychology departments at Harvard and other top universities may be repressing Sigmund Freud.

Introductory psychology textbooks treat psychoanalysis as “merely a desiccated and dead tributary to the psychological mainstream,” a “has-been” headed for the history books, according to a report by the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Humanities and social science fields, meanwhile, have adopted psychoanalytic concepts, which are a frequent presence in 20th-century literature, film, and media. But those concepts, the study said, “have been undergoing significant transformations” as non-psychologists have reinterpreted them.

“It’s true that psychoanalysis is not part of the mainstream psychology curriculum at Harvard or most other major universities,” said psychology professor Steven Pinker, who teaches the Core course Science B-62, “The Human Mind: Introduction to Mind, Brain, and Behavior.”

“The reason is that psychoanalysis falls outside mainstream science—its claims are not empirically tested, it doesn’t mesh with the rest of biology,” he said.

“And many of them,” he added, “are preposterous.”

The word “psychoanalysis” appears in the descriptions of 11 courses, including “The Human Mind,” taught within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. None of those courses are in the psychology department.

The American Psychoanalytic Association study found 32 Harvard courses not in the psychology department that had “identifiable psychoanalytic content,” according to one of the study’s authors, Jonathan Redmond of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute.

Of 1,175 courses that referenced psychoanalysis in some 150 universities, more than 86 percent were offered outside psychology departments, according to the report.

The description for Psychology 1, Harvard’s introductory course on the subject, says that the class covers "topics such as perception, consciousness, development, cognition, emotion, motivation, psychopathology, decision making, and social behavior."

The course’s textbook calls Freud’s influence on the field of psychology "considerable," but adds that "today relatively few psychologists follow Freudian thinking."

The American Psychoanalytic Association’s president-elect, Prudence Gourguechon, said that many psychologists who say psychoanalysis has no empirical basis are "ignoring 20 or 30 years of work and empirical validation."

"They’re abandoning the richest theory to explain human nature and behavior in depth," she added.

History professor Peter E. Gordon, who teaches a course on modern European intellectual history that delves into psychoanalytic concepts, said that psychoanalysis may be losing its scientific connotation because "popular conceptions in the media are often polarizing and sometimes misleading."

"I’m not trying to either promote it or refute it," Gordon said about his teaching on psychoanalysis. "As an intellectual historian, I try to reconstruct it with a principle of historical empathy."

Even if psychologists tend to consider many of Freud’s theories "preposterous," Pinker nevertheless makes sure to introduce his students to psychoanalysis.

"Freud was right about some things," Pinker said. "Right or wrong, the theory is so influential that educated students need to know what it says."