Arguably, psychoanalysis does better with sociology than individual psychology.
I feel that way from reading Freud (and reading about Jung) - he describes patterns derived by observing his patients/friends/Greek myths (e.g. Achilles-Agamemnon dynamic in the Iliad is a great example of the OC dynamic) as universals, but in light of evidence that hunter-gatherers may not possess OC (or at least that they certainly appear to carry far less familial resentment), we should really consider that OC is a cultural phenomenon that catalyzed the development of civilization (less fucking the mother part, more killing the father / internalizing his tyranny / competition / forceful patriarchy) and NOT a biological absolute.
He makes a very strong case as to how an individual’s mental illnesses and neuroses are indeed largely a function of social factors.
Also, I’ve only read assorted Nietzsche (like 600 pages or so), I think he certainly thinks of himself as an individualist - the cure to the Death of God and the key to being an Übermensch being a willingness to create one’s own code of ethics and conduct, free of a need to be controlled by a powerful, universalizing source of ethics external to one’s self.
This is also why Adorno & Horkheimer call him an Enlightenment extremist in Dialectic of Enlightenment.
Smorgsboards t1_j44aqzw wrote
Reply to comment by Icy_Violinist_2781 in Nietzsche is better understood as the Father of Psychoanalysis than Existentialism; his philosophy has two components: the diagnosis of our culture's Decadence (under the Ascetic Ideal) and a prescription for health in the Dionysian Counter-Ideal by thelivingphilosophy
Arguably, psychoanalysis does better with sociology than individual psychology.
I feel that way from reading Freud (and reading about Jung) - he describes patterns derived by observing his patients/friends/Greek myths (e.g. Achilles-Agamemnon dynamic in the Iliad is a great example of the OC dynamic) as universals, but in light of evidence that hunter-gatherers may not possess OC (or at least that they certainly appear to carry far less familial resentment), we should really consider that OC is a cultural phenomenon that catalyzed the development of civilization (less fucking the mother part, more killing the father / internalizing his tyranny / competition / forceful patriarchy) and NOT a biological absolute.
He makes a very strong case as to how an individual’s mental illnesses and neuroses are indeed largely a function of social factors.
Also, I’ve only read assorted Nietzsche (like 600 pages or so), I think he certainly thinks of himself as an individualist - the cure to the Death of God and the key to being an Übermensch being a willingness to create one’s own code of ethics and conduct, free of a need to be controlled by a powerful, universalizing source of ethics external to one’s self.
This is also why Adorno & Horkheimer call him an Enlightenment extremist in Dialectic of Enlightenment.