Sigmund Freud Reaction Formation Analysis

Sigmund Freud is seen as the father of psychology. He was also the one who came up with the theory about defense mechanisms. He means that people develops defense mechanisms against anxiety. It is a way to distort reality and exclude feelings from awareness, just not to feel anxious. Those mechanisms are functions carried out by the ego. They are a strategic effort by the ego to deal with socially unacceptable impulses of the id.

According to S. Freud’s definition, reaction formation is when an individual feels an unacceptable impulse, however only express the opposite.

In the article the authors describe reaction formation exactly as Freud did.

Overall, there has been plenty of studies to show whether this defense mechanism is still valid

There are statements that Freud has been using drugs and even tried to cure his patients with cocaine. Furthermore, there is someone saying that he has been using fictive patients that he had “cured”. Overall, it is very much criticism in this article and is attacking Sigmund Freud a lot. Though, what we have to take into consideration is that Sigmund Freud is still today considered the father of the psychology. This means that his theories are used in many researches, in therapy, and in psychology generally. There is not really an evidence on that Freud actually used cocaine or came up with non-existent patients. It is not hard to come up with lies and gossip about one person. Freud’s opponents could have done that, only to make him look bad, and make theirs work shine. Another possibility is that Freud’s opponents were jealous, because S. Freud had big ideas and theories. Furthermore, most of the article is only bad criticism, did not Freud do any genius researches? Not according to the article

Sometimes, I can even recognize reaction formation on myself or on someone that I know well enough to tell this. Moreover, I choose to believe a book that has been more or less inspected whether the material in it is correct or not. There is so many psychologist and therapists who use Sigmund Freud’s theories. And compared to other knowledges, psychology is fairly young, and should that way be still relevant, even nowadays. Even though it is lots of criticism in both articles that I used, I choose to say that this defensive mechanism is valid. Furthermore, the criticism could have been said by Freud’s opponents as I mentioned before in a manner to destroy Sigmund Freud. Even though I did not find sources that actually said that reaction formation is valid I want to believe that it is, because there is too much people in the world using this, to not be true, according to me.