© Science-Based Medicine
Psychiatry is arguably the least science-based of all the medical specialties, and
Freudian psychoanalysis is arguably the least science-based psychotherapy.
Freud's theories have been widely criticized as unscientific, and treatment of mental disorders has increasingly turned to psychotropic medications and effective therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Freud's impact on 20
th century thought is undeniable, but he got almost everything wrong.
He was not only not scientific; he was a liar and a fraud. A new book,
Freud: The Making of an Illusion, by Frederick Crews, may put the final nail in his coffin.
Crews had access to material not available to previous biographers. The extensive early correspondence between Freud and his fiancée, Martha Bernays, has only recently been released, and it is very revealing of Freud's character flaws, his sexist attitudes, and his regular use of cocaine.
Freud was trained as a scientist, but he went astray, following wild hunches, willfully descending into pseudoscience, covering up his mistakes, and establishing a cult of personality that long outlived him.
His early work in science was scattershot and lacked follow-through. He "deftly criticized premature conclusions reached by others but never crucially tested any of his own hypotheses." He was lazy, reluctant to collect enough evidence to make sure a finding was not an anomaly; he generalized from single cases, even using himself as the single case. In an early article "On Coca" he demonstrated poor scholarship, omitting crucial references, citing references from another bibliography without reading them, and making careless errors (misstating names, dates, titles, and places of publication).
Comment: See also: Extinct 'hell ant' with metal horns & trap jaw found inside amber (PHOTOS)