Hi all!

I've been reading this forum for some months and now I've finally decided to register and open this thread on question of psychoanalysis. First of all, I am by no means an expert neither in psychoanalysis nor in psychology, but I have my opinion and I'd like to discuss some things on which it is based. Let me get straight to the point: it seems to me that there is some relevant amount of empirical research regarding psychoanalytical methods and concepts. Let me quote this short paragraph from WikiPedia on the subject:

In the past 30 years or so, the criticisms have centered on the issue of empirical verification,[55] in spite of many empirical, prospective research studies that have been empirically validated (e.g., See the studies of Barbara Milrod, at Cornell University Medical School, et al.[citation needed]). Recently in scientific literature we can find research supporting many Freud's ideas, e.g. unconsciousness, repression etc.[56][57]

Obviously criticism from many scientists that 'psychoanalysis lacks empirical support' is now being properly addressed. Well, in case that results fail to support psychoanalytical predictions -> so much worse for psychoanalysis. But it seems to me that it would be unwise not to acknowledge some degree of relevance to psychoanalysis. This is another quote from WikiPedia, it's about efficacy of psychoanalytical treatment:

Several meta-analysis have shown psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy to be effective, with outcomes comparable or greater than other kinds of psychotherapy or antidepressant drugs.[60] Empirical research has shown also that "proper", long-term psychoanalysis, when patient lies on a coach and meets with analyst at least three times a week, is also effective.[61] A 2005 review of randomized controlled trials found that "psychoanalytic therapy is (1) more effective than no treatment or treatment as usual, and (2) more effective than shorter forms of psychodynamic therapy".[62] Empirical research on the efficacy of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy has also become prominent among psychoanalytic researchers.

What do you think about this data and relevance of psychoanalysis?

Now there is another question I'd like to raise: it's about scientific or nonscientific status of psychoanalysis. Is it science or not? Freud said that he didn't saw himself as a scientist/experimenter, but as an adventurer, explorer. And in my view this also holds for the status of psychoanalysis: it's not science, at least not in the sense of natural sciences (that's way I decided to open this topic in the humanities section). The way psychoanalysis gains it's knowledge is not based solely on experiments, but that doesn't mean it can't be tested and that it can't provide some knowledge about the world.

Lastly, feel free to correct my english grammar because I'm not a native speaker and I may do some mistakes occasionally:)..

regards

home_ wrote:Hi all!

Hi Home, welcome to RatSkep!

home_ wrote:I've been reading this forum for some months and now I've finally decided to register and open this thread on question of psychoanalysis. First of all, I am by no means an expert neither in psychoanalysis nor in psychology, but I have my opinion and I'd like to discuss some things on which it is based. Let me get straight to the point: it seems to me that there is some relevant amount of empirical research regarding psychoanalytical methods and concepts. Let me quote this short paragraph from WikiPedia on the subject:

In the past 30 years or so, the criticisms have centered on the issue of empirical verification,[55] in spite of many empirical, prospective research studies that have been empirically validated (e.g., See the studies of Barbara Milrod, at Cornell University Medical School, et al.[citation needed]). Recently in scientific literature we can find research supporting many Freud's ideas, e.g. unconsciousness, repression etc.[56][57]

Obviously criticism from many scientists that 'psychoanalysis lacks empirical support' is now being properly addressed. Well, in case that results fail to support psychoanalytical predictions -> so much worse for psychoanalysis. But it seems to me that it would be unwise not to acknowledge some degree of relevance to psychoanalysis.

The problem is that not only is there no real evidential support for the concepts used on psychoanalysis, but there is also a vast amount of evidence that directly contradicts their claims. Unfortunately, there are a few people currently trying to bend their results so that they look like they support psychoanalysis (e.g. Westen) but this is usually quite easy to refute just by a passing glance. For example, the wikipedia quote you provide suggests that evidence has been found to support Freud's notion of the unconscious. However, in the article cited for this claim, Westen spends the entire time discussing the more general form of unconscious processing.

Importantly, Freud was not the first person to suggest that there are automatic processes that have a causal effect on our behavior which we are not aware of - specifically, people like Hermann von Hemholtz and William James had already detailed this process in their work, and Freud actually referenced these people when developing his own theories on the unconscious. As such, it is disingenuous to present current research on automatic processing as if it supported Freud, when Freud's theories were far more detailed and require specific evidential support. That is, he did not simply argue that "some of our behavior is controlled by things we aren't aware of" but specifically that the unconscious is a depository for repressed beliefs and memories (note that Freud's notion of the unconscious is explicitly not synonymous with unconscious processes, so not all unconscious processes are part of Freud's unconscious) which are controlled by two sentient forces known as the id and superego, and the battles between those two with the ego result in neurotic behaviors. This is actually explained later on in the wikipedia article here:

The idea of unconscious, and the transference phenomenon, have been widely researched and, it is claimed, validated in the fields of cognitive psychology and social psychology (Westen & Gabbard 2002), though a Freudian interpretation of unconscious mental activity is not held by the majority of cognitive psychologists.

So they're playing a bit of bait-and-switch by substituting the evidence for a different concept with the same name to support their own (but radically different) concept. In simpler terms, this is like using evidence that supports the notion that it's safe to store your money in your local bank, to support the idea that it's safe to store your money on a river bank. The word "bank" might be the same, but the different meanings make it impossible to use the same evidence.

The second example from your wiki quote suggests that repression currently have evidential support, but this is not true and in fact the opposite is true. Richard McNally has produced a number of good papers on this topic (e.g. "Who needs repression? Normal memory processes can explain "forgetting" of childhood sexual abuse", and "The Science and Folklore of Traumatic Amnesia"), and the basic findings are: 1) If repression ever occurs, it is very very rare (meaning that, if we're generous, psychoanalysis would only be applicable to a small minority of people), 2) most "repression" cases can be explained by normal forgetting processes, and 3) most traumatic experiences result in heightened memories and experiences that are hard to forget, not the other way around.

home_ wrote:This is another quote from WikiPedia, it's about efficacy of psychoanalytical treatment:

Several meta-analysis have shown psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy to be effective, with outcomes comparable or greater than other kinds of psychotherapy or antidepressant drugs.[60] Empirical research has shown also that "proper", long-term psychoanalysis, when patient lies on a coach and meets with analyst at least three times a week, is also effective.[61] A 2005 review of randomized controlled trials found that "psychoanalytic therapy is (1) more effective than no treatment or treatment as usual, and (2) more effective than shorter forms of psychodynamic therapy".[62] Empirical research on the efficacy of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy has also become prominent among psychoanalytic researchers.

What do you think about this data and relevance of psychoanalysis?

Although there is some evidence supporting the use of psychoanalysis for some mental disorders, I'm skeptical of the claims made based on the review cited in wikipedia (citation #62). Firstly, the paper was submitted to the International Journal of Psychoanalysis so understandably the results are going to be favourable to psychoanalysis - this isn't necessarily to say that the study is bad, flawed or biased, but just that it's something we should be wary of (i.e. if a review of all those RCTs really did demonstrate a positive finding for psychoanalysis, then why not publish it in a more general and higher ranked psychology journal?). Secondly, the author spends a couple of pages criticising the use of RCTs in research. Again, this isn't necessarily a problem because there are some flaws to using RCTs, however, when people begin their article criticising RCTs and suggesting they aren't applicable to their field of study, then instead suggest an alternative statistical design but this author just leaves the comment there, as if to say, "RCTs can be flawed, so keep that in mind if we find less than favourable results". Thirdly, the author is a practicing psychoanalyst, with numerous books and courses on the subject, yet I cannot find a statement of conflict of interest in the paper. Even if his results aren't affected, this is bad practice, and in combination with the other factors I've listed above, I'm pretty skeptical of his results based on that (as well as the fact that a number of the RCTs that he has listed have independently been criticised for poor methodology).

The first citation suggests that psychoanalysis is comparable to other psychotherapies or antidepressants, yet reading the article it is referenced from there is no real support for this claim. I did a google scholar search and can't find any large scale RCTs or meta-analyses on the effect of psychoanalysis on depression. All I could find was that psychoanalysis was useless (or even detrimental) when treating schizophrenia, anxiety, sexual abuse trauma, sex offenders, and some others.

home_ wrote:Now there is another question I'd like to raise: it's about scientific or nonscientific status of psychoanalysis. Is it science or not? Freud said that he didn't saw himself as a scientist/experimenter, but as an adventurer, explorer. And in my view this also holds for the status of psychoanalysis: it's not science, at least not in the sense of natural sciences (that's way I decided to open this topic in the humanities section). The way psychoanalysis gains it's knowledge is not based solely on experiments, but that doesn't mean it can't be tested and that it can't provide some knowledge about the world.

The problem is that if we want to claim that something causes some effect (e.g. psychoanalysis helps treat disorder X) then it needs to be subjected to science to test whether this claim is true or not. Freud's theories certainly aren't scientific - this is largely because he made up most of his case studies, and wrote them according to what he believed. This of course isn't how science is done. Furthermore, many of the theories from psychoanalysis have been directly disproven by science (repression, recovered memories, sexual development in infants, transference, etc).

This leaves us with the question of whether psychoanalysis (even without a valid evidential base) can still be useful for treating people. It's important that we don't confuse a lack of causal mechanism with a lack of efficacy - just because we don't know how something works, doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't work. So it's possible that psychoanalysis may prove to be beneficial as a result of certain components that are included within it, whilst the actual theory behind it is irrelevant. As a simple example, it could be the case that building a positive relationship with another person (your therapist) might account for the improvements on a depression scale.

