Psychoanalysis: Legitimate and illegitimate concerns.

Abstract

R. F. Bornstein (2001) points to real problems but underestimates what is going on now clinically and scientifically, exaggerates the past acceptance, and undervalues the scientific value of clinical observations. He ignores the role of economic factors in determining the status of psychoanalysis. He rejects repression, castration anxiety, penis envy, free association, and dream analysis. Clinical observations from World War II, ordinary clinical practice, and experiments amply demonstrate the phenomena of repression (painful memories, fantasies, impulses, feelings, or connections being kept out of awareness). Free association and dream analyses are powerful therapeutic techniques. Castration anxiety and penis envy (not innate) can sometimes be observed. Psychoanalysis includes powerful ideas and effective therapy as experienced by patients and reflected in research. Bornstein (2001), who has done solid research himself, is legitimately concerned that the lack of nomothetic research acceptable to experimental psychologists may mean the needless death of psychoanalysis. He believes that the problem is due to the insularity, inaccuracy, indifference, irrelevance, inefficiency, indeterminacy, and insolence of psychoanalysts. Certainly, we all know psychoanalysts with one or more of these problems, but are they universal? Psychoanalysts differ in these respects as they do

The impending death of psychoanalysis: From destructive obfuscation to constructive dialogue.

“…Karon's response represents exactly the sort of constructive dialogue that can save psychoanalysis. Karon (2002) and I agree regarding some important issues. For example, we concur that medication treatments have been oversold, and their purported efficacy exaggerated (see, e.g., Greenberg, Bornstein, Greenberg & Fisher, 1992).…”

“…In addition, we agree that some research psychologists have unconsciously co-opted and renamed psychoanalytic ideas, reinventing them in the context of their own subfields (see Bornstein, 1996b, in press). Karon (2002) and I also disagree regarding certain issues, and it is important that we recognize these as well. For example, we disagree regarding the relative importance of clinical and experimental evidence in theory building and hypothesis testing.…”

“…Psychoanalysis is no different, no matter how vociferously one protests otherwise. 4 Karon's Constructive Dialogue Alone among those who chose to respond formally to my 2001 article, Karon (2002) recognized it for what it is: A call for action designed to alert psychoanalysts to the diminished influence of our discipline in mainstream psychology and increase our efforts to validate and refine the theory before it is too late. Karon's response represents exactly the sort of constructive dialogue that can save psychoanalysis.…”

“…One other error inKaron's (2002) response warrants brief mention. He claims that I said "psychoanalysis has no impact on the psychology of child development" (p. 569).…”

Consilient psychoanalysis.

“…Whereas empirical investigation plays a central role in the natural sciences and many social sciences, psychoanalysis is notorious for rejecting the principle of empirical investigation (Bornstein, 2001, 2002; Karon, 2002; Lothane, 2002; Mills, 2002; Schachter & Luborsky, 1998; Waiess, 2002). I have noted in my own personal interactions with many respected analytic colleagues a dishearteningly common assertion that psychoanalysis is simply too complex and ephemeral, and the interactions between a particular patient and a particular analyst simply too unique, to ever allow for scientific investigation of what we do.…”