WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Social Mediators: Sigmund Freud

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

This week we discuss some of the perceptions, theories, and methodologies behind the infamous Sigmund Freud. Tune in to hear by far the weirdest episode we've ever done, complete with dream theory, the unconscious, and all of Freud's weird sex stuff. 

This is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.1.7 FM where we examine the truth disparity between what's in social media and what's actually true. I'm Gillian Parks. And I'm Garrett Coolsby. And I've noticed something about myself when I do that little intro. Oh. I do that little crispy R. Do you know what I'm talking about? Do it again. Radio Free Hillsdale. Oh, that is a crispy R. Or it's like really weird. It just comes out naturally now. Normal people don't talk like that. I don't talk like that. Radio Free Hillsdale is how I would usually say it. Yeah. But I go Radio Free Hillsdale. You should start rolling that R. No. No, okay. I won't. Can you roll your R's?

Probably, but I don't want to try because I'm afraid of failure. Okay. It's 8.30 at night. I made it this far in the day. That's true. Only three more full days of class until I'm getting on an airplane to go home. That sounds wonderful. I agree.

Are you going home soon? Yes. What day? On Tuesday. Next Tuesday. I'm going home on Saturday. A week from today. Ha ha ha ha.

Yes, very lucky. Anyways, we have a topic. Do you know what it is? Sigmund Freud. Because apparently social media has a lot to say about him. And this was of particular interest to me because I'm a psychology major, and I've studied Sigmund Freud on a number of occasions in psychology classes. And he's pretty weird.

So when you hear that social media has some opinions on him, I say, oh, I got to know what they are. And I'm going to tell you what they are, Garrett. And you're welcome for that. I hope you are grateful for that. I am grateful. I'm really glad that I just did that. I want to first start by prefaceing that social media does not like Sigmund Freud. That's not entirely unsurprising.

They actually really hate Sigmund Freud. And I'm pretty sure, from what I could tell, it stems not from his ideas, but from his personal beliefs. Okay, sure. So according to social media, he was sexist, maybe racist that was brought up a couple of times, particularly homophobic, but we will get back to that. And then on top of that, then people like to be like, his theories were unscientific and harmful and untested and whatever. And people, and two like, they basically, the sweeping, what is the word?

Generalization, perhaps. Yeah, oh my gosh, thank you. The sweeping generalization that people make is that all of his theories are wrong, but they're very influential and so society needs to cry about it. That's a lot to unpack. I hope that's not true. I will say that there are some social media users who appreciate that he, like some of the stuff that he did, particularly how he focused on the unconscious mind was brought up a lot, the introduction of like defense mechanisms and the overall emphasis that he places on childhood. Where it's like very important the things that happen to a child because then it actually formulates how they are as adults, which I feel like is so intuitive.

but maybe only because I'm living in a post-Froyd world. Well, it's important to remember people, there's a few exceptions, but not a lot of people were doing psychology before Sigmund Freud. Was he the one? It says, I watched one TikTok that said that he basically pioneered psychoanalysis. He did pioneer psychoanalysis. That is his baby.

Oh, and he also, oh, he also had dream theory, but I could not figure out from Twitter what dream theory actually meant. Yeah, we'll talk about dream theory a little bit. It's really weird. I'll tell you that. I'm excited to hear about dream theory. It's only gotten weirder as more people have come after him and thought about it and added on to it. So we can talk about that too.

Okay. So the first one, obviously, that comes up is his Oedipus complex thing. Yes. Where all men are attracted to their mothers. And it seems like by extension, all women are attracted to their fathers. Is that true? He talked about that less, but he did believe that to be the case. I mean, he's a man, so it makes sense that he would want to talk about the one that applies to men more.

But he seemed to think that this was completely universal. still in that all women or boys and girls had a thing for the parent of the opposite sex which is just very strange

it is very strange it is really strange that was like the main one that people wanted to bring up was just the edipus complex thing there were also the like stages of development

of childhood which are super strange and I don't want to explain them but like there's five stages of development and any sort of like I guess deprivation at those five stages

has a direct correlation with how those children grow up. Yes. Which is weird. But I would like to hear more about what you think there. Another fun thing that I saw was a defense of Sigmund Freud. And this takes, and this apparently assumes that he was not homophobic. He was actually homophobic and heterophobic because he thought that everyone was latently bisexual.

and that everybody was attracted to both. That's kind of true. Is it actually? Well, here's the thing is that some of his students that come after him, most notably Carl Jung, he explicitly will say that. Carl Jung says that every person is naturally bisexual and we just repress one side or another due to cultural, you know, acculturation, I guess would be the way to put it.

