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My dad told me a joke/story once about one of his old psychologist colleagues(call him Dave) arguing with a psychoanalyst* about some psychology thing. After a

My dad told me a joke/story once about one of his old psychologist colleagues(call him Dave) arguing with a psychoanalyst* about some psychology thing. After a while of the discussion going nowhere, the psychoanalyst said something like this. "Not to worry, Dave, I know you're dynamically minded enough that you'll eventually learn to agree with me." Dave was not pleased. I guess that was more condescending than pejorative, but oh well. (Most modern clinical psychologists consider psychoanalysis to be a pseduoscience. A small minority still practice it even clinically. They don't like eachother very much)

savolai 3y ago
Care to offer evidence of pseudoscience status? All I could find was debunkings of this claim as myth and outdated, and to my understanding research in the field has caught wind in past decades. I’d love to learn more about the debate, so any pointers are welcome. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020924/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020924/ https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/10/on-the-scientific-status-of-psychoanalysis/ https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/10/on-the-scientific-status-of... ” Depending on where your philosophical allegiances lie, Karl Popper might be a friend or an enemy to whatever version of philosophy of science you accept. Falsificationist approaches to science imply that psychoanalysis makes untestable and unfalsifiable claims! Popper made the very same claims about Marxist social theory as well. There are two issues with this approach. One, if falsificationism is true, then all social sciences, and even some natural sciences, are pseudo-scientific. This is an unacceptable conclusion since much of social science is clearly science. Lots of cutting-edge physics whose models do not lend themselves to controlled experimental testing would also lose their status as science. That is also an absurd conclusion. Newtonian mechanics, for example, would never have been accepted as a theory if we use Popper’s standards of theory corroboration and falsifiability. The theory offered better ways of explaining phenomenon that previous theories were already decent at predicting reliably. The process of legitimizing Newtonian physics had nothing to do with testability.4 A good theory of science does not rule out obvious cases of scientific rigor.5”
- User23 3y ago
  The burden of proof lies on them that claim it’s a “real” science.
  - savolai 3y ago
    It appears to me the burden of proof lies on whoever wants to draw the line on what ”real” science is. Only natural sciences, then?
  - mp05 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  I'm not a psychologist myself, and I know nothing about modern academic psychoanalysis. I've tried to read some but it was indecipherable to me. Modern clinical psychoanalysis is a strange field. It went out of vogue with the advent of behavioral and later cognitive psychology in the latter half of the 20th century, as well as psychiatry. Psychoanalysts tend to believe their way is the only way, while more modern psychologists are much more eclectic. They're often extremely critical of the use of medication even in cases where the evidence supporting their use is overwhelming, like stimulants for ADHD. Psychoanalysts have their own strange nomenclature that's often incompatible with modern developments. So it's hard for other psychologists to even talk to them at all. Those are some of the reasons psychoanalysis is viewed as pseudoscientific by modern clinical psychologists.
