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traumatic experiences in war have been found to remember their traumas only too well
(Kihlstrom, 1997). [7] Although we may attempt to push information that is anxiety-arousing into
our unconscious, this often has the ironic effect of making us think about the information even
more strongly than if we hadn’t tried to repress it (Newman, Duff, & Baumeister, 1997). [8] It is
true that children remember little of their childhood experiences, but this seems to be true of both
negative as well as positive experiences, is true for animals as well, and probably is better
explained in terms of the brain’s inability to form long-term memories than in terms of
repression. On the other hand, Freud’s important idea that expressing or talking through one’s
difficulties can be psychologically helpful has been supported in current research (Baddeley &
Pennebaker, 2009) [9] and has become a mainstay of psychological therapy.
A particular problem for testing Freudian theories is that almost anything that conflicts with a
prediction based in Freudian theory can be explained away in terms of the use of a defense
mechanism. A man who expresses a lot of anger toward his father may be seen via Freudian
theory to be experiencing the Oedipus complex, which includes conflict with the father. But a
man who expresses no anger at all toward the father also may be seen as experiencing the
Oedipus complex by repressing the anger. Because Freud hypothesized that either was possible,
but did not specify when repression would or would not occur, the theory is difficult to falsify.
In terms of the important role of the unconscious, Freud seems to have been at least in part
correct. More and more research demonstrates that a large part of everyday behavior is driven by
processes that are outside our conscious awareness (Kihlstrom, 1987). [10] And yet, although our
unconscious motivations influence every aspect of our learning and behavior Freud probably
overestimated the extent to which these unconscious motivations are primarily sexual and
aggressive.
Taken together, it is fair to say that Freudian theory, like most psychological theories, was not
entirely correct and that it has had to be modified over time as the results of new studies have
become available. But the fundamental ideas about personality that Freud proposed, as well as
the use of talk therapy as an essential component of therapy, are nevertheless still a major part of
psychology and are used by clinical psychologists every day.