Foundations of Psychoanalysis Reconsidered

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8335091
AutoresW W Meissner (129 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge, MA 02138, autor correspondente)
Ano1990
Volume38
Fascículo3
Páginas523-557
Data de publicação1990-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/000306519003800301
PMID2229875
OpenAlexW2054422026
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas56

Grünbaum's approach to psychoanalysis suffers from several difficulties. It imposes a standard of logical reductionism and methodological purity that not only violates the nature of psychoanalytic knowledge, but imposes an invalid standard of verification and scientific confirmation. It utilizes a brand of dichotomous reasoning that forces psychoanalytic propositions into artificial positions that do not reflect the actuality of analytic practice. It imposes a standard of verification that is impossible for psychoanalysis, along with all forms of psychological knowledge, to reach. It visualizes psychoanalysis as encompassing only one form of knowledge of human psychic life, forcing it into a model that eliminates other aspects of the psychoanalytic process, so that psychoanalysis is subjected to criticism only on one dimension among several-a kind of psychoanalytic straw man. The psychoanalysis that is so impaled often is difficult for the psychoanalytic practitioner to recognize. To the extent that Grünbaum's skillful and highly informed criticism of the philosophical bases of psychoanalysis encounters these difficulties, the value of his argument falls short of providing a useful basis for advancing psychoanalytic knowledge and particularly for promoting the quest for pertinent standards of validation within psychoanalysis

Argument (complex analysis) · Criticism · Epistemology · Psychic · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Psychoanalytic Therapy · Reductionism · Sociology · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, Science, and History · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications