Fred Crews is a brilliant man who is given to violent enthusiasms and antagonisms. Having swallowed Freud, hook, line, and sinker, he then reacted against applying the Viennese Tweedledum's ideas to the understanding of literature (i.e. Marlow's trip up the Congo River is "really" Conrad's imaginative trip up the birth canal to a return to the womb). Freud argued against the over-emphasis of scientific positivism and rationalism in the treatment first of "hysteria," and then to mental illness generally, and he presented his methods and theories as "scientific." But they do not meet stringent criteria for the scientific method, and have been abandoned by later generations of psychologists, who assert that their results are more scientifically valid, and fail to confirm Freud's ideas. Some of these, like B.F. Skinner, have in turn been discredited by their successors. Psychology, it would seem, is imperfect, still in the process of evolving, and perhaps will never be fully scientific.

I heard Crews talk about his lengthy attack on Freud at a Berkeley bookstore a few years ago, and bought his book, but his animosity against Freud, whom he portrays as a fraud and cheat at every stage of his career, tired me after a few chapters, and I quit. He attacks Freud's character, trying to show that Freud's flaws and dishonesty refute his methods and theories. But without heroizing Freud, I find some of his ideas useful in understanding myself. Subsequent non-Freudians have also helped me, so I'm not against them either. Perhaps the lesson is: "the more theories and tools for understanding human nature and human behavior, the better."

Freud may be dead, but science isn't in too great a shape either. The p value crisis, lack of repetitions and loss of public confidence has curable patients seeking quackery. There are still some theories that do help. Cognitive behavioral therapy for certain mental illness is a good example.

Since Freud didn't have a scientific model, science can't necessarily replace his model with a better one. The current models aren't telling as compelling a story. That will be frustrating for humans. Some may prefer stories they understand vs. a science that says we just don't know. In either case it is best to listen to data and with some skepticism ... experts until we get a clearer picture.

These are Kahneman's own words - from Thinking, Fast and Slow.

'System 1 and System 2 are so central to the story I tell in this book that I must make it absolutely clear that they are fictitious characters. '

The new models are better than Freud because they don't pretend to be. Enough with the pretending already. I'm all in for uncertainty until I can get results that repeat. Even if I don't live to see that day.

A couple good reads that have helped me on this are:

Kandel, Eric R. (2018), The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 9780374287863.

Barrett, Lisa F (2017), How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 0544133315.

Barrett also has a more accessible book out last year... but it doesn't tell her story which is basically the same as Kandel's ... they both are trained psychotherapists who turned to neuroscience to retrain (both multiple times) to find answers. Both are very supportive of modern therapy, but not outside the data.

We are on the precipice of a revolution in our understanding of the brain, human body and previously squishy biology all yielding to imaging and modelling that will tell a story much better than Freud ever dreamed. We just aren't there yet.

I have invoked Searle before. His notion about unconsciousness seemed to me eminently adept. One more time, then.
'Unconsciousness' is nothingness. When one is unconscious, one is out of it: unaware and helpless. I don't know how to say this better. Freud's terminology lost traction years ago. I can't see why it is still an issue...

Maybe, superconscious---or, metaconscious? No? I guess not. Nor, had you not guessed, was I a fan of Freud. It seems to me he made it up as he went. Still, in fairness, he made us try harder TO think better, doing the best we can, with what we've got and what we know( those last twenty-odd words, mine from my own prose). Science, even pseudo-science, advances in fits-and-starts. I have a friend who began his life interested in Physics, is ending it in Neuroscience, and may go, kicking and screaming....

After reading other comments here, I reconsidered those and my own musings, deciding, on balance, to adopt an egalitarian stance. Freud's time was his time. Those who scorned him could have not known how he thought what he thought, because no one can know what we think the way we do. That is just how it is. And, who knows, had there been no Freud, there might have been someone else who espoused his dogma/doctrine. There is always supercession.
It need not always, or in all ways mean replacement. As Dennett has avowed, we will make mistakes. All else equal, we will learn from them...

Was looking for this post because of the pictorial. Reminds me of a recent, annoying ploy by an insurance company. You may have seen it. A man is driving, in an unidentifiable convertible, singing about making money. Lots of it. The hood ornament on the car is also singing. It looks like your pictorial. But it moves. And sings. About making money. The entire notion is, of course, bogus. The company wants us to buy their insurance. They will make lots of money, not us. This is how marketing is done.

One more lawn mowing season is upon us. My 1977 lawn mower is older than the children of most of my neighbors. I'm pretty sure it will be running after I am no longer. It cost me $50. Had I bought replacements, say, every three years, I could not calculate the outlay. But, I would not have made money---only wasted it. Everyone in business relies upon obsolescence. Much of that is planned. The company that built my mower started n 1971.. They are going strong. We only make money when we are allowed to do so.

My wife has always bought smart phones made by one company. They have announced they will get out of that business. Reason: they cannot make money from smart phones. Reason: their product is too good, does not blow up; break down; fall apart:; or wear out, absent extreme prejudice. Others rely on the planned obsolescence motive to mine the money. My response is to try harder, think better, and do the best I can with what I have and what I know. Anyone want to join me?