- dahart 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis#Debate_over_status_as_scientific https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis#Debate_over_sta... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5459228/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5459228/ https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/research/psychoanalysis-science-or-pseudoscience/ https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/research/psychoanaly... https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-017-8706-2_41-1 https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-... https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2021/07/psychoanalysis-science-or-pseudoscience-examining-the-status-of-freudian-theory/ https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2021/07/psychoanalysis-science-or... https://philarchive.org/archive/FERIPA-6 https://philarchive.org/archive/FERIPA-6 That quote you included seems a little funny. It’s not making any direct or compelling argument in favor of psychoanalysis being science, it’s just saying well if psychoanalysis isn’t science then other disciplines aren’t science either, and since that’s sometimes not true, then Popper is wrong. It’s a slippery argument with some assumptions and big holes, and perhaps most glaringly it is intentionally ignoring the magnitude or degree of scientific experimentation, and attempting to frame the issue as only binary: science or not science. I’m sure there is some modern psychoanalysis that is scientific, but OTOH it seems like the foundations of psychoanalysis, especially Freud, are certainly problematic from the perspective of science, right? Psychoanalysis has a valid, earned reputation that may take a very long time to fix, even if today’s practitioners are being careful and scientific. This could be compared to chiropractic medicine - some of it is valid medicine today, but it definitely came from non-medical, non-scientific origins. There appear to be at least 2 separate arguments going. One is whether psychoanalysis can be a science, and the other is whether it actually was a science historically. This is why both sides are somewhat right: proponents of psychoanalysis argue that it can be scientific, which is true, and opponents argue that it wasn’t scientific in origin and has a troubled past, which is also true.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ordu 3y ago
> After a while of the discussion going nowhere, the psychoanalyst said something like this. "Not to worry, Dave, I know you're dynamically minded enough that you'll eventually learn to agree with me." It looks like psychoanalyst suffered from a professional deformation. Not enough evidence to be sure, but it is the main premise of psychoanalysis that psychoanalyst knows better then his "patient". A psychoanalyst knows what his patient feels, thinks, wishes, and so on. If patient doesn't agree then it is a "resistance" and overcoming it is the first priority task for a psychoanalyst. > I guess that was more condescending than pejorative, but oh well. The whole statement is condescending, but not because of "dynamically minded". It is "you'll learn to agree with me" that does the trick.
- slumberdisrupt 3y ago
  This is a caricature of clinical psychoanalysis and is more applicable to other therapies. For example, the initial moments of CBT are "psychoeducation", where the therapist sketches out with magic markers a bunch of categories (feelings, thoughts, behaviors, emotions) and their subcategories, and the patient learns to see themselves in these ontological terms. Suggestibility is the cornerstone of these interventions. Every psychoanalyst of course has their theoretical meta-psychology, but every clinical psychoanalyst knows that they must fight to abandon it at the door as they confront every analysand anew. Psychoanalysis is not a matter of instructing the patient of the death drive, of resistance, of the Oedipus complex, and so on. (Freud was wrong about why his intervention with Little Hans "succeeded".) Freud himself searched for something beyond hypnosis because the hypnotic technique required a susceptibility of the patient to suggestion, and furthermore required a constant relationship with the patient, otherwise the patient would invariably suffer a symptom relapse. Relate this to the dismal long-term rates of regression of CBT patients. (And this is the forbidden evidence of this "evidence based therapy".) The analysand enters the analytical relationship supposing (as you have supposed) that the analyst knows something crucial that the analysand does not. So what happens as the analysand comes to realize that the analyst does not, in fact, possess this knowledge? The analyst indeed knows they don't know, but this is presumably nothing like what you assume the analyst supposes themselves to know. The analyst is, in their role as an analyst (and not a therapist), merely the secretary of the analysand. They "take notes" on what the analyst says, in order to help show the analyst what they've said.