But for us to conclude that psychoanalysis might be beneficial, we need more methodologically sound studies done to answer this question.

home_ wrote:Lastly, feel free to correct my english grammar because I'm not a native speaker and I may do some mistakes occasionally:)..

Your English and grammar is probably equal to, or better than, most of the people on this forum so don't worry about it!

Mr.Samsa wrote: The problem is that not only is there no real evidential support for the concepts used on psychoanalysis, but there is also a vast amount of evidence that directly contradicts their claims. Unfortunately, there are a few people currently trying to bend their results so that they look like they support psychoanalysis (e.g. Westen) but this is usually quite easy to refute just by a passing glance. For example, the wikipedia quote you provide suggests that evidence has been found to support Freud's notion of the unconscious. However, in the article cited for this claim, Westen spends the entire time discussing the more general form of unconscious processing.

I was unaware that there is a vast amount of evidence that contradicts psychoanalysis. Are you sure about this? I am somehow concerned that it's a straw man argument – just like claiming that »recent findings in neuroscience make psychoanalysis obsolete« (which some people argue, according to Wiki). Lacanians are especially sensitive to misinterpretations. But yeah, you are right about Westen. It's really nonsensical to bend data and to substitute one concept with another. It's bad for psychoanalysis and for science in general. It's a bad practice - no matter on which side it appears.

Mr.Samsa wrote: Although there is some evidence supporting the use of psychoanalysis for some mental disorders, I'm skeptical of the claims made based on the review cited in wikipedia (citation #62). Firstly, the paper was submitted to the International Journal of Psychoanalysis so understandably the results are going to be favourable to psychoanalysis - this isn't necessarily to say that the study is bad, flawed or biased, but just that it's something we should be wary of (i.e. if a review of all those RCTs really did demonstrate a positive finding for psychoanalysis, then why not publish it in a more general and higher ranked psychology journal?). Secondly, the author spends a couple of pages criticising the use of RCTs in research. Again, this isn't necessarily a problem because there are some flaws to using RCTs, however, when people begin their article criticising RCTs and suggesting they aren't applicable to their field of study, then instead suggest an alternative statistical design but this author just leaves the comment there, as if to say, "RCTs can be flawed, so keep that in mind if we find less than favourable results". Thirdly, the author is a practicing psychoanalyst, with numerous books and courses on the subject, yet I cannot find a statement of conflict of interest in the paper. Even if his results aren't affected, this is bad practice, and in combination with the other factors I've listed above, I'm pretty skeptical of his results based on that (as well as the fact that a number of the RCTs that he has listed have independently been criticised for poor methodology).

These are understandable objections and they could also be applied to many other areas of research. Papers published in journals of cognitive psychology will tend to be in favour of cognitive psychology, papers published in journals of neurolinguistics will tend to be in favour of neurolinguistic concepts, etc. This is something that is expected. We should judge claims by evidence, not by journal where it was posted (I don't see a problem if Leichsenring published results in psychoanalytic journal, not in psychological). The same goes for other considerations: there are many examples where scientists are cought in situations where there may be conflict of interests, but the most important and final judge should be evidence.

Mr.Samsa wrote: The first citation suggests that psychoanalysis is comparable to other psychotherapies or antidepressants, yet reading the article it is referenced from there is no real support for this claim. I did a google scholar search and can't find any large scale RCTs or meta-analyses on the effect of psychoanalysis on depression. All I could find was that psychoanalysis was useless (or even detrimental) when treating schizophrenia, anxiety, sexual abuse trauma, sex offenders, and some others.

Well the article is meta-analysis and it refers to several other studies and compares them. I don't understand why you say 'there is no real support for this claim', I find that data pretty convincing. (here is link, that one on Wiki doesn't seem to be working: http://nvpp.nl/JonathanShedlerStudy20100202.pdf ). Anyway, the issue is still open to debate.

The problem is that if we want to claim that something causes some effect (e.g. psychoanalysis helps treat disorder X) then it needs to be subjected to science to test whether this claim is true or not. Freud's theories certainly aren't scientific - this is largely because he made up most of his case studies, and wrote them according to what he believed. This of course isn't how science is done. Furthermore, many of the theories from psychoanalysis have been directly disproven by science (repression, recovered memories, sexual development in infants, transference, etc).

I am surprised that you included transference on the list of disproven theories, since I was under impression that it is one of the few relevant Freud's concepts that managed to survive. Can you direct me to evidence and studies that disproves it?

I personally don't have a problem with the way Freud made up his theories – in the end, everyone writes according to what he (or she) believes. What is important is to develop theories on basis of observation and facts. It is my impression that Freud and psychoanalysis does follow this attitude (at least in some general notion), although there may be a lot of abuse and distortion of these theories from outside. Some also argue that Freud systematically neglected some data and overinterpreted other. If that's true, then further experiments will certainly show inconsistencies of his most important claims and concepts.

In the end I must thank you for a very detailed reply, I appreciate it! I also learned that Wiki's statements can be misleading and need further examination.

home_ wrote:I was unaware that there is a vast amount of evidence that contradicts psychoanalysis. Are you sure about this?

Yeah, nearly all the core concepts in psychoanalysis have been contradicted (e.g. the repression studies I listed above, the fact that sexual trauma results in heightened memories, that dreams cannot hold any significant meaning, etc), or they simply have no evidence to support them compared to other concepts. Of course, psychoanalysis makes a lot of claims so they'd have to be dealt with on a claim-by-claim basis, but modern science is pretty confident that all/most of the essential features of psychoanalysis have been debunked.

home_ wrote:I am somehow concerned that it's a straw man argument – just like claiming that »recent findings in neuroscience make psychoanalysis obsolete« (which some people argue, according to Wiki). Lacanians are especially sensitive to misinterpretations.

I'm not really sure what the neuroscientific evidence says since I've never really bothered to look that deep into that, but I know that some psychoanalysts have tried to misinterpret neuroscientific data to support their theories in the same way as Westen has done above (e.g. Solms and Turnbull). Essentially, they search for a causal mechanism to explain some aspect of psychoanalysis without looking to see whether the phenomenon they're seeking to explain even exists; for example, they suggest that hormones shutting down the retranscribing action of the hippocampus could explain repression of trauma, but they fail to check to see whether repression even actually occurs (which we now know it doesn't).

home_ wrote:But yeah, you are right about Westen. It's really nonsensical to bend data and to substitute one concept with another. It's bad for psychoanalysis and for science in general. It's a bad practice - no matter on which side it appears.

Agreed

home_ wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote: Although there is some evidence supporting the use of psychoanalysis for some mental disorders, I'm skeptical of the claims made based on the review cited in wikipedia (citation #62). Firstly, the paper was submitted to the International Journal of Psychoanalysis so understandably the results are going to be favourable to psychoanalysis - this isn't necessarily to say that the study is bad, flawed or biased, but just that it's something we should be wary of (i.e. if a review of all those RCTs really did demonstrate a positive finding for psychoanalysis, then why not publish it in a more general and higher ranked psychology journal?). Secondly, the author spends a couple of pages criticising the use of RCTs in research. Again, this isn't necessarily a problem because there are some flaws to using RCTs, however, when people begin their article criticising RCTs and suggesting they aren't applicable to their field of study, then instead suggest an alternative statistical design but this author just leaves the comment there, as if to say, "RCTs can be flawed, so keep that in mind if we find less than favourable results". Thirdly, the author is a practicing psychoanalyst, with numerous books and courses on the subject, yet I cannot find a statement of conflict of interest in the paper. Even if his results aren't affected, this is bad practice, and in combination with the other factors I've listed above, I'm pretty skeptical of his results based on that (as well as the fact that a number of the RCTs that he has listed have independently been criticised for poor methodology).

These are understandable objections and they could also be applied to many other areas of research. Papers published in journals of cognitive psychology will tend to be in favour of cognitive psychology, papers published in journals of neurolinguistics will tend to be in favour of neurolinguistic concepts, etc. This is something that is expected. We should judge claims by evidence, not by journal where it was posted (I don't see a problem if Leichsenring published results in psychoanalytic journal, not in psychological). The same goes for other considerations: there are many examples where scientists are cought in situations where there may be conflict of interests, but the most important and final judge should be evidence.

That's not quite the same thing. Papers being favourable of "cognitive psychology concepts" in cognitive psychology journals would be comparable to psychoanalytic concepts being favourable in psychoanalytic journals. This is somewhat understandable given that psychoanalysis is a limited and specialised area so obviously only those interested in those concepts would discuss them. Instead, what we're talking about is support of the entire field being supported by a journal which depends on the entire field being supported - so there are significant factors which would compel the editors to publish such an article, and reject another. (Also, the difference between psychoanalysis and other scientific fields is that to say "cognitive psychology concepts" is nonsensical - the concepts they describe are accepted by all fields of psychology and there is significant overlap between the fields. This is obviously not the case with psychoanalysis which is largely supported only by itself).

But I agree that it is not a reason in itself to reject the conclusions, but it is certainly worth being skeptical of such results. So yes, we should judge a paper based on the evidence presented, but if we have reason to think that the peer-review process may have been less than stringent, we need to have a more skeptical approach to the conclusions presented.