Okay, so he's not homophobic then. But. Sigmund Freud talked less about that specifically. I can say a little bit about what he thinks. thought about homophobic people or or gay people or any, you know. Or straight people. Or straight people. We'll talk about all the people.

Wait, that's crazy. He, the dream theory, I really tried to understand. I'm telling you I did my best, but I did not. I didn't really get any. It's weird. That like things can be revealed to us through our dreams and that dreams mean specific things. I'm trying to think of other theories, but those are like generally, probably the three

that social media really latches on to and says, for thinking he's so incorrect, it's very prevalent. Yes. He's, well, and even in our language, there are many phrases that we get from Sigmund Freud. Like a Freudian slip. Freudian slip. We can talk about what that means.

Saying that somebody's anal about something, that comes from Freud. Yes. And is that like the second stage of the psycho? It is. And we might talk about that one just as an example because it's sort of the least, I mean, it's weird, but it's probably the least weird. Maybe the, well, I think the latent. one is probably the least weird. Well, it's because nothing happens. Yes. And then the, yeah, I would think

you're right about the next one. This is so weird. Everything about it just makes me cringe a little bit, but that's pretty much what I have. If you have specific questions, I can answer what I think I know from what I've seen. Sure. So I'm just going to pick one and dive right on. Let's talk about dream theory first because that one seems to be the most pressing question for you. So Freud believed that your mind was structured in such a way that there was a conscious part. There are the thoughts that you think normally that are, that you have deemed acceptable to think by society and by yourself. You've judged them to be appropriate. And then there's another layer of your thoughts, your unconscious mind that contains thoughts, desires. He calls them latent wishes that are

essentially unpalatable for society. All of them are very aggressive in nature, very sexual in nature. And for lack of another way to put it, they're super gross. A latent wish would be like, I don't, the desire to like stab somebody 700 times just for kicks and gables. Does he think we all have these? Yes, everyone. In fact, that he believes that those are your kind of, those are really your primal thoughts. Those are really what's kind of going on. And what you get in dreams is a part of your mind called your super ego, which is like,

think about it like the bossy older sister in your head. It's trying to make sure everything's right, everything's straight, everything is as it should be. Okay. And what that does, as you, as those unconscious thoughts try to push their way into your conscious thoughts, your super ego makes them more palatable for society. So, for example, let's say that your latent desire is to stab somebody in the chest, you might instead dream about like getting in an argument with that person or something like. It essentially softens the blow, right? In the dream? In the dream.

Okay. So that's a really broad, a really broad example, but the same is true for kind of any, any dream you have, Freud would say that you can psychoanalysis, you can get back to sort of a root desire behind what appears in the dream. And now it's important to remember when you talk about Sigmund Freud that all of his theories, everything he came up with, everything he said, was just synthesis of things he saw in his clinic. He was a psychiatrist, a practitioner. Yes. So he's seeing patients.

He's writing stuff down. And then he sits down with all of his notes and tries to make sense of it all. Because he saw some weird stuff. Like you read his case files and you realize, okay, he has weird theories. But he also just was presented with a lot of weird facts. And after analyzing all of his data, analyzing all of his patients and hearing about their dreams, a lot of times he would have people keep extensive. dream logs and he's you know has all this recorded and he comes up with these theories because

there's a pattern like there it's there based on what he saw it's not like he says oh i just want it to be all about sex you know so i'm going to kind of superimpose that onto the data it really he kept every time somebody would come in with some kind of hysteria some kind of mental disorder he was almost always able to trace it to some like bizarre sexual sexual desire. Now, that's not, here's the thing in my personal kind of quibble with Freud is that he based a, he made a generalization for the entire population based on data taken from people that were already hysterical, that were like mentally broken down. So that's, that's why there might be some, well, that's why I would say that there's definitely some issue with the way he

generalized what he saw, because, okay, to say that all these crazy people have the same way of thinking and then to apply it to everybody. And I say, crazy people really, really loosely, basically anybody that had some sort of mental illness or abnormality that wasn't explainable biologically like a tumor or something like that. I feel like that's super strange though

because there was no mention of him having any sort of case studies or any sort of like real world evidence to ground what he was saying. It's always just kind of thought of at least via social media as this very like out there crazy guy who really wanted to have sex with his mom.

