Pitfalls of a one-sided image of science: Adolf Grünbaum's Foundations of Psychoanalysis

On the scientific standing of psychoanalysis

This paper speaks for the claim that psychoanalysis qualifies as a scientific enterprise. It will derive from the conceptual and evidential structure of psychoanalysis a causal empirical hypothesis that admits of scientific intraclinical testing. Relevant topics from the philosophy of science (especially the nature of causal explanation and the work of Grünbaum) and the psychoanalytic theories of pathogenesis and therapeutic action are discussed in a preliminary way to create a framework for the demonstration. The dynamic unconscious is examined as the core causal concept of psychoanalysis. Taken together with an account of the structure of the mental apparatus, a coherent picture of mental causation (the propagation of an unconscious impulse) comes into view. This leads to the formulation of a set of clinical propositions that unite to generate a causal empirical hypothesis based solely on data from the analytic setting--namely, that the transferences and symptoms that appear in free association in the analytic situation possess an interrelational structure that is theoretically implied and can be statistically confirmed.

Toward an epistemology of clinical psychoanalysis

Epistemology emerges from the study of the ways knowledge is gained in the different fields of scientific endeavor. Current polemics on the nature of psychoanalytic knowledge involve counterposed misconceptions of the nature of mind. On one side clinical psychoanalysis is under siege from philosophical "hard science" stalwarts who, upholding as the unitary model of scientific knowledge of Galilean model of science built around the "well-behaved" variables of mechanics and cosmology, argue clinical psychoanalysis does not meet empirical criteria for the validation of its claims. On the other side, its empirical character is renounced by hermeneuticists who, agreeing with "hard science" advocates on what science is, dismiss the animal nature of human beings and hold that clinical psychoanalysis is not an empirical science but a "human" interpretive one. Taking Adolf Grünbaum's critique as its referent, this paper examines how, by ignoring the differences between "exact" and observational science, the "hard science" demand for well-behaved variables misconstrues the nature of events in the realm of mind. Criteria for an epistemology fit for the facts of clinical psychoanalysis as an empirical, observational science of mind are then proposed.

Suggestion and veridicality in the reconstruction of sexual trauma, or can a bait of suggestion catch a carp of falsehood?

Freud used the term suggestion in psychoanalysis in different ways, including suggestion as an integral part of the transference and suggestion in the sense of undue influence or technical error. This distinction can be expressed in terms of the patient's suggestibility (capacity for transference) and the analyst's unwarranted suggestion or persuasion representing countertransference, theoretical bias, or a departure from technical neutrality. Whether suggestion is explicit or implicit, the effects of suggestion and suggestibility may be mutual and reciprocal. To the extent that a psychoanalyst maintains the goal of technical neutrality, undue suggestion is likely to be minimal. To the extent that it occurs for transferential or countertransferential reasons, suggestion may itself be analyzed. Problems of suggestion are more likely to occur and persist when they are part of the analyst's theoretical orientation, influencing the course of the analysis and expressing compromise formations for both patient and analyst. At times, even tentatively stated words or unintended behaviors of the analyst can have a dynamic impact that may not be readily analyzed. The analytic situation itself may have retrospective (nachträglich) action. A previously published case is described in which an apparent enactment led the analyst to urge a reconstruction of sexual abuse even though the patient never actually recalled what was presumed to have been fellatio. The need for technical neutrality and alternative reconstructions in such cases is considered. The degree to which the personality and goals of the analyst influence the course of reconstruction remains a vexing issue for psychoanalysis as a scientific endeavor. There is a need for detailed analytic case studies in which alternative reconstructions can be compared by investigating opportunities for external confirmation or falsification.