And yes, often scientists are caught up in conflicts of interest. This isn't a problem - for example, a cardiologist will often be the one writing up a paper on the success of some new cardiology treatment he's created, and he will likely submit it to a journal of cardiology. The problem arises if he fails to mention that the positive findings in his article could result in him receiving payment in the future from his procedure becoming widespread. The same applies to Leichsenring - his results might be perfectly valid and he may have stringently followed scientific protocols to collect and present his data, however, he still should have noted that he was a practicing psychoanalyst. Perhaps it's just standard for that journal to assume that all papers are presented by psychoanalysts, as I don't imagine anyone outside the field contributes to it.

home_ wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote: The first citation suggests that psychoanalysis is comparable to other psychotherapies or antidepressants, yet reading the article it is referenced from there is no real support for this claim. I did a google scholar search and can't find any large scale RCTs or meta-analyses on the effect of psychoanalysis on depression. All I could find was that psychoanalysis was useless (or even detrimental) when treating schizophrenia, anxiety, sexual abuse trauma, sex offenders, and some others.

Well the article is meta-analysis and it refers to several other studies and compares them. I don't understand why you say 'there is no real support for this claim', I find that data pretty convincing. (here is link, that one on Wiki doesn't seem to be working: http://nvpp.nl/JonathanShedlerStudy20100202.pdf ). Anyway, the issue is still open to debate.

The paper isn't a metaanalysis, it's a review paper. A metaanalysis combines the results from (usually) the best large-scale RCTs available, and see what the combined results suggests. A systematic review, on the other hand, can use a metaanalysis as support for its claims but generally it just cites the important papers within a time frame and discusses what their conclusions mean. (The important part being that a metaanalysis is a statistical procedure, which Shedler didn't use).

And my comment was more referring to the claim that psychoanalysis is comparable to antidepressants (which was claimed by the wiki link) but the review never compares the two with a study. Comparing effect sizes from two different studies tells us very little. The author did compare psychoanalysis to other therapies but there's still conflicting data on that - I just find it interesting that the psychoanalysts who do these reviews find huge effect sizes suggesting overwhelming support for their practice, and independent reviewers with no stake in the results tend to find little-to-no effect size..

home_ wrote:

The problem is that if we want to claim that something causes some effect (e.g. psychoanalysis helps treat disorder X) then it needs to be subjected to science to test whether this claim is true or not. Freud's theories certainly aren't scientific - this is largely because he made up most of his case studies, and wrote them according to what he believed. This of course isn't how science is done. Furthermore, many of the theories from psychoanalysis have been directly disproven by science (repression, recovered memories, sexual development in infants, transference, etc).

I am surprised that you included transference on the list of disproven theories, since I was under impression that it is one of the few relevant Freud's concepts that managed to survive. Can you direct me to evidence and studies that disproves it?

I personally don't have a problem with the way Freud made up his theories – in the end, everyone writes according to what he (or she) believes. What is important is to develop theories on basis of observation and facts.

Making up theories in science is not based on what believes. A theory in science is an explanation for a broad range of facts, data, laws, etc, available in front of you. But that's not quite what I was getting at, how someone ultimately develops their theory is not too important, except for when they use made-up data to do so (like Freud).

home_ wrote:It is my impression that Freud and psychoanalysis does follow this attitude (at least in some general notion), although there may be a lot of abuse and distortion of these theories from outside. Some also argue that Freud systematically neglected some data and overinterpreted other. If that's true, then further experiments will certainly show inconsistencies of his most important claims and concepts.

Well we have empirical data that proves that Freud lied about most of his data. That is, he didn't just neglect some data and overinterpret others (which would be understandable experimenter bias, especially in a clinical setting), instead he literally just made up his case studies. There have been a number of books written on it, but this article gives a good overview: How Fabrication Differs From a Lie.

From the article:

This pattern of deception seems to have begun very early in Freud’s career, even before the beginning of psychoanalysis. In this regard, Israëls sheds new and disturbing light on the so-called ‘cocaine episode’, Freud’s first great professional fiasco. In an article published in July 1884, Freud championed that newly introduced substance, recommending it for ailments as diverse as digestive disorders, seasickness, neurasthenia, facial neuralgias, asthma and impotence. Based on information published in medical journals in the United States, he also recommended the administration of cocaine in the treatment of morphine addiction and stated that he had successfully cured a case of this type: ‘During the first days of the cure [the patient] consumed [i.e. orally] 3 dg of cocainum muriaticum daily, and after ten days he was able to dispense with the coca treatment altogether.’

In March of the following year, Freud repeated this claim in a lecture given to the Psychiatric Society of Vienna and published it a few months later. He was still talking about the same patient, but bizarrely, both the duration of the treatment, the dosage of cocaine and the method of administration had changed. The patient now

took about 0.40 g of cocaine per day, and by the end of 20 days the morphine abstinence was overcome. No cocaine habituation set in; on the contrary, an increasing antipathy to the use of cocaine was unmistakably evident … I have no hesitation in recommending the administration of cocaine for such withdrawal cures in subcutaneous injections of 0.03-0.05 g per dose, without any fear of increasing the dose.

Freud’s patient was very fortunate, for when Albrecht Erlenmayer, an eminent specialist in morphine addiction, tested Freud’s method on his own patients, they did not get any better. Worse yet, Erlenmayer strongly warned against the dangers of cocaine habituation. Dr Freud, he wrote, had added to morphine and alcohol ‘the third scourge of humanity, cocaine’. The slap in the face was monumental. Forced to respond, Freud justified himself by declaring in an article that Erlenmayer’s results were altered by his administering the cocaine subcutaneously, not orally, as Freud had prescribed. No one seems to have pointed out at the time that it was that very method that he himself had enthusiastically recommended in his 1885 article. After that, Freud ‘forgot’ the compromising article and never mentioned it again among his publications. Apart from a few veiled allusions in The Interpretation of Dreams, where he accused his patient of having given himself injections of cocaine against his advice, Freud was never to return publicly to this subject.

home_ wrote:In the end I must thank you for a very detailed reply, I appreciate it! I also learned that Wiki's statements can be misleading and need further examination.

I'm glad you found my reply useful, and certainly watch out for Wikipedia! It's a useful starting point for learning about a subject, but it always pays to double check any facts contained within.

None, in my experience. Well, I actually can't say it's from personal experience, as sitting around and talking about whether I wanted to screw my mom never seemed like a reasonable way to waste my time. Drinking beer and shooting pool with like minded fellows seemed a better idea. But I do have a great deal of second-hand experience, having been married to a therapy junkie for years. How do you feel about that? Perhaps your subconscious is trying to tell you something, what do you think that might be? Fucking nonsense. What her subconscious was trying to tell her was "we need more Valium, or maybe some methadone" or maybe "blame it on your husband, he doesn't understand you". My favorite moment was when she came home and announced that Dr. Mindfuck didn't think I was "validating her feelings". WTF? So, if I stamp your feelings you'll get out of the parking garage without paying?

Grow the fuck up, stop whining and get on with it.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Yeah, nearly all the core concepts in psychoanalysis have been contradicted (e.g. the repression studies I listed above, the fact that sexual trauma results in heightened memories, that dreams cannot hold any significant meaning, etc), or they simply have no evidence to support them compared to other concepts. Of course, psychoanalysis makes a lot of claims so they'd have to be dealt with on a claim-by-claim basis, but modern science is pretty confident that all/most of the essential features of psychoanalysis have been debunked.

I am not an expert and it is difficult for me to know which side has better arguments. There are many studies cited on Wiki that are in favour of psychoanalysis and oppose to what you say here. Who to trust? Why him and not the other side? And we must also be honest about this: psychoanalysis never really had an oportunity to be studied in detail (in Britain and America). It was behaviorism that was taught in schools and was (consequently) main interest of scientists. This is another reason why one must be careful when psychologists from Britain/America start speaking about psychoanalysis. They may be prejudiced. It is hard for me to believe that "all or most of the essential features of psychoanalysis have been debunked". Why then did so many people follow it? It seems highly unlikely that all of them have been completely naive and accepted concepts which have no connection to reality at all.

And my comment was more referring to the claim that psychoanalysis is comparable to antidepressants (which was claimed by the wiki link) but the review never compares the two with a study. Comparing effect sizes from two different studies tells us very little. The author did compare psychoanalysis to other therapies but there's still conflicting data on that - I just find it interesting that the psychoanalysts who do these reviews find huge effect sizes suggesting overwhelming support for their practice, and independent reviewers with no stake in the results tend to find little-to-no effect size..

Your last sentence gives me feeling as if psychoanalysts are all biased and everyone else is independent and unprejudiced. That of course is not true. I think that results of that paper are good motivation for further research on efficacy of psychodynamic treatment.

Well we have empirical data that proves that Freud lied about most of his data. That is, he didn't just neglect some data and overinterpret others (which would be understandable experimenter bias, especially in a clinical setting), instead he literally just made up his case studies. There have been a number of books written on it, but this article gives a good overview: How Fabrication Differs From a Lie.

I have read it and it sure is interesting. But it opens up a question: why did then psychoanalysis spread so much among clinicians and others? I can't imagine that highly educated people (clinicians, physicians,...) accepted his claims without having seen at least some results on their own eyes. And what was then that fuzz about 'sexually repressive' victorian era, if Freud's concepts were so easily accepted? Maybe there truly are several instances when he just made up data, but it's hard to believe that most of it was just his imagination.

home_ wrote:I am not an expert and it is difficult for me to know which side has better arguments. There are many studies cited on Wiki that are in favour of psychoanalysis and oppose to what you say here. Who to trust? Why him and not the other side?

Yeah that's the difficulty with these topics and why some people are led astray by seemingly convincing data. I think one thing to keep in mind is that for whatever topic we look at (whether astrology works, or whether the moon phases cause people to go crazy, or whether having a rabbit's foot in your pocket really brings you luck, etc) there will always be some studies that suggest there is a positive effect. Look at homeopathy for example: if you go to one of their main websites, they will have a long list of studies which "prove" that homeopathy has some positive effect. For anyone who has looked at the issue seriously, we understand that these positive results are a combination of author bias and huge methodological flaws.

Essentially, the only way to accurately gauge the evidence on topics like these is either to attempt to get a formal education in psychology, or to look for official statements from educated professionals on the state of evidence in psychoanalysis (for example, the Cochrane reviews are excellent for this - however, the main reviews on psychoanalysis are still in progress). Obviously reading as much as you can is an excellent start, the only problem is that without a thorough understanding of the field it will always be difficult to understand what articles to accept or reject.

home_ wrote:And we must also be honest about this: psychoanalysis never really had an oportunity to be studied in detail (in Britain and America). It was behaviorism that was taught in schools and was (consequently) main interest of scientists. This is another reason why one must be careful when psychologists from Britain/America start speaking about psychoanalysis. They may be prejudiced.

A couple of points on this: firstly, psychoanalysis has been hugely popular across the world in historical times, particular in the US and across Europe. Particularly during its height in the 60s and 70s, it had more than enough time to establish itself as a scientifically acceptable field. Secondly, behaviorism is an interesting example for you to pick because it's widespread popularity (i.e. being a popular buzzword for laymen as well as being studied in academia) was far more limited than the time psychoanalysis spent in the limelight. Behaviorism has also suffered far more slander and misrepresentation about its basic principles, but despite this, behaviorism remains today as the major philosophy of science that psychology sits upon. How did it do this? By providing vast amounts of scientific evidence to support its claims and theories. So no matter how people personally felt about it, it didn't matter because at the end of the day the evidence spoke for itself.

So why didn't this happen for psychoanalysis as well?

home_ wrote:It is hard for me to believe that "all or most of the essential features of psychoanalysis have been debunked". Why then did so many people follow it? It seems highly unlikely that all of them have been completely naive and accepted concepts which have no connection to reality at all.

We have to be careful here not to commit an 'appeal to popularity'. Just because a lot of people believed it doesn't mean it has any validity; equally so, a lot of people believe in god or homeopathy or whatever, but that doesn't mean those concepts are true. It's also important to note that psychoanalysts are historically famous for not even attempting to provide any empirical support for their ideas, and before the 1980s there were almost no studies done looking at whether psychoanalysis was effective or not (or whether their concepts were justifiable). So even if we wanted to believe that people are rational and would only choose to accept it if it had evidence for it, we know for a fact that it couldn't have any evidence supporting it because no studies had been done.

People accepted the theories because they intuitively seemed to make sense to these people. And since psychoanalysts were famous for rejecting scientific principles, I imagine most practitioners had no interest in testing to see whether what they believed matched up with reality - all they needed were their anecdotes.

home_ wrote:

And my comment was more referring to the claim that psychoanalysis is comparable to antidepressants (which was claimed by the wiki link) but the review never compares the two with a study. Comparing effect sizes from two different studies tells us very little. The author did compare psychoanalysis to other therapies but there's still conflicting data on that - I just find it interesting that the psychoanalysts who do these reviews find huge effect sizes suggesting overwhelming support for their practice, and independent reviewers with no stake in the results tend to find little-to-no effect size..

Your last sentence gives me feeling as if psychoanalysts are all biased and everyone else is independent and unprejudiced. That of course is not true. I think that results of that paper are good motivation for further research on efficacy of psychodynamic treatment.

That's not quite what I said, but rather we know that when people have a financial interest dependent on the results of their study, they are significantly more likely to happen to achieve that result compared to people who have no interest in what result they find. This bias could be intentional, or accidental, or just a result of psychoanalysts not understanding the scientific method, but the point is that this is true across all of science. Look at the Andrew Wakefield paper on vaccines causing autism - he was not only funded by lawyers building a case against doctors who had used vaccines on a group of kids, but he was also currently creating his own vaccine to compete with the current vaccines.

So if people have some interest in achieving a certain result, then we need to be skeptical of their results.

home_ wrote:

Well we have empirical data that proves that Freud lied about most of his data. That is, he didn't just neglect some data and overinterpret others (which would be understandable experimenter bias, especially in a clinical setting), instead he literally just made up his case studies. There have been a number of books written on it, but this article gives a good overview: How Fabrication Differs From a Lie.

I have read it and it sure is interesting. But it opens up a question: why did then psychoanalysis spread so much among clinicians and others? I can't imagine that highly educated people (clinicians, physicians,...) accepted his claims without having seen at least some results on their own eyes.

The problem is that without performing scientific tests, the results these people saw were purely only based on their personal experiences. When their sessions lasted for years, it was inevitable that they would sometimes see positive results - either simply as a result of patients getting better by themselves, or as a result of the positive effect of talking to somebody (independent of what they talk about or what method they use). Without scientific experimentation, they have no way of knowing whether the effect is real or not, and they are entirely likely to be influenced by false or apparent results.

home_ wrote:And what was then that fuzz about 'sexually repressive' victorian era, if Freud's concepts were so easily accepted?

Freud's ideas were initially very well received - maybe because other people were thinking the same thing about the negative effects of their sexually repressive era, or simply because he was very convincing in his lectures. However, Freud only started to fall out of favour when he continually failed to present any evidence or reason to accept his ideas, and his ideas started contradicting themselves and becoming more and more wacky (for example, he initially (and correctly) suggested that hysteria could sometimes be a result of sexual abuse as children, but then recanted on this and suggested that these memories of sexual abuse were "false memories").

home_ wrote:Maybe there truly are several instances when he just made up data, but it's hard to believe that most of it was just his imagination.

There was a book written on him a while ago that clearly outlined how he had literally made up every single case study he ever tried to use as evidence for his theories. I can't remember what it's called now though (I don't think it's the one in the review I linked to, as I was under the impression it was in English) but it presents a number of letters written by Freud to colleagues and friends explaining how the results of his actual patients weren't very convincing, and sometimes negative, and so he's forced to make up case-studies to support his ideas.

I think the important thing to keep in mind is that Freud represents the antithesis of science; he was opposed to experimentation, had no qualms about re-writing reality if it meant it would help him prove a point, and he believed that we could understand and learn about the human mind simply through introspection. That he made up most/all of his case-studies is the least of his crimes to science - his ideas of repression, Oedipus complexes and false memories, set back the progress of psychology by decades.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Essentially, the only way to accurately gauge the evidence on topics like these is either to attempt to get a formal education in psychology, or to look for official statements from educated professionals on the state of evidence in psychoanalysis (for example, the Cochrane reviews are excellent for this - however, the main reviews on psychoanalysis are still in progress). Obviously reading as much as you can is an excellent start, the only problem is that without a thorough understanding of the field it will always be difficult to understand what articles to accept or reject.

But this is the way many people trust religious institutions! I think we face an important issue here: to accept some authority or to be skeptical and rely on evidence you examined yourself. It is essential to notice that noone can examine all the evidence by himself (or herself) and must in the end at least to some degree trust some authority. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing but we should be aware of it and be able to critically question it. And I think that some critism towards psychoanalysis should be questioned. I will try to be more specific with the following remarks.

A couple of points on this: firstly, psychoanalysis has been hugely popular across the world in historical times, particular in the US and across Europe. Particularly during its height in the 60s and 70s, it had more than enough time to establish itself as a scientifically acceptable field.

Maybe it was popular among clinicians, but it was not (at least to my knowledge) never taken seriously among researchers on universities and institutes. This is important because state educational and research institutions are well financed, which results in much stronger establishment of paradigm taught there. On the other hand, if you are a clinician, you just don't have enough time and you aren't even free to make experiments you'd like to.

Secondly, behaviorism is an interesting example for you to pick because it's widespread popularity (i.e. being a popular buzzword for laymen as well as being studied in academia) was far more limited than the time psychoanalysis spent in the limelight.

Well maybe I didn't pick the right example, even worse, it may be historically wrong. But as to my knowledge, psychoanalysis was never taught in schools or taken under serious consideration among university/institutes academia.

So no matter how people personally felt about it, it didn't matter because at the end of the day the evidence spoke for itself.

So why didn't this happen for psychoanalysis as well?

My guess is: because it was never even taken into serious consideration. Further, I think that rise of the evidence that speaks for itself is happening last 10-20 years.

It's also important to note that psychoanalysts are historically famous for not even attempting to provide any empirical support for their ideas, and before the 1980s there were almost no studies done looking at whether psychoanalysis was effective or not (or whether their concepts were justifiable). So even if we wanted to believe that people are rational and would only choose to accept it if it had evidence for it, we know for a fact that it couldn't have any evidence supporting it because no studies had been done.

It is true that there were no studies in the way positivists see it, but there was experience from clinics and from therapies. I wouldn't put this aside, it seems to me that this was main source of knowledge for psychoanalysis.

That's not quite what I said, but rather we know that when people have a financial interest dependent on the results of their study, they are significantly more likely to happen to achieve that result compared to people who have no interest in what result they find.

And how do you know that someone who did not find effect wasn't biased in the opposite way, for example to mock psychoanalysis as pseudoscience? There are numerous people who identify themselves with science and reason, and they have really bad attitude towards many other ways people live their lives. For example: Popper accused psychoanalysis, marxism and even evolution of being pseudoscience. Well, little did he know that evolution can give accurate predictions and facing the fury of biologists he changed his opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if many accusations of psychoanalysis being pseudoscience came from the same bad attitude.

Now that I think of it, that article you linked about Freud and his fabrication of results: the same motivation that led Freud to fabricate data (to gain attention and be important) can lead just about anyone to make certain derailed claims about Freud or psychoanalysis. It's not just finance that is strong motivation for bias.

The problem is that without performing scientific tests, the results these people saw were purely only based on their personal experiences. When their sessions lasted for years, it was inevitable that they would sometimes see positive results - either simply as a result of patients getting better by themselves, or as a result of the positive effect of talking to somebody (independent of what they talk about or what method they use). Without scientific experimentation, they have no way of knowing whether the effect is real or not, and they are entirely likely to be influenced by false or apparent results.

I think that it's not that bad with personal experience: it can give you some information, although much more uncertain than proper experiments.

I think the important thing to keep in mind is that Freud represents the antithesis of science; he was opposed to experimentation, had no qualms about re-writing reality if it meant it would help him prove a point, and he believed that we could understand and learn about the human mind simply through introspection. That he made up most/all of his case-studies is the least of his crimes to science - his ideas of repression, Oedipus complexes and false memories, set back the progress of psychology by decades.

This is exactly the picture students get in psychology courses. No wonder noone bothers to make some experiments and even if he makes them, it's obvious that they're biased from the start and on.

As touched on in a post above, I think that when it comes to mild to moderate mental health issues*, it's possible that any form of intervention whatsoever will work due to the placebo effect that comes along with speaking openly about difficult issues with a perceived authority figure, and the knowledge that one is "doing something" about a problem, even just taking control through gaining understanding. From an anthropological perspective, the ritual of healing may be inherently healing. This applies to anything from exorcism rituals in African tribes to psychoanalysis to the administration of SSRIs in mild to moderate depression (amelioration of symptoms by SSRIs have recently been attributed to the placebo effect). Should it really be the ideal to prove that psychoanalysis is empirically sound and "objectively" effective when mental well-being is inescapably subjective?

*this might apply to more severe health issues as well.

home_ wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Essentially, the only way to accurately gauge the evidence on topics like these is either to attempt to get a formal education in psychology, or to look for official statements from educated professionals on the state of evidence in psychoanalysis (for example, the Cochrane reviews are excellent for this - however, the main reviews on psychoanalysis are still in progress). Obviously reading as much as you can is an excellent start, the only problem is that without a thorough understanding of the field it will always be difficult to understand what articles to accept or reject.

But this is the way many people trust religious institutions! I think we face an important issue here: to accept some authority or to be skeptical and rely on evidence you examined yourself. It is essential to notice that noone can examine all the evidence by himself (or herself) and must in the end at least to some degree trust some authority. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing but we should be aware of it and be able to critically question it. And I think that some critism towards psychoanalysis should be questioned. I will try to be more specific with the following remarks.

It's not similar to religious belief at all because instead of educated individuals or institutions saying, "This is the truth, now believe it", they say, "Here are conclusions and, if you like, here's our methodology and evidence for you to peruse at your leisure". There is of course some trust involved, for example, you have to accept that the evidence that they've gathered is representative and the best studies available, and that their interpretation is fair, but at the end of the day they present all the evidence and you can assess it for yourself. That's the advantage of of the Cochrane reviews.

I agree that some of the criticism against psychoanalysis should be countered, and you'll find that it mostly is. However, only the inaccurate or unsupported criticisms are attacked, whereas the attacks on the main tenets of psychoanalysis are usually accurate and there's no real argument against them.

home_ wrote:

A couple of points on this: firstly, psychoanalysis has been hugely popular across the world in historical times, particular in the US and across Europe. Particularly during its height in the 60s and 70s, it had more than enough time to establish itself as a scientifically acceptable field.

Maybe it was popular among clinicians, but it was not (at least to my knowledge) never taken seriously among researchers on universities and institutes. This is important because state educational and research institutions are well financed, which results in much stronger establishment of paradigm taught there. On the other hand, if you are a clinician, you just don't have enough time and you aren't even free to make experiments you'd like to.

I'm not sure why you think this - psychoanalysis was hugely popular in universities, and it dominated it for years. They had access to the resources to perform experiments but their ideology is fundamentally opposed to science (or at least it was, it's less so now). It is for this reason that it declined in popularity; whilst all the other areas of psychology were focusing on becoming more evidence-based and justifying their claims, psychoanalysis continued to refuse to do so. Since psychology is a field of science, it is forced to only teach claims and theories which are backed by evidence - so as behavioral psychology and cognitive psychology and neuroscience started collecting more and more evidence, psychoanalysis was slowly pushed out because it couldn't keep up.

So the rejection of psychoanalysis wasn't a political decision, it was a purely scientific one. And how could it have been because of bias or politics? Psychoanalysis was the dominant field for a long, long time; so psychoanalysts aren't a persecuted minority, but rather a majority that fell from grace because of their refusal to demonstrate the validity of their claims.

home_ wrote:

Secondly, behaviorism is an interesting example for you to pick because it's widespread popularity (i.e. being a popular buzzword for laymen as well as being studied in academia) was far more limited than the time psychoanalysis spent in the limelight.

Well maybe I didn't pick the right example, even worse, it may be historically wrong. But as to my knowledge, psychoanalysis was never taught in schools or taken under serious consideration among university/institutes academia.

This is untrue though. It used to be taught in every single major university across the world, and it has slowly declined with the lack of evidence, and now it is only taught in around 1 in 5.

home_ wrote:

So no matter how people personally felt about it, it didn't matter because at the end of the day the evidence spoke for itself.

So why didn't this happen for psychoanalysis as well?

My guess is: because it was never even taken into serious consideration. Further, I think that rise of the evidence that speaks for itself is happening last 10-20 years.

But it was taken very seriously, it dominated psychological and popular thought for a long time. And the rise in evidence is debatable. Like I mentioned earlier though, psychodynamic therapy can have beneficial effects, the debate is over whether this is a product of the concepts it uses or some other effect. For example, look at CBT - hugely popular therapy, with evidence confirming its claims. But on top of that, it also has a mountain of support for the concepts that underpin it.

home_ wrote:

It's also important to note that psychoanalysts are historically famous for not even attempting to provide any empirical support for their ideas, and before the 1980s there were almost no studies done looking at whether psychoanalysis was effective or not (or whether their concepts were justifiable). So even if we wanted to believe that people are rational and would only choose to accept it if it had evidence for it, we know for a fact that it couldn't have any evidence supporting it because no studies had been done.

It is true that there were no studies in the way positivists see it, but there was experience from clinics and from therapies. I wouldn't put this aside, it seems to me that this was main source of knowledge for psychoanalysis.

It's not about the positivist understanding of evidence, as that has long since been rejected, but simply scientific evidence that demonstrates reliable causation between their claims and results. There is a reason why all medical fields view case studies as extremely weak evidence (i.e. there is no way to determine what is producing the effects we see).

Note: People often confuse a demand for evidence with a demand for RCTs. As mentioned in one of those studies we discussed earlier, psychoanalysts are quick to suggest that RCTs aren't valid ways of testing the claims of psychoanalysts - this is of course a naive claim to make and constitutes a misunderstanding of how RCTs work, but that's irrelevant for now as there are a number of other statistical methods we can use to assess their claims. For example, there are single-subject designs which are like case studies, but use a methodology which allows us to isolate what variable is causing the results we see.

home_ wrote:

That's not quite what I said, but rather we know that when people have a financial interest dependent on the results of their study, they are significantly more likely to happen to achieve that result compared to people who have no interest in what result they find.

And how do you know that someone who did not find effect wasn't biased in the opposite way, for example to mock psychoanalysis as pseudoscience? There are numerous people who identify themselves with science and reason, and they have really bad attitude towards many other ways people live their lives.

It's of course possible - but this applies to every area of science. We can't assess someone's personal beliefs, all we can do is take into account any obvious biases. Looking at it rationally, if we have one group that have financial interests in finding a positive result and they find a hugely positive result, and we have another group that has no financial interest in the result (but some might have negative personal opinions of the field) and they find a small/no effect, then we have to accept that the political interests of the first group is probably influencing their results.

The point being that I'm not saying that all independent researchers are perfectly neutral with no bias at all, but just that with no evidence we can't go assuming that they didn't find a result because they're biased.

home_ wrote:For example: Popper accused psychoanalysis, marxism and even evolution of being pseudoscience. Well, little did he know that evolution can give accurate predictions and facing the fury of biologists he changed his opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if many accusations of psychoanalysis being pseudoscience came from the same bad attitude.

But of course Popper's opinions on those areas weren't based on his attitude or beliefs, they were based on his logical arguments. He looked at the history of science, analysed how it worked, and developed basic logical rules for how it generally works - and using these rules he ruled our psychoanalysis, marxism and evolution. Of course, he went back on his claim about evolution because someone explained to him that he had misunderstand the basic concept of natural selection (he thought it was circular but it wasn't). So this shows that his claims about these areas weren't motivated by personal bias since he was willing to admit he was wrong when corrected - and yet nobody was able to point out how his arguments didn't apply to psychoanalysis.

There is of course a reason why psychoanalysts didn't argue against Popper: they accepted that their beliefs weren't based on science. This isn't an attack on psychoanalysis or me trying to score 'cheap points' by mocking it, but psychoanalysts were renowned for rejecting the scientific method (starting with Freud of course who was vehemently anti-science). Whether this makes them pseudoscience depends on how we define pseudoscience - I think as long as they don't claim to be a scientific field, or claim that their concepts are based on science then it isn't a pseudoscience, but I think when they cross that line they stray into pseudoscientific territory.

home_ wrote:Now that I think of it, that article you linked about Freud and his fabrication of results: the same motivation that led Freud to fabricate data (to gain attention and be important) can lead just about anyone to make certain derailed claims about Freud or psychoanalysis. It's not just finance that is strong motivation for bias.

