Are Freud's Theories Of The Oral And Anal Personalities Like The Curate's Egg - Good In Parts?

The first 200 words of this essay...

Are Freud's Theories Of The Oral And Anal Personalities Like The Curate's Egg - Good In Parts?

This question immediately raises the problem, "how are we to determine which parts of Freudian theory are 'good'?" Freud may well have argued that the evidence he documented from his psychotherapy sessions was sufficient, whilst behaviourists would demand that the various aspects of a theory could only be recognised as 'good' after being exposed to the full rigours of the scientific method. I personally don't feel that one can hope to design a repeatable experiment that will decisively illustrate the existence of, for example, the Oedipus complex. On the other hand I feel that we cannot simply accept a theory that has been moulded to fit a certain experimenters observations, coloured as they must be by their own personality, prejudices, and society. Therefore in this essay I will examine the empirical evidence from studies conducted on these most controversial of Freud's theories, and where that evidence appears on balance to give support to that particular theory, I will accept it as 'good'. As I said earlier some will regard this measure of worth as too lax to be of any use, whilst