savolai 3y ago

Care to offer evidence of pseudoscience status? All I could find was debunkings of this claim as myth and outdated, and to my understanding research in the field has caught wind in past decades. I’d love to learn more about the debate, so any pointers are welcome. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020924/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020924/ https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/10/on-the-scientific-status-of-psychoanalysis/ https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/10/on-the-scientific-status-of... ” Depending on where your philosophical allegiances lie, Karl Popper might be a friend or an enemy to whatever version of philosophy of science you accept. Falsificationist approaches to science imply that psychoanalysis makes untestable and unfalsifiable claims! Popper made the very same claims about Marxist social theory as well. There are two issues with this approach. One, if falsificationism is true, then all social sciences, and even some natural sciences, are pseudo-scientific. This is an unacceptable conclusion since much of social science is clearly science. Lots of cutting-edge physics whose models do not lend themselves to controlled experimental testing would also lose their status as science. That is also an absurd conclusion. Newtonian mechanics, for example, would never have been accepted as a theory if we use Popper’s standards of theory corroboration and falsifiability. The theory offered better ways of explaining phenomenon that previous theories were already decent at predicting reliably. The process of legitimizing Newtonian physics had nothing to do with testability.4 A good theory of science does not rule out obvious cases of scientific rigor.5”

User23 3y ago
The burden of proof lies on them that claim it’s a “real” science.
- savolai 3y ago
  It appears to me the burden of proof lies on whoever wants to draw the line on what ”real” science is. Only natural sciences, then?
- mp05 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
I'm not a psychologist myself, and I know nothing about modern academic psychoanalysis. I've tried to read some but it was indecipherable to me. Modern clinical psychoanalysis is a strange field. It went out of vogue with the advent of behavioral and later cognitive psychology in the latter half of the 20th century, as well as psychiatry. Psychoanalysts tend to believe their way is the only way, while more modern psychologists are much more eclectic. They're often extremely critical of the use of medication even in cases where the evidence supporting their use is overwhelming, like stimulants for ADHD. Psychoanalysts have their own strange nomenclature that's often incompatible with modern developments. So it's hard for other psychologists to even talk to them at all. Those are some of the reasons psychoanalysis is viewed as pseudoscientific by modern clinical psychologists.
dahart 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis#Debate_over_status_as_scientific https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis#Debate_over_sta... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5459228/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5459228/ https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/research/psychoanalysis-science-or-pseudoscience/ https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/research/psychoanaly... https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-017-8706-2_41-1 https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-... https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2021/07/psychoanalysis-science-or-pseudoscience-examining-the-status-of-freudian-theory/ https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2021/07/psychoanalysis-science-or... https://philarchive.org/archive/FERIPA-6 https://philarchive.org/archive/FERIPA-6 That quote you included seems a little funny. It’s not making any direct or compelling argument in favor of psychoanalysis being science, it’s just saying well if psychoanalysis isn’t science then other disciplines aren’t science either, and since that’s sometimes not true, then Popper is wrong. It’s a slippery argument with some assumptions and big holes, and perhaps most glaringly it is intentionally ignoring the magnitude or degree of scientific experimentation, and attempting to frame the issue as only binary: science or not science. I’m sure there is some modern psychoanalysis that is scientific, but OTOH it seems like the foundations of psychoanalysis, especially Freud, are certainly problematic from the perspective of science, right? Psychoanalysis has a valid, earned reputation that may take a very long time to fix, even if today’s practitioners are being careful and scientific. This could be compared to chiropractic medicine - some of it is valid medicine today, but it definitely came from non-medical, non-scientific origins. There appear to be at least 2 separate arguments going. One is whether psychoanalysis can be a science, and the other is whether it actually was a science historically. This is why both sides are somewhat right: proponents of psychoanalysis argue that it can be scientific, which is true, and opponents argue that it wasn’t scientific in origin and has a troubled past, which is also true.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ordu 3y ago

> After a while of the discussion going nowhere, the psychoanalyst said something like this. "Not to worry, Dave, I know you're dynamically minded enough that you'll eventually learn to agree with me." It looks like psychoanalyst suffered from a professional deformation. Not enough evidence to be sure, but it is the main premise of psychoanalysis that psychoanalyst knows better then his "patient". A psychoanalyst knows what his patient feels, thinks, wishes, and so on. If patient doesn't agree then it is a "resistance" and overcoming it is the first priority task for a psychoanalyst. > I guess that was more condescending than pejorative, but oh well. The whole statement is condescending, but not because of "dynamically minded". It is "you'll learn to agree with me" that does the trick.

slumberdisrupt 3y ago
This is a caricature of clinical psychoanalysis and is more applicable to other therapies. For example, the initial moments of CBT are "psychoeducation", where the therapist sketches out with magic markers a bunch of categories (feelings, thoughts, behaviors, emotions) and their subcategories, and the patient learns to see themselves in these ontological terms. Suggestibility is the cornerstone of these interventions. Every psychoanalyst of course has their theoretical meta-psychology, but every clinical psychoanalyst knows that they must fight to abandon it at the door as they confront every analysand anew. Psychoanalysis is not a matter of instructing the patient of the death drive, of resistance, of the Oedipus complex, and so on. (Freud was wrong about why his intervention with Little Hans "succeeded".) Freud himself searched for something beyond hypnosis because the hypnotic technique required a susceptibility of the patient to suggestion, and furthermore required a constant relationship with the patient, otherwise the patient would invariably suffer a symptom relapse. Relate this to the dismal long-term rates of regression of CBT patients. (And this is the forbidden evidence of this "evidence based therapy".) The analysand enters the analytical relationship supposing (as you have supposed) that the analyst knows something crucial that the analysand does not. So what happens as the analysand comes to realize that the analyst does not, in fact, possess this knowledge? The analyst indeed knows they don't know, but this is presumably nothing like what you assume the analyst supposes themselves to know. The analyst is, in their role as an analyst (and not a therapist), merely the secretary of the analysand. They "take notes" on what the analyst says, in order to help show the analyst what they've said.