Google celebrated Sigmund Freud’s 160th birthday today with a doodle picturing his face above the surface of the ocean with a dark iceberg below. Freud sometimes used the analogy of an iceberg to describe the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind.
Freud is often casually derided as if his ideas have all been disproven and that, as a society, we have moved on. However, we are so steeped in Freudian thought that we fail to see it’s influence all around us.
Do modern biologists mock Darwin’s ideas or appreciate him as a groundbreaking pioneer? Sure, Freud got a lot of things wrong, but just as he built upon the work of others, the field of psychology has been built upon a foundation he laid. If you would like to read more on the evolution of contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy, this paper is a good place to start. Happy Birthday, Dr. Freud.