In his influential critique of psychoanalysis, Frederick Crews has listed a number of principles that he and many others believe to be "erroneous or extremely open to doubt." These include:1.) "To become mentally healthy, we must vent our negative feelings and relive our most painful psychic experiences. The deeper we delve, and the harsher and more bitter the truths that we drag to the surface, the better off we will be."
(Oh My!)2.) "Through the aid of an objective therapist in whom we invest authority, trust, and love, we can not only arrive at an accurate diagnosis of our mental problems but also retrieve the key elements of our mental history in substantially accurate form, uncontaminated by the therapist's theoretical bias."
3.) "Everything that we experience is preserved in either conscious or unconscious (repressed) memory."
4.) "The content of our repressions is preponderantly sexual in nature. Therefore, sexual experiences can be regarded as bearing a unique susceptibility to repression and can accordingly be considered the key determinants of psychic life."
5.)"The repressed unconscious continually tyrannizes over us by intruding its recorded-but-not-recalled fantasies and traumas upon our efforts to live in the present."
6.) "Symptoms are 'residues and mnemic symbols of particular (traumatic) experiences' (SE, 11:16), and 'dreaming is another kind or remembering' (SE, 17:51). Consequently, a therapist's methodologically informed study of symptoms and dreams can lead (through however many detours) to faithful knowledge of an originating trauma."
7.) "As a result of all these considerations, the most prudent and efficient way to treat psychological problems is not to address the patient's current situation, beliefs, and incapacities but to identify and remove the repressions that date from much earlier years."
(and Oh MY!)Much more on the website http://plaza.ufl.edu/bjparis/why_horney.html
