Troll, The "wit" comment is too easy. By half. I think my point is made by your inability to recognize when you are being humored. I will ignore the ad hommium attacks. It is clear that you mistook my observations as such, as opposed to a simple recounting of fact that they were.

Bartholomew, A caveat that I am arguing from an Ideal Type, not the reality. Freudians have relented somewhat.

The problem I have with Freud (based on what I remember from college and recently reading a couple of books versus an in depth study), is that his theories and psychoanalysis (which is in decline), makes a number of assumptions about why we are the way we are. About the mind. If, as a pure Freudian therapist, I believe in the unconscious, Oedipal Complex, ego, superego and all that, I will direct the therapy that way and assume that is the cause of problems.

That sympathetic listening can be very helpful is fairly well documented. But if I think that there is something like Freud's unconscious (truly unknowable motivations, emotions and so on, versus knowable but unrecognized ones), that leads to, at a very simplistic level of argument (and donning my cynic persona), a "cure" being more luck than intent and ability.

Freud is to the mind as Ptolemaic Astronomy is to the universe might be a good analogy. Freud's concepts were brilliant, innovative, creative and complex. So was the philosophical basis of Alchemy.

What if there is a chemical basis to the problem? Acute Depression, for example. If, as a Freudian, I maintain its because of unrecognized conflicts, oedipal urges or unresolved penis envy, the probability of effective change seems limited. Even if I use chemicals to bridge the crisis, if I'm still focused on the unconscious and thinking that free association provides insight into same, refusing to accept there may be a chemical imbalance that needs to be corrected.(cynic persona again) I'm back to random success.

If, conversely, medications are used, along with behavior modification (to unlearn all the coping mechanisms that were used just to fight off the depression) and that is coupled with facilitating the patient reintegrated "world view" (to use a touch-feely term), I think the patient and the world are better served. Chemical based depression means that a person has gone through life using most of their energy to deal with basic problems that are second nature to most people.. So the balance is adjusted by the medicine and the person needs to learn how to live without spending all their energy just getting by. Needs to learn normal coping mechanisms and not worry if they never got over wanting to have sex with their mother or father.

I don't think chemicals alone are the answer, either. And they are abused by professional and client alike. A big part of living is the meaning people give to their lives. I just don't see that a Freudian approach deals with that. Nor that chemicals are always needed. Sometimes, a lot of times, to listen to friends of mine in the field, people just need someone to listen.

Sorry to go on so long. As I said, this is not something I've researched to any depth. Hopefully I haven't mis-attributed things to the Freudist that don't belong their.

Without getting into it deeply. I would tend to agree that elements of the world are seamless. The meaning given to those elements isn't. But then, there's Choas Theory that says that the seamlessness is an illusion.

Regards John