>You can tell I'm not much of a Freudian.
>
>Me either. Personally, I think that Freud made it too easy for people to blame their problems on someone else. "If I have problems, it is all because of the way my parent toilet trained me." What a bunch of crap! At a certain age, I should become self-conscious and if I do not like the way my life is, then I need to take responsilbility for it and take steps to change it. If I don't take control of my own life and make the changes that I can, that in itself is a choice.

I agree with you wholeheartedly about taking personal responsibility and not blaming one's problems on others. I also think, though, that when it comes to psychological or behavioral issues there is another, and larger, reason Freud has fallen out of favor. More and more of these issues are being linked to biochemical causes which can be addressed with medication. Not necessarily solved -- I don't believe in magic bullets -- but at least mitigated. This may sound like just another version of "It's not my fault" but there is a lot of research in this direction. I thought my doctor put it pretty well. When we talked about my alcoholism she said yes, it's going to take willpower, but willpower alone probably won't be enough.