The people who still think Freud is relevant are known as “psychoanalysists” in the same way that we separate chiropractors (loony fake back doctors, equiv to psychoanalysis) from real back doctors.
But seriously, if you don't like Freud, you're going to have to come up with a better response than just saying he's a kook; we all know he's a kook!
A) Talk therapy was the mode invented by Freud and is still the dominant modality of psychotherapy today, and
B) While you didn't mention it but, at the time, Cocaine was in common use as a near magical local anaesthetic and from it we derive procaine, lidocaine, any drug ending in -caine, which you certainly have been administered before, and
C)If all we have in our psychological and social lives are narratives, and the narratives bind us into certain patterns which we don't even realize we are following, then the counter to that cannot be another narrative which equally obscures its reproductive capacity (ie "the data"). Freud created stories that untied themselves at their roots, that put patients, not to mention regular people, ill at ease. Even sex with siblings is less taboo, certainly less universally taboo, than sex with one's parents, even if the latter is more genetically troublesome--is this an accident? The stories got to things at their base level, which was impossible by any other means. They might be a bit weird, but they force you to think, maybe even to act differently under the right circumstances (those of treatment), and the latter is what we'd call medical care, no?
None of that implies that it would make sense to actually do Freud based psychoanalysis today or that some 50% of psychologists do. All of that are historical achievements of severely outdated theories. Outdated, because they were shown wrong and discredited.
It is not easy to do psychology as a science, it is way less precise and less measurable then comfortable to geeks here. But it did made massive progress in between Freud and now where Freud was abandoned due to being non scientific.
The important thing to remember about Freud is that, at least compared to the base case, it gets results. From the pragmatic aspect of psychology this presents something worthy of study. My mature take on Freud is that all the cookie wierdness derived from the fact that he was trying to get people do discuss their trauma - without discussing the specifics of their trauma
We understand “shame” well enough and the principle of “unconditional positive regard” is central to much of modern talk therapy.
It’s important to understudy that 200 years ago people viewed sexuality very differently and even the notion of what is and is not sexually apporiate was not widely discussed.
Freud operated in less illuminated times than ours and it was necessary for him to operate in code to deliver his therapy. It is my reading of history that he got close to things in doing this that powerful people didn’t want and this is what led to the widespread attempts to discredit him.
I still don't know what's the holdup then. Freud constructed narratives as we all do but his were deranged so why bother even mention him as anything other than the butt of the joke?
That you react so strongly is the proof that they touched a nerve. They could be kooky stories that you just forgot about, instead you’re incensed any time anyone mentions him. Why do so many people care about it? That’s the trick.
I'm offended by Freudian narratives in general. They are offensive because of their stupidity. If they were constructed about any other domain they'd be immediately recognizable as deranged to anyone. I'm not sure why supposedly knowledgeable people like psychologists have blind spot for them. For me they sound like "are you sure you wouldn't rather spread toothpaste on your toast instead of butter?" (and the cook nods his head thoughtfully), "does your fifth leg hurt a lot?" (and the medic ponders profundity of that possibility).
I don't know what the trick is but surely there's some trick. It's like a trick that prevents people from immediately recognizing Trump for who he is. A blind spot for obvious derangement.
I just don't understand how can people lack such basic intuitive understanding of psychology to think than any Freudian narrative "might have a point" and still function as a person.