That's a great time for me to like say, hey guys, if you're tuning in for the first time, I'm Jillian Parks. And I'm Garrett Gulesby. And this is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.1.7 FM. We're currently talking about Sigmund Freud. That's why we're talking about having sex with your mom. Yeah, we don't actually talk about that at all unless we're talking about Sigmund Freud. You know, he might be the only person that felt like talking about that in a public sphere.

I kind of feel like there's weirdos out there who might really vibe with that. But anyway, back to Sigmund Freud. So we talked about dream theory, right? It's your latent wishes getting pushed into. to your mind, but then sort of change to make them more palatable for society. I was confused about psychoanalysis, though. Like, is there, when you're approaching that dream theory, is there a specific number of steps you have to go through? Or is it just like, this probably means this? Well, so here's how, let me just kind of explain briefly how how he did psychoanalysis. And there's a lot more to it than I even know about. But he would,

he used this technique called free association, where essentially he would sit down with his patient, he would ask a few leading questions about their life. He always targeted childhood. He always asked about their childhood about their relationships with their mom and their dad. And then the person would just start talking. And they would just say whatever came into their head. And what he found is that when they free associate and just sort of started spitting whatever came into their head, in the end, it might take many steps or it might take only a few.

The thing that would ultimately come out was some strange, aggressive or sexual desire that had been repressed or put away. That's insane. It is weird. That's super weird. But here's, again, here's the thing. Okay, yes, Freud's ideas seem really crazy, but you have to remember, it worked for a lot of people.

There were a lot of people that were actually cured from their psychosis, whatever it might have been, from him using this technique and essentially revealing to them, okay, here's like what you deep, deep down, apparently, have been repressing, have been wanting. So deal with it. that. Freud wasn't saying we should all go act on these desires. That's an important, I think, caveat. Freud would never, I don't think he would ever say we should go

act on all of our impulses that we have deep, deep down. He would say that we need to be made aware of them so that we can deal with them in a healthy way. Now, he's very critical of Western culture, specifically America. Because he believed that we were far more

repressive than other cultures. That we pushed more desire. Okay, you have to remember Freud wrote at the turn of the century, right? This is a very different America than the America we have now. I guess that's fair enough. So think 1890 to 1910 America. I wasn't there, but I believe they were probably more aggressive. Very different.

Particularly towards women. Yes. Maybe men too. Well, do you want to talk a little bit about, should I say a little bit about Freud being sexist and homosexual? He's not homosexual. Homophobic. No, he's not homosexual.

No, that's not what we're meaning to say. But I do want to hear like, are these. he's like was he actually misogynistic like was he was he racist I mean he was misogynistic in the sense that like every man was between in that time period he doesn't seem you know at this point I've read quite a bit that he's written yeah and lectures he's given I mean he talks about men primarily because he can draw from his own experience in that you know in that vein of things and it's I think I think he found it easier to comment on the male psyche because of that perspective and there's things that he couldn't

His daughter, Anna Freud, actually also became a psychoanalyst. She did exactly, you know, she followed in her father's footsteps, essentially. So it's interesting because she has a few more developed theories about what's going on with, you know, in the female psyche. But it's not, you know, Freud didn't believe it was altogether that different from, from how things worked with men. Like you said, it was still, you know, a young girl would have an attraction for her father, just as, you know, a young boy would have attraction for his mother. super weird but I don't like it He doesn't yeah he's not

The accusation that he's sexist is really the same as saying You know every man at that time would probably be perceived as saying I'm not shocked I feel like we always get back to this when we bring up these sort of claims Yeah history is tricky for social media do we want to talk about those five stages Okay Well the first stage is the oral stage Which essentially just means that babies want to put everything in their mouths Okay we know that

Now here okay So here's where we have to, I'm going to ask you this question, and I need you to use your good judgment here. I can explain to you what he means by these stages, like what the psychological importance of these stages are. But it gets kind of gross. But do it. Okay. So the reason why each stage is named after some like body region is because in that stage, whatever region it is, he calls it the erogenous zone of that region is essentially wrapped up in erotic experience. And So every sense experience that you have involving that region of your body is erotic in some way. So it's super weird, right? When a baby puts something in their mouth or engages in any activity that involves their mouth, Freud believed that that was a sexual experience. For the baby? Yes, for the baby. Very weird. I don't, look, Freud was a strange guy. Yeah, it sounds like it. I don't know that I could unpack that anymore than, you know, any more than I've just explained for you all. Or maybe even do I want to. That's a good point.

