23. The Father of Modern Psychiatry Was a Lunatic in His Own Right
Sigmund Freud is widely acknowledged as the father of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. We have him to thank for the psychiatrist couch and paying somebody hundreds of dollars an hour to nod his head while doodling in a notepad as he listens to us drone on about our lives, before prescribing us happy pills. Freud basically said that we are all perverts, and that deep down, all guys want to murder their fathers as a prelude to sexing their own mothers.
Ironically, the figure he chose to name that complex after was probably the least Oedipal person ever. In Greek mythology, Oedipus went to extreme lengths to avoid a prophecy that predicted he would murder his father and marry his mother. He only ended up doing so unwittingly, after a series of extraordinary flukes. Freud, by contrast, was pretty Oedipal himself, openly acknowledging that he had the hots for his mother. That paled in comparison to Freud’s theory that the root cause of child molestation was not adults preying upon children, but children lusting after their parents.
Also Read: Captivating Life of Sigmund Freud.