Certainly - and if people like the author of that book didn't have evidence to back up their claims, I'd suggest you'd have a strong point. The downsides to such an argument, however, is of course that since it is well-accepted in popular thought that psychoanalysis is discredited, writing a book that attempts to discredit psychoanalysis isn't exactly going to make a huge amount of money or attract any significant amount of fame. If an author wanted fame and attention, then he would be compelled to write a book that demonstrates that psychoanalysis is evidence-based and that mainstream psychology is wrong. That person would become a world wide phenomenon, and would probably be up for a scientific award.

home_ wrote:

The problem is that without performing scientific tests, the results these people saw were purely only based on their personal experiences. When their sessions lasted for years, it was inevitable that they would sometimes see positive results - either simply as a result of patients getting better by themselves, or as a result of the positive effect of talking to somebody (independent of what they talk about or what method they use). Without scientific experimentation, they have no way of knowing whether the effect is real or not, and they are entirely likely to be influenced by false or apparent results.

I think that it's not that bad with personal experience: it can give you some information, although much more uncertain than proper experiments.

It really is that bad with personal experience. The very fact that personal experience tells us nearly nothing about reality is the exact reason why the scientific method came about. As a demonstration of this, here's a list of cognitive biases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases - the scientific method rules out most/all of these so we can accurately figure out what's going on, but personal experience is subject to nearly all of these biases.

Of course, it's not entirely useless. Case studies can be helpful in highlighting some areas where further research can be done, and we can use them to figure out whether it's worth investigating some possible relationship, however, on their own they are absolutely useless as support for claims.

home_ wrote:

I think the important thing to keep in mind is that Freud represents the antithesis of science; he was opposed to experimentation, had no qualms about re-writing reality if it meant it would help him prove a point, and he believed that we could understand and learn about the human mind simply through introspection. That he made up most/all of his case-studies is the least of his crimes to science - his ideas of repression, Oedipus complexes and false memories, set back the progress of psychology by decades.

This is exactly the picture students get in psychology courses. No wonder noone bothers to make some experiments and even if he makes them, it's obvious that they're biased from the start and on.

My psychology education didn't really cover psychoanalysis (i.e. no negative comments on it), and rather I got interested in it through my philosophy courses. In the humanities (as you might know) psychoanalysis is taken very seriously and looked upon extremely favourably, so I started off fascinated by psychoanalysis and Freud, which led me to buying a few of his seminal works and reading as much as I could about that and the field as it progressed beyond him. Unfortunately, my interest in psychoanalysis was growing alongside my science education, so as I learnt more and more about science (and how we study/understand the world) I started asking questions of what I was learning in psychoanalysis. Most of what they suggested wasn't supported by any kind of evidence or reason, and some of the concepts (as we touched on earlier) were directly contradicted by evidence.

Basically, I initially started off with a positive opinion of psychoanalysis, and this waned over time (rather than starting off with a negative opinion and confirming my own beliefs through selective reasoning).

dimples5 wrote:As touched on in a post above, I think that when it comes to mild to moderate mental health issues*, it's possible that any form of intervention whatsoever will work due to the placebo effect that comes along with speaking openly about difficult issues with a perceived authority figure, and the knowledge that one is "doing something" about a problem, even just taking control through gaining understanding. From an anthropological perspective, the ritual of healing may be inherently healing. This applies to anything from exorcism rituals in African tribes to psychoanalysis to the administration of SSRIs in mild to moderate depression (amelioration of symptoms by SSRIs have recently been attributed to the placebo effect). Should it really be the ideal to prove that psychoanalysis is empirically sound and "objectively" effective when mental well-being is inescapably subjective?

*this might apply to more severe health issues as well.

This isn't quite true, Dimples5. Whilst "mental well-being" may be subjective, "mental disorders" (what we treat) is objective - that is, we have a list of what constitutes a specific disorder, and we can measure changes in their symptoms with ease. Specifically, a mental disorder is something which affects the functioning of an individual. So if an individual goes to see a psychologist and are having difficulties functioning in society, then an objective measure would be if after treatment they no longer have trouble functioning in society. For example, if someone sees a psychologist with agoraphobia and after treatment they are happy to walk around in public, then this is a success.

It is because of this objectivity that we can compare psychotherapies against placebos, so even though there will be positive effects from talking to patients, or from taking pills, or listening to authority figures, we can check to make sure that there is a beneficial effect which extends beyond this placebo effect. Also, remember that placebo effects are limited in size and duration, so if CBT (for example) produces an large effect and produces a permanent change, then it (by definition) cannot be a placebo effect.

Of course with whatever treatment we give to someone (whether mental or medical) there will be a placebo component. So when we give antibiotics to someone with an ear infection, part of their improvement will be a result of the placebo effect. In science, the key is to separate out the placebo effect from a real effect, so we know that the treatment is in fact doing something. And this is what the science behind clinical psychology does.

Also, welcome to the forum Your username looks familiar, were you a member over at the Richard Dawkins forum?

Mr.Samsa wrote:It's not similar to religious belief at all because instead of educated individuals or institutions saying, "This is the truth, now believe it", they say, "Here are conclusions and, if you like, here's our methodology and evidence for you to peruse at your leisure". There is of course some trust involved, for example, you have to accept that the evidence that they've gathered is representative and the best studies available, and that their interpretation is fair, but at the end of the day they present all the evidence and you can assess it for yourself.

I don't really buy that. Noone can examine all the evidence by himself and there is no rational way to decide who should you trust in general.

I'm not sure why you think this - psychoanalysis was hugely popular in universities, and it dominated it for years. They had access to the resources to perform experiments but their ideology is fundamentally opposed to science (or at least it was, it's less so now). It is for this reason that it declined in popularity; whilst all the other areas of psychology were focusing on becoming more evidence-based and justifying their claims, psychoanalysis continued to refuse to do so. Since psychology is a field of science, it is forced to only teach claims and theories which are backed by evidence - so as behavioral psychology and cognitive psychology and neuroscience started collecting more and more evidence, psychoanalysis was slowly pushed out because it couldn't keep up.

I've tried to check this and it's hard to get any decent information on the web. I found this book: History of psychoanalysis, which was written in 1953. It really does say (on many occasions) that psychoanalysis was present at universities and institutes, although not in such extent as you are suggesting (that universities were dominated by psychoanalysis). But I won't cling on the latter, what is important is that it seems that I was wrong about the statement that "psychoanalysis never really had a chance to establish itself". It had opportunity and it also seems to be true, as you have already said, that their refusal to provide empirical studies caused them to fall behind.

... and now it is only taught in around 1 in 5.

Off topic question: what does this phrase "in around 1 in 5" mean?

But it was taken very seriously, it dominated psychological and popular thought for a long time. And the rise in evidence is debatable. Like I mentioned earlier though, psychodynamic therapy can have beneficial effects, the debate is over whether this is a product of the concepts it uses or some other effect. For example, look at CBT - hugely popular therapy, with evidence confirming its claims. But on top of that, it also has a mountain of support for the concepts that underpin it.

Well rise of evidence can be debatable, but provided there is some positive effect in psychodynamic treatment: how would it be possible that this positive effect wouldn't have come from psychodynamic concepts? It may be that those concepts are vague and poorly defined, but clearly if there is some effect they are a step in the right way. Further investigation cannot deny effect of those psychodynamic concepts, it can only provide more accurate definitions and show how to get even better efficacy.

But of course Popper's opinions on those areas weren't based on his attitude or beliefs, they were based on his logical arguments. He looked at the history of science, analysed how it worked, and developed basic logical rules for how it generally works - and using these rules he ruled our psychoanalysis, marxism and evolution. Of course, he went back on his claim about evolution because someone explained to him that he had misunderstand the basic concept of natural selection (he thought it was circular but it wasn't). So this shows that his claims about these areas weren't motivated by personal bias since he was willing to admit he was wrong when corrected - and yet nobody was able to point out how his arguments didn't apply to psychoanalysis.

It's quite the opposite: Popper didn't base his opinion on history of science and analysis of how it worked (there is a lot of historical evidence against Poppers claim about falsification being central for science), instead he just applied his particular beliefs to those areas.

Certainly - and if people like the author of that book didn't have evidence to back up their claims, I'd suggest you'd have a strong point. The downsides to such an argument, however, is of course that since it is well-accepted in popular thought that psychoanalysis is discredited, writing a book that attempts to discredit psychoanalysis isn't exactly going to make a huge amount of money or attract any significant amount of fame. If an author wanted fame and attention, then he would be compelled to write a book that demonstrates that psychoanalysis is evidence-based and that mainstream psychology is wrong. That person would become a world wide phenomenon, and would probably be up for a scientific award.

It's not that well accepted that psychoanalysis is discredited in humanities, as you have mentioned later. So there is no downside of that argument, it just needs clarification of the context: if someone wants to get attention and be important in discussions with or against certain people (psychoanalysts, humanists, literary critics, etc...), then he's motivated for bias. I would even argue that there is no way to escape bias, because everyone is doing things with some motivation. It is important to be aware of our motivation, because then it can be more easy to leave certain bias behind in favour of another. But if I return back on topic: it seems to me that much of the modern scorn of psychoanalysis should be re-thought in the light of this new empirical studies.

home_ wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:It's not similar to religious belief at all because instead of educated individuals or institutions saying, "This is the truth, now believe it", they say, "Here are conclusions and, if you like, here's our methodology and evidence for you to peruse at your leisure". There is of course some trust involved, for example, you have to accept that the evidence that they've gathered is representative and the best studies available, and that their interpretation is fair, but at the end of the day they present all the evidence and you can assess it for yourself.