So oral stage is infants, little little people. And then the next is the anal stage. And each stage has to do with a development of certain character traits or so I'll just give an example to explain. The anal stage is about trusting yourself versus meeting society's expectations. Right. So for the first time, and this I think is actually pretty insightful. like he talks about potty training a lot because potty training in Freud's eyes is the first time that a kid is met with any expectations from the outside world on him.

He has to grapple with what it means to be grown, what it means to be older, what it means to do what other people expect him to do, and he's probably going to fail. So Freud sees that as such an important stage because of that. If you mess a kid up in that in that time, if they have some traumatic experience, then they might always have this sort of, anal personality. That's why the phrase comes from is that they can't seem to ever be satisfied that things are as they should be. He actually believed that OCD was sort of kind of birthed out of something that went wrong

in this time period. So that's the second stage. He believes that's super important. Oh, let's see if I can remember. The third stage is... I remember it. I just don't want to say it. It's the phallic stage. Yeah, it is.

And that is what it sounds like. Kids start, like, touching themselves. Super weird, but there you go. And then he said, reading about this is funny when he talks about this, is that then there's the latent stage where he basically just says, nothing happens, you know? And that's like ages seven, six, seven to right before puberty, right before you hit puberty. Is it considered like, is it suppression or is it just like there's nothing going on there? You push everything down. Okay. So you have like no any, yeah, anyway. Okay. It's like a calm before the storm. And then

puberty happens and it's just like what's the last one called genital stage uh classic yeah creative bummer or just puberty you know puberty yeah there's five stages and is that is that okay is that considered like what ages is the final stage uh final state well and then the last well so he it's kind of fuzzy because sometimes he'll call puberty the genital stage but he also refers to like being an adult as a genital stage and basically he just says that like all of your major relationships have something to do with your genitals and Wait, for the rest of your life? For the rest of your life?

Even when you're 85 years old? Even when you're 85 years old. No. Was he right? Do people like this theory or no? No. Okay, so here's my most recent, when we most recently talked about this in a psychology class,

I was taking my psych professor, put it this way. There's a spectrum of people that believe in slash don't believe in what Freud had to say. And all the way on the, like, believe everything he said side, there's like five people, maybe still alive that believe everything. everything he said. There's a good number of people that will back away from what he says and say,

okay, maybe like it's not all about sex and being aggressive. Maybe there's other instinctual desires that also play into, like your latent wishes and everything like that. That's where his student, like we talked about Carl Jung comes in. He's, him and Freud were best buddies and then they split because Carl Jung was like,

it can't all be about sex. And Freud was like, it is. Yeah, it is. Yeah. And so, Then there's there's I would say most people fall on the side of everything Freud said was stupid. It's wrong. Yes. I'm glad social media is at least right about that one. Even at the time the public like normal people did not have any they didn't want to have anything to do with what Ford said, but the psychoanalysis community, the psychology community was like, okay, this is it was unpalatable still for most people. Right. But they saw it as insightful because like you said, he's one of the first to really focus on the importance of childhood. Prior to this. And, this, a lot of times children were just viewed as tiny adults.

Like, they're just smaller versions. Their minds aren't any different. Freud really took issue with that. He was like, no, no, it's very different. And the things that happen when you're a child have tremendous impact when you're older. And that's the truth. It is the truth. You ready to give social media a grade?

I think so. Me too. Three, two, one. Zero. Zero. Zero percent. No percent. I hate it because I really do feel like social media is just like, we hate segment

Freud he wanted to have sex with his mom and that's all we ever get like I don't feel like there's any more nuance there maybe there is but I couldn't find it and usually I can find some stuff so yeah simon Freud seems more of like an ideograph of like we hate this guy rather than like an actual thoughtful like I thought about this you know what I mean yes well he wasn't a very nice man uh yeah from what I know of his life maybe he lives kind of a crazy life wow I would love to know about his crazy life, but has nothing to do with his crazy ideas, I'm assuming. Or maybe they're completely kind of. Oh no. Yeah, he had a traumatic childhood. What? Yes. We won't delve into Freud's traumatic childhood now, but. No, it's not worth the, we also don't have the time. Thanks everybody for tuning

into the social mediators this week. Wild episode. Hope you enjoyed every second of it like I did. I was cringing in my seat for most of it. And hopefully you were to. Right, Garrett? You should be, I think. I hope you are. Yeah, me too. You're nodding along going on. This is. It's stuff. Gross. Thanks so much for tuning into the social mediators. We'll talk to you next week.