All in all, Freud's unique outlook on personality is quite believable; mainly his theories regarding the role of the unconscious mind in personality development. However, parts of his theory are far fetched to say the least. His psychosexual development theory has been largely debunked in this day and age, and rightfully so; The original theory itself seemed oddly inapplicable to most humans, I truly wonder how he managed to forge such an idea.
As for the visual personality assessments, I think they should be used more as a reinforcement to an existing evaluation (if they were to be used at all) than a standalone evaluation. Considering their reliability.
Keep in mind that Freud was basing his work off of the case studies from people with issues he worked with. His "evidence" told through his lens would be highly believable especially when people reading his works had no direct knowledge or contact with the people in the case studies or even people who suffered from similar problems. He was able to explain things that those before had no explanation for. I think this made his ideas appealing. Also in such a Victorian context of repressed sexuality, I think his ideas may have had even more appeal than they would in the more open society we know today.
ReplyDeleteI tend to think all "evaluations" should be used in conjunction with a larger body of evidence and not as a stand alone. People are just too complicated to be reduced to one data point, but I also understand the need to study and explain, thus test and compare.