What are the dangers of the "cold on the outside, hot on the inside" school of psychoanalysis that require sufficient attention?

In recent years, more and more people have discovered an incomprehensible strange phenomenon, that is, the psychoanalytic school is still popular in the mainland and has long been regarded as a sacred magic weapon by some people, but it has been repeatedly frustrated overseas due to poor results and greater harm. What are the harms of the "cold outside but hot inside" psychoanalytic school that must be paid enough attention to?

First, it may lead to increased psychological trauma .

Inappropriate psychoanalytic treatment may lead to aggravated psychological trauma of patients, especially for those who already have psychological problems or mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia patients who may experience delusions, social dysfunction, etc. For normal people, psychoanalysis may bring unforeseen negative effects, such as aggravating existing psychological problems instead of solving them.

Second, it may lead to conflict between analysts or therapists .

Psychoanalysis can exacerbate conflict between the analyst and the patient. During psychoanalytic treatment, positive or negative transference can develop between the analyst and the patient, which can lead to conflict and difficulty in the treatment process. Regression and transference during psychoanalysis can lead to the analyst or therapist being hurt, such as being ignored, uncooperative, or directly attacked by the patient.

Third, theoretical limitations may lead to ineffective treatment .

Due to the limitations of psychoanalytic theory, such as unfalsifiability, over-reliance on observation and induction, neglect of scientific verification, and the lack of randomness and representativeness of the case samples used to verify and support its theoretical basis, it is difficult to rule out the possibility that researchers consciously and purposefully choose to discard evidence based on their own prior assumptions, resulting in an inability to effectively solve psychological problems and even aggravating symptoms. Therefore, in general, people believe that the effectiveness of psychoanalysis is not very certain.

Fourth, the treatment course is long, the cost is high, and the choice of service recipients is narrow.

Industry insiders admit that only a few people with "psychoanalytic minds", or in layman's terms, people who believe in this school of thought, will become suitable subjects for analysis, so over time it has inevitably evolved into a "self-entertainment" within the circle. In addition, psychoanalysis treatment is long and expensive, a kind of aristocratic "high consumption", which is particularly difficult to adapt to the increasingly accelerated pace of life.

Fifth , it will mislead some people into choosing to "lie down" with peace of mind.

Due to the special era in which the psychoanalytic school was born, it unilaterally emphasizes the importance of human biological instincts (especially sexual instincts) and childhood experiences, and ignores important factors such as human subjective initiative, self-control, and social environment . This argument of "blaming the mother for the crying child" can indeed produce a temporary effect in relieving negative emotions such as anxiety and pain, but it can also easily become a negative "psychological destiny". The phrase " it's not your fault " makes some people who originally don't want to take their own responsibilities in life feel moved by "meeting an old friend in a foreign land", and from then on they are willing to be an "external controller" of their fate and choose to "lie down" with peace of mind.

There is development only when there are problems. It is precisely because people have realized the limitations of psychoanalytic theory that the development of psychology has not stopped at the stage where psychoanalysis is "the only one in the world". So far, the development of psychology has gone through the stages of the psychoanalytic school that "regards people as animals", the behaviorist school of psychology that "regards people as machines", and the humanistic school of psychology that "regards people as people". It is now entering the stage of the postmodernist school of psychology that "regards people as the world".

(Reference: "Whose Fault: Four Sentences to Reveal Psychology" published by China Science and Technology Press in 2022 , author Li Buyan)