I don't really buy that. Noone can examine all the evidence by himself and there is no rational way to decide who should you trust in general.

The Cochrane reviews is not a single person examining all the evidence, it's a team of experts who collect all the work done by other people over history (which naturally would include a large number of psychoanalysts). They are recognised as consistently producing the most reliable conclusions based on the data, and have in fact found hugely effective treatments which had previously been rejected by smaller studies as having no effect (they found that administering corticosteroids to pregnant mothers before birth could reduce death in premature babies by 30-50%).

On top of having a panel of experts, the Cochrane reviews are typically held to a higher standard of peer-review compared to papers in other journals, which means that they come under more scrutiny and thus achieve a more accurate result. This doesn't mean that they're perfect, and of course mistakes will be made, but if you don't have time to get a psychology degree then this really would be your best way of getting an accurate understanding of the field.

I understand what you're saying about assessing the evidence yourself, but you have to understand that this isn't necessarily the best method and it is fraught with problems - specifically, you're working from a limited knowledge base and you have no way of knowing which studies are methodologically sound or not, or whether the papers they cite as evidence for their claims really do support their arguments or not.

home_ wrote:

I'm not sure why you think this - psychoanalysis was hugely popular in universities, and it dominated it for years. They had access to the resources to perform experiments but their ideology is fundamentally opposed to science (or at least it was, it's less so now). It is for this reason that it declined in popularity; whilst all the other areas of psychology were focusing on becoming more evidence-based and justifying their claims, psychoanalysis continued to refuse to do so. Since psychology is a field of science, it is forced to only teach claims and theories which are backed by evidence - so as behavioral psychology and cognitive psychology and neuroscience started collecting more and more evidence, psychoanalysis was slowly pushed out because it couldn't keep up.

I've tried to check this and it's hard to get any decent information on the web. I found this book: History of psychoanalysis, which was written in 1953. It really does say (on many occasions) that psychoanalysis was present at universities and institutes, although not in such extent as you are suggesting (that universities were dominated by psychoanalysis). But I won't cling on the latter, what is important is that it seems that I was wrong about the statement that "psychoanalysis never really had a chance to establish itself". It had opportunity and it also seems to be true, as you have already said, that their refusal to provide empirical studies caused them to fall behind.

Note that your book is on the history of psychoanalysis in America. I was referring to all universities across the world, and psychoanalysis was given a lot more time in Europe than in the US at the time because behaviorism was growing since the 1900s and was a US phenomenon. (Your book was also written in 1953, around a decade before the huge interest it received throughout the 60s and 70s).

home_ wrote:

... and now it is only taught in around 1 in 5.

Off topic question: what does this phrase "in around 1 in 5" mean?

Sorry, it's just an informal way of referring to the fraction: 1/5. It just means that 20% of the total (1/5). So if 1 out of 5 universities still teach psychoanalysis, then it means that 20% of all universities teach it. (Apologies if I've over- or under- explained the concept there, let me know if I need to explain it further).

home_ wrote:

But it was taken very seriously, it dominated psychological and popular thought for a long time. And the rise in evidence is debatable. Like I mentioned earlier though, psychodynamic therapy can have beneficial effects, the debate is over whether this is a product of the concepts it uses or some other effect. For example, look at CBT - hugely popular therapy, with evidence confirming its claims. But on top of that, it also has a mountain of support for the concepts that underpin it.

Well rise of evidence can be debatable, but provided there is some positive effect in psychodynamic treatment: how would it be possible that this positive effect wouldn't have come from psychodynamic concepts? It may be that those concepts are vague and poorly defined, but clearly if there is some effect they are a step in the right way. Further investigation cannot deny effect of those psychodynamic concepts, it can only provide more accurate definitions and show how to get even better efficacy.

The problem is that the evidence that suggests a positive effect of psychodynamic therapy does not necessarily imply evidence of psychodynamic concepts. Ignoring possible confounding effects (e.g. just talking to someone makes you feel better, regardless of the type of therapy), there is the fact that incorrect beliefs about the cause can still lead to effective (or semi-effective) therapies. For example, I don't know if you've heard of Cesar Milan but he has a TV show called "The Dog Whisperer" - he bases his work on the idea that dogs form packs, respond to "dominance theory" and that in order to change your dogs behavior you have to "become the alpha". Now, with science we know that all of these claims are false; dogs (and wolves) don't form packs, they don't fight for dominance, and even if dogs were wolves, there is no way for a family member to become an "alpha". However, despite this, people still claim that he has beneficial effects. This is because the methods he uses are vaguely related to proven effective techniques, they're just very poorly applied (because he doesn't understand those techniques) and he wraps them up in fancy language.

Hopefully the point of my comparison is clear here: that is, it's possible that talk of the "id" and "transference" etc, are working through some other mechanism that has similar components but are entirely unrelated. This means that it's entirely possible to get a positive effect when it's based on nonsense. (Not to say that this is necessarily what psychoanalysis is doing, just that it's a possibility - as it is for any therapy).

home_ wrote:

But of course Popper's opinions on those areas weren't based on his attitude or beliefs, they were based on his logical arguments. He looked at the history of science, analysed how it worked, and developed basic logical rules for how it generally works - and using these rules he ruled our psychoanalysis, marxism and evolution. Of course, he went back on his claim about evolution because someone explained to him that he had misunderstand the basic concept of natural selection (he thought it was circular but it wasn't). So this shows that his claims about these areas weren't motivated by personal bias since he was willing to admit he was wrong when corrected - and yet nobody was able to point out how his arguments didn't apply to psychoanalysis.

It's quite the opposite: Popper didn't base his opinion on history of science and analysis of how it worked (there is a lot of historical evidence against Poppers claim about falsification being central for science), instead he just applied his particular beliefs to those areas.

I disagree, falsification is a hugely important concept in science and the people who argue against it are usually misunderstanding what he meant by falsification.

home_ wrote:

Certainly - and if people like the author of that book didn't have evidence to back up their claims, I'd suggest you'd have a strong point. The downsides to such an argument, however, is of course that since it is well-accepted in popular thought that psychoanalysis is discredited, writing a book that attempts to discredit psychoanalysis isn't exactly going to make a huge amount of money or attract any significant amount of fame. If an author wanted fame and attention, then he would be compelled to write a book that demonstrates that psychoanalysis is evidence-based and that mainstream psychology is wrong. That person would become a world wide phenomenon, and would probably be up for a scientific award.

It's not that well accepted that psychoanalysis is discredited in humanities, as you have mentioned later. So there is no downside of that argument, it just needs clarification of the context: if someone wants to get attention and be important in discussions with or against certain people (psychoanalysts, humanists, literary critics, etc...), then he's motivated for bias. I would even argue that there is no way to escape bias, because everyone is doing things with some motivation. It is important to be aware of our motivation, because then it can be more easy to leave certain bias behind in favour of another. But if I return back on topic: it seems to me that much of the modern scorn of psychoanalysis should be re-thought in the light of this new empirical studies.

I didn't say psychoanalysis is discredited in the humanities though? I said it was popular there.

And people are looking at the new evidence seriously. The problem is that the evidence currently isn't very strong, especially considering their history of negative results and lack of a plausible concept base. In other words, it's currently on par with parapsychology and the study of psychic abilities.

Mr.Samsa wrote:On top of having a panel of experts, the Cochrane reviews are typically held to a higher standard of peer-review compared to papers in other journals, which means that they come under more scrutiny and thus achieve a more accurate result. This doesn't mean that they're perfect, and of course mistakes will be made, but if you don't have time to get a psychology degree then this really would be your best way of getting an accurate understanding of the field.

I understand this, but in the end it still comes down to trust in authority of this particular people. It's just no way to avoid some kind of authority. However I firmly believe that Cochrane is a trustworthy organization and I look forward to use it as a reliable resource of information (since I haven't known it before you linked to it - thanks! ).

Mr.Samsa wrote:Note that your book is on the history of psychoanalysis in America. I was referring to all universities across the world, and psychoanalysis was given a lot more time in Europe than in the US at the time because behaviorism was growing since the 1900s and was a US phenomenon.

What is your source on this claim? It seems that the first part of your statement (about psychanalysis having even more time in Europe) doesn't seem to be coherent with what is often mentioned in the book. For example, Chapter 13 starts with the assertion:

History of psychoanalysis in America wrote:Why is it that America, both scientifically and popularly, has received with so great approval and thereby endorsed the ideas of Freud to an extent that sometimes is puzzling to people in other countries?

The whole chapter is devoted to seeking reasons for this situation. It is therefore not clear what you said about acceptance psychoanalysis in Europe.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Sorry, it's just an informal way of referring to the fraction: 1/5. It just means that 20% of the total (1/5). So if 1 out of 5 universities still teach psychoanalysis, then it means that 20% of all universities teach it. (Apologies if I've over- or under- explained the concept there, let me know if I need to explain it further).

It's perfectly explained!

Mr.Samsa wrote:Hopefully the point of my comparison is clear here: that is, it's possible that talk of the "id" and "transference" etc, are working through some other mechanism that has similar components but are entirely unrelated. This means that it's entirely possible to get a positive effect when it's based on nonsense. (Not to say that this is necessarily what psychoanalysis is doing, just that it's a possibility - as it is for any therapy).

