After reading the article it confirmed my belief that Freud is a bit wacky and almost always biased with most of his analogies. To start he based all his analytical theories on sex or the repression of some kind of sexual desire even at some points where there really no connection to sex at all with the patient. Here Freud confirms my belief that he somehow will always try to manipulate the conversation or situation in references to his theories: “Hans had to be told many things he could not say himself that he had to be presented with thoughts which he so far had no signs in possessing” (Freud, 1909, p. 141). The child from the beginning was brought into a lot of confusion he was never correctly told where babies “ came from” instead the parents insisted that babies came from storks and the poor child continued to refer to that , causing continuous confusion about “the birds and the bees” . Hans’s mother in addition never made it clear to the child that girls and boys had different sexual organs even when the child asked her directly. Also, when the child shows signs of masturbation, a parent should try not to scare the child or give them the will to repress by saying if he does masturbate, it will be chopped off! Also I suppose Hans may have shown some signs of the classic oedipal complex, but it seemed to be more engrained by the father and Freud’s accusations then an actual problem. Anyway most neurosis originate with families and/or parents, past down from generation to generation. Also the whole idea that somehow Hans fear of horses or just being outside came about because of a castration and Oedipus complex is simply plain “nonsense” to me.
Watson and Rayner
In the article “Conditioned and Emotional Reactions” by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner we see here that the emotional conditioned responses are mainly derived from:
- Love (sex)
- Fear
- Possibly rage (aggression)
They begin the experiment with a nine month old baby named Albert B. he then goes through testing’s that allow Watson and Rayner to see how one forms a conditioned feared response , their experiment was as follows:
- Could they condition fear of a animal
- If conditioned established could they transfer fear to other animals or objects
- The effect of time on such conditioned responses
- If emotional responses do not diminish, what other applications must take place.
We see with the first stage for conditioning fear of an animal with a white rat was successful, after showing the rat to Albert and slamming on a bell. He thus became afraid and pulled back. The next day Albert had the same reaction but without the sound of the bell, he then was given blocks to play with and no feared response, played easily. The next step was to see if any transfers would take place, they tested this by putting a rabbit in front of Albert, right away he started to cry. It was confirmed transfers did take place.
Thereafter many tests were taken with the following animals: rat, rabbit and dog all of which at one point were studied alone and/or with sound. Sound produced the negative response to the animal/animals which therefore conditioned a feared response each time Albert saw any animal. It was shown after some time that when the tests were once again done there was less of an intense reaction. But one interesting point was when they presented Albert with a fur coat and he started to react badly just as if he had seen an actual animal. Transfers occurred here as well with an object that subsequently did originate from an animal. The fourth part of the experiments never occurred because Albert was never brought back for more testing.
Watson and Rayner both concluded that fear is primal emotion separate from love (sex): “fear is as primal a factor as love in influencing personality. Fear does not gather its potency in any derived manner from love” (Watson, 1920, p. 8),
After reading this article I found it to be very refreshing compared to Freud’s article of Hans, it just simply made a lot more sense and was a much easier and capable theory in comparison to Freud. There was a step by step process on how to access a conditioned emotional response where in this case was fear. It was a job well done because they got their answers in finding out how one may acquire a phobia, Watson and Rayner proved against Freud’s theory of every phobia or disorder originate from underlining sexual preoccupation. Which we now see is completely untrue in the case of Albert, this case completely proved otherwise, Albert’s phobia didn’t stem from love or sex, it came from pure fear.
Freud vs. Watson/Rayner
The difference between the two articles is mainly the reasoning by the theorists. Freud believes that phobias are result of some kind of sexual repression or complex that therefore brings about a phobia and/or anxiety. This is the conclusion that he made with little Hans phobia, he completely ignored the fact the child pretty much told him in so many words that when he saw the horse fall was when his “nonsense began” (Freud, 1909). Freud blatantly chooses to ignore this evidence and states that it was in reference to the child’s Oedipus complex. On the other hand Watson and Rayner conclude a completely different outcome while experimenting with the infant Albert. They begin the experiment by stating the fact they are testing the response of the child with the conditioned emotion of fear which in turn did prove their experiments to be true. The outcome did in fact conclude against Freud’s original theory that all phobias (fear) is derived from sex, but instead fear is a primal emotion in itself having nothing to with sex at all.
“The Freudians twenty years from now, unless their hypotheses change, when they come to analyze Albert's fear of a seal skin coat - assuming that he comes to analysis at that age - will probably tease from him the recital of a dream which upon their analysis will show that Albert at three years of age attempted to play with the pubic hair of the mother and was scolded violently for it. (We are by no means denying that this might in some other case condition it)” (Watson, 1920).
In comparison all theorist did manage to make the point about “transfers” (Watson, 1920) .In these cases the transfer emotion of fear on to another subject different from the original subject. In Hans’s story we see that Hans manage to take his fear of horses and transfer it to fear of going outside, busses, and busses. Hans managed to take one primal fear of horses and transfer it to anything big and scary in the outside world that was out of his control. Albert in addition acquired a fear of animals when shown the rat with a sound, consequently he became scared of the rabbit, dog, and a fur coat when shown alone without any sound. This proves that his fear transferred to other animals and even objects that were not the original reason for they fear response. “These experiments would seem to show conclusively that directly conditioned emotional responses as well as those conditioned by transfer persist, although with a certain loss in the intensity of the reaction, for a longer period than one month. Our view is that they persist and modify personality throughout life” (Watson, 1920, p. 7).
Reading these articles allowed me to get more of a sense of how each of the theorists came up with their reasoning behind the causes of phobias, between the Freud and Watson/ Rayner I would have to say that Watson/ Rayner theory behind phobias are much more realistic and understandable. Freud presented no evidence of any kind which allows me to assume he probably wrote and arrived at most of his theories while drug induced. In the end it is evidently clear the emotion of love is separate from the emotion of fear, unless in which case you fear love, which in itself is another case to be analyzed.
Bibliography
Freud, S. (1909). Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old-Boy. 47-183.
Watson, R. (1920). conditioned emotional reactions.