The Baby and the Bathwater: Some Thoughts on Freud as a Postmodernist
Although many specific psychoanalytic ideas are tied to outdated energy concepts, the core of Freud's thinking reflects in many ways pioneering postmodern insights compatible with current cognitive and constructivist ideas and neurophysiological brain research. This paper shows how some psychoanalytic concepts such as the unconscious, the human need for meaning making, a divided rather than unitary self, the human tendency to self-deception and the importance of early life experiences have all acquired increasing importance, albeit sometimes in a modified form, in our current understanding of human behavior and human development. Traditional psychoanalytic therapy is questioned, but it is pointed out that the humanistic values and attitudes underlying psychoanalytic treatment continue to be honored in most non-biological therapeutic approaches.