Sorry, but this isn't clear to me at all: how can you say that "id" or "transference" can work through some other mechanisms, but at the same time they're unrelated? Apparently the exact opposite must be true: they must be related. Even if the outcomes of later investigations entirely abandon the notion of "id" or "transference" (which is, to be honest, very likely ), they are still useful in our current situation. They can lead us to certain facts that would otherwise be inaccessible. The problem is that we can never know for sure what is nonsense and what isn't. All we have is the access to certain set of facts (or events). Theory behind those facts is in the end a procedure how to produce a greater number of events, how to get a wider and better access to facts. It's not as if "theory really lived out there in reality", it doesn't. One theory gives you x-number of facts and reliable predictions, while other theory gives you y-number of facts and reliable predictions. If x<y, so much worse for the former theory.

Mr.Samsa wrote:I disagree, falsification is a hugely important concept in science and the people who argue against it are usually misunderstanding what he meant by falsification.

Well I follow Kuhn on this matter (or Lakatos or Feyerabend, since they share this point) - alleged falsifiability is historically just not the way science was done. I even checked with my own eyes many of the examples that were given for this matter, since it is a very bold claim.

Mr.Samsa wrote:I didn't say psychoanalysis is discredited in the humanities though? I said it was popular there.

And people are looking at the new evidence seriously. The problem is that the evidence currently isn't very strong, especially considering their history of negative results and lack of a plausible concept base. In other words, it's currently on par with parapsychology and the study of psychic abilities.

Well there's a lot to be argued about plausibility of theories in general. I also think that parapsychology and alleged psychic abilities don't have to show any evidence at all, where psychoanalysis on the contrary can show some evidence. It is perfectly understandable that many doubt it and it is to be debated, but it clearly isn't the same case as parapsychology/psychics.

home_ wrote:I understand this, but in the end it still comes down to trust in authority of this particular people. It's just no way to avoid some kind of authority. However I firmly believe that Cochrane is a trustworthy organization and I look forward to use it as a reliable resource of information (since I haven't known it before you linked to it - thanks! ).

There is some trust necessarily involved when you're not in a position to scientifically assess the claims made, but like I said, unfortunately the only way to get around this is to get an education in the field.

The Cochrane reviews are excellent resources though

home_ wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Note that your book is on the history of psychoanalysis in America. I was referring to all universities across the world, and psychoanalysis was given a lot more time in Europe than in the US at the time because behaviorism was growing since the 1900s and was a US phenomenon.

What is your source on this claim? It seems that the first part of your statement (about psychanalysis having even more time in Europe) doesn't seem to be coherent with what is often mentioned in the book. For example, Chapter 13 starts with the assertion:

History of psychoanalysis in America wrote:Why is it that America, both scientifically and popularly, has received with so great approval and thereby endorsed the ideas of Freud to an extent that sometimes is puzzling to people in other countries?

The whole chapter is devoted to seeking reasons for this situation. It is therefore not clear what you said about acceptance psychoanalysis in Europe.

The quote is referring to something different to what I'm discussing. I'm discussing it's relevance to universities in the US and Europe, whereas your quote is referring to its relevance in universities AND in popular culture. The quote also doesn't suggest that it wasn't/isn't popular in Europe but simply that the extent of its popularity in the US might be puzzling.

There is also a difference in the time periods we're discussing, as psychoanalysis was hugely popular in Europe to begin with and it spread to the US in the early 1900s - by the mid-1900s there was a shift from psychoanalysis being largely limited to Europe, to European psychoanalysts moving to the US. This was because the US took the field quite seriously as a medical science, and set up a number of unified training institutions; whereas the European countries couldn't this as effectively due to all the different languages spoken by all the countries.

home_ wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Hopefully the point of my comparison is clear here: that is, it's possible that talk of the "id" and "transference" etc, are working through some other mechanism that has similar components but are entirely unrelated. This means that it's entirely possible to get a positive effect when it's based on nonsense. (Not to say that this is necessarily what psychoanalysis is doing, just that it's a possibility - as it is for any therapy).

Sorry, but this isn't clear to me at all: how can you say that "id" or "transference" can work through some other mechanisms, but at the same time they're unrelated? Apparently the exact opposite must be true: they must be related. Even if the outcomes of later investigations entirely abandon the notion of "id" or "transference" (which is, to be honest, very likely ), they are still useful in our current situation.

Whether they are useful or not is not the same question as whether they refer to real things, or whether a therapy works according to the proposed mechanisms. Look at it this way: we can accurately plot the increase in global temperatures by looking at them as a function of the decreasing amount of pirates in the world. As such, it can be argued that there is evidence that a decrease in pirates results in rising temperatures, and this information could be useful in our current situation.

However, I think we can both agree that the number of pirates in the world has no effect on the temperatures of the world, and instead the correlation is a false relationship caused by a third confounding variable. This is what I'm suggesting could be happening with the concepts in psychoanalysis (specifically: not that this IS happening, but that it's something that needs to be considered and ruled out).

home_ wrote:They can lead us to certain facts that would otherwise be inaccessible. The problem is that we can never know for sure what is nonsense and what isn't. All we have is the access to certain set of facts (or events). Theory behind those facts is in the end a procedure how to produce a greater number of events, how to get a wider and better access to facts. It's not as if "theory really lived out there in reality", it doesn't. One theory gives you x-number of facts and reliable predictions, while other theory gives you y-number of facts and reliable predictions. If x<y, so much worse for the former theory.

I'm not sure what you mean by "we can never know for sure what is nonsense and what isn't"? This is what we do with scientific experimentation. Of course, theories (and science) aren't descriptions of "reality" but we can identify relationships in our observations and if we identify a false relationship/correlation, then that explanation or theory is "nonsense".

home_ wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:I disagree, falsification is a hugely important concept in science and the people who argue against it are usually misunderstanding what he meant by falsification.

Well I follow Kuhn on this matter (or Lakatos or Feyerabend, since they share this point) - alleged falsifiability is historically just not the way science was done. I even checked with my own eyes many of the examples that were given for this matter, since it is a very bold claim.

Hmm.. well debating the philosophy of science usually isn't the best way of determining how science is done. The point is that very few science courses will teach the concept of paradigm shifts etc, whereas every single course in science (from high school upwards) will emphasise the necessity of falsification in science. I cannot even comprehend how science could function without falsifiability.

home_ wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:I didn't say psychoanalysis is discredited in the humanities though? I said it was popular there.

And people are looking at the new evidence seriously. The problem is that the evidence currently isn't very strong, especially considering their history of negative results and lack of a plausible concept base. In other words, it's currently on par with parapsychology and the study of psychic abilities.

Well there's a lot to be argued about plausibility of theories in general. I also think that parapsychology and alleged psychic abilities don't have to show any evidence at all, where psychoanalysis on the contrary can show some evidence. It is perfectly understandable that many doubt it and it is to be debated, but it clearly isn't the same case as parapsychology/psychics.

But the point of my comparison is that parapsychology has argued that they have shown evidence for their claims, for example Daryl Bem has published a few papers on the topic: Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect. The interesting thing is that the parapsychologists make the exact same arguments the psychoanalysts make: RCTs aren't applicable to the subject they're studying, historical studies showing a negative effect were due to the bias against the field, there has been relatively few studies done because of a lack of interest in the field in universities, etc.

There is certainly some evidence for parapsychology, and I'd argue that it's as strong as most of the evidence presented for psychoanalysis, but I reject both based on similar arguments (methodological flaws, experimenter bias, etc).

Mr.Samsa wrote:There is some trust necessarily involved when you're not in a position to scientifically assess the claims made, but like I said, unfortunately the only way to get around this is to get an education in the field.

The Cochrane reviews are excellent resources though

Though I must admit that I am a bit disappointed that it requires payment. I didn't realize this at first sight, but only after I tried to look into detail in some studies regarding efficacy of psychodynamic treatment. I will be honest: Cochrane lost one point of credibility because of this requirement.

Mr.Samsa wrote:The quote is referring to something different to what I'm discussing. I'm discussing it's relevance to universities in the US and Europe, whereas your quote is referring to its relevance in universities AND in popular culture. The quote also doesn't suggest that it wasn't/isn't popular in Europe but simply that the extent of its popularity in the US might be puzzling.

That's a cheap way for trying to get out of it. You can read a page or two of Chapter 13 in that book and you will see that it can give you some useful information about how much psychoanalysis penetrated in universities.

Mr.Samsa wrote:There is also a difference in the time periods we're discussing, as psychoanalysis was hugely popular in Europe to begin with and it spread to the US in the early 1900s - by the mid-1900s there was a shift from psychoanalysis being largely limited to Europe, to European psychoanalysts moving to the US. This was because the US took the field quite seriously as a medical science, and set up a number of unified training institutions; whereas the European countries couldn't this as effectively due to all the different languages spoken by all the countries.

I am still interested in what is the source for such claims.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Whether they are useful or not is not the same question as whether they refer to real things, or whether a therapy works according to the proposed mechanisms. Look at it this way: we can accurately plot the increase in global temperatures by looking at them as a function of the decreasing amount of pirates in the world. As such, it can be argued that there is evidence that a decrease in pirates results in rising temperatures, and this information could be useful in our current situation.

However, I think we can both agree that the number of pirates in the world has no effect on the temperatures of the world, and instead the correlation is a false relationship caused by a third confounding variable. This is what I'm suggesting could be happening with the concepts in psychoanalysis (specifically: not that this IS happening, but that it's something that needs to be considered and ruled out).

That's really bad comparison and your