Reddit mentions of Freud: The Making of an Illusion

I'm talking about now, not "from a historical perspective." Aristotle believed that women were inferior to men ("a deformity," he called them) partly because he claimed that they have fewer teeth than men. Those claims are obviously absurd, but are we expected to give them more respect today simply because they made sense "in relation to the time he was living in" or because someone might find them interesting "from a historical perspective?" Of course not.

Were I teaching a "History of Psychology" course, I'd probably cover Freud, because of his historical significance, in much the same way that the Titanic was historically significant for maritime travel. But, if I'm teaching an intro course or any other science-focused course, I'm mostly avoiding his dreck because his ideas "from a modern perspective" are absurd and tantamount to pseudoscience. I teach science, not pseudoscience.

I'm not aware of any modern interpretations/explanations of his theories that aren't entirely bunk. Maybe they're out there but, if one has to reinterpret his theories in order for them to not be bunk, or the best defense of them is that they "aren't entirely bunk," then that should tell you something about the validity of his ideas in the first place.

Fred Crews wrote a blistering expose on Freud, that I highly recommend to anyone who thinks Freud's critics have been uncharitable: https://www.amazon.com/Freud-Making-Illusion-Frederick-Crews/dp/1250183626/r

Great article here: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/freud-was-a-fraud-a-triumph-of-pseudoscience/

Another one here on why his ideas survive (like cockroaches, I suppose) despite that fact that (much like Aristotle) he was wrong on pretty much everything: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/why-freud-survives