Hey, thanks for that. I've done quite a bit of psychology but mostly cognitive neuropsychology and radical behaviourism. Did a couple of grad courses in abnormal psychology and theories and issues in treatment etc as well. I guess my uni was focused on CBT and alternative theories / views were often presented as straw men in a 'look how far we have come' kind of fashion. I never really got to learn very much about humanistic and existential theories or about psychodynamic / analytic theories.

I never really did much social psychology either, which is a shame in hindsight. If I could do another degree I'd be keen to pick up social and personality psychology, moral psychology (good overlap with ethics), and education for its 'human development through the lifespan' type courses. Apparantly the education dept. was a lot more sympathetic to other theories...

(I guess my uni was a bit distinctive in the sense that the major funding came from agriculture research hence the success of radical behaviouraism for the issues they were addressing)

In the meantime... I can do some reading, but I can't afford to get too distracted from my work.

I actually... Looked into doing my thesis on psychoanalysis (or pscyhodynamic theories). Wanted to look at how much you could translate some / most / all(?) into the language of the cognitive neurosciences (one criteria on scientific theories is that they are coherant with other currently accepted scientific theories). I was doing alright for a while but...

While the Id is kinda okay I was a bit boggled about what to do with the Ego and Superego. The dynamic unconscious... I've been finding a lot of stuff on that. People writing about how current science is vindicating the unconscious! It isn't though... The unconscious that cognitive psychologists talk about does not have the properties that the dynamic unconscious is supposed to have.

How should we think of these mental structures (Id, ego, superego, dynamic unconscious)?

Are they supposed to be structural and / or functional parts of the brain (will neuroscientists be able to locate them)?

Are they supposed to be structural and / or functional parts of the mind (will cognitive psychologists be able to vindicate them because of the predictive leverage that positing those entities grants us)?

Unfortunately... It is looking like no, no and no.

But folk psychology (with its entities like beliefs, desires, emotions etc) doesn't fear much better. Are beliefs supposed to be localised structures / functions that neuroscientists can find? Are they supposed to be cognitive structures that are useful to posit? Maybe yes to the latter but probably no to the former.

Some people say that psychoanalytic / dynamic entities are purely METAPHORIC. But if that is the case...

Art, not science.

Which is fine. Art isn't to be sneezed at. But... End of my project really so I had to leave it alone...

Though... I really do think I'll come back to it one day.