Psychology course question?

[psychology student]

Do you think psychoanalysis overestimates the importance of sex? How important and far-reaching are the effects of sex on human life?

[ANGEL YOGI]

Sex certainly is a very important aspect of human life. Our perception ,attitude towards sex tells a lot about our past and the way we were raised. If sex is taken in a healthier way and in a normal way we will definitely have a better society.

[seangray2010]

Hmm... Toughy.
I'd say it doesn't overestimate it; sex is a key drive in life. The need to reproduce is what drives humans. Just about everything we do is driven by sex. Sex is the reason we show off, or we get ready in the morning, etc. It is very important.

-Sean G.

[Dr. Bob]

Sex is important but so are a lot of other things.

In 1911, Sigmund Freud insisted that all members of the Vienna Psycho-Analytic Society sign a "loyalty oath" by agreeing with him that all of personality -- both normal and neurotic -- results ONLY from the influence of sexual impulses.

This led to a rejoinder by Dr. Alfred Adler (whom Freud had invited in 1902 to help him create psycho-analysis) called "A Critique of Freud’s Sexual Theory of Psychic Life." This became the basis for heated debates in 1912. Freud merely repeated his views, but Adler broke new ground with several important suggestions to improve psychoanalysis.

Adler introduced his concept of the Aggression Instinct, and Freud rejected it. 20 years later, after Adler had abandoned instinct theory in general, Freud took over the concept and said that the aggression instinct was one of the two main principles of psychoanalysis!

Adler introduced the concept of "masculine protest" which Freud also rejected, and then took as his own some years later!

And Adler introduced the concept of "Psychology of Use" which (you guessed it) Freud rejected...and then took as his own, caling it "functional psychology," in which (following Adler) behaviors serve a function in the neurotic life style.

When Adler and about a dozen others realized there would be no reasoning with Freud, they left to form "Individual psychology," which would become the most influential psychological approach for the past one hundred years.

Did Freud over-emphasize sex? Those men thought so, and so have many others, including many Freudians, over the decades since then. In fact, it was Adler's subsequent ideas that became dominant in the field of psychology and psychotherapy, even (or perhaps especially) among the so-called "neo-Freudians," who differed from Freud in taking on the ideas of Adler!

For more about Adler: http://www.lifecourseinstitute.com