Psychological Theory Quotes

The lived experiences which could not find adequate scientific expression in the substance doctrine of rational psychology were now validated in light of new and better methods.

In fact, it is Shakespeare who gives us the map of the mind. It is Shakespeare who invents Freudian Psychology. Freud finds ways of translating it into supposedly analytical vocabulary.

Everyone knows nowadays that people 'have complexes'. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.

Til 1983, I wrote primarily for other psychologists and expected that they would be the principal audience for my book.

Human beings seem to be far more autonomous and self-governed than modern psychological theory allows for.

The vestiges of the bicameral mind do not exist in any empty psychological space.

Jung viewed Freud as a mentor, but he never wanted to be anybody's disciple.

Sigmund Freud was very much a creature of his time. He did not 'invent' the unconscious.

Understanding a theory has, indeed, much in common with understanding a human personality. We may know or understand a man's system of dispositions pretty well; that is to say, we may be able to predict how he would act in a number of different situations. But since there are infinitely many possible situations, of infinite variety, a full understanding of a man's dispositions does not seem to be possible.

Now, academics are not always the easiest people to talk to, and the scholarly papers aren't always the easiest papers to read, but frankly, psychology papers, especially papers and books on terrorism, are very easy to read, and journalists should be reading them.

It has become a commonplace that aggressiveness also often has its roots in fear. I am inclined to think that this theory has been pushed too far. [...] The type of aggressiveness that is the outcome of timidity is not, I think, that which inspires great leaders; the great leaders, I should say, have an exceptional self-confidence which is not only on the surface, but penetrates deep into the subconscious.

If I were planning to be stranded on a desert island, I wouldn't take Freud's books with me, because I've already read them all.

If behind popular fascination with Freudian theory there was a nervous, often guilty preoccupation with the self as sexual, behind increasing interest in computational interpretations of mind is an equally nervous preoccupation with the self as machine.

Freud, Sigmund: A man so dissatisfied with his own mother and father that he devoted his life to convincing everyone who would listen — or better still, talk — that their parents were just as bad.

Without hesitation, I place Freud among the heroes. He dispossessed the Jewish people of the greatest and most influential of all heroes-Moses.

Under Freud's influence, many ambitious biographers - not to mention psychologists, philosophers, and historians - have sought answers in their subject's childhood.

Dream dictionaries are so disappointing. They're so limited, and I think they're just total bullshit. I really do. I don't know much about the Freudian theory of dreams; it's probably more interesting than your average hippie dream dictionary, but it's got to be a lot deeper than that. It can't all be about sex all the time, so I don't know if Freud is right either.

I never understood the theory, once popular among doctors, that blamed mental disorders on too little or too much mother love. My own mother was my darling.

Dream analysis stands or falls with [the hypothesis of the unconscious]. Without it the dream appears to be merely a freak of nature, a meaningless conglomerate of memory-fragments left over from the happenings of the day.

And these two elements are at odds with one another because Freud is utterly adversary to almost all the ways of structuring the human experience found in Western religions. No Western religion can countenance Freud's view of man.

Psychology doesn't like to talk about evil. It likes to talk about bad childhoods. But I very much believe that some people are evil and motivation is not necessary for evil.

The theory is that if you spill all your secrets, you'll have no desire to lie about anything, ever again. Like the worst about you is already in the open, so why not just be honest?

I'm not that taken with Freudian perspectives. They seem to be overcomplicated.

When one read's Kierkegaard's profound analyses of anxiety and despair or Nietzsche's amazingly acute insights into the dynamics of resentment and the guilt and hostility which accompany repressed emotional powers, one might pinch oneself to realize that one is reading works written in the last century and not some new contemporary psychological analysis.

In our post-Freudian world, it is no longer a goal to become people of character who live out a God-ordained ideal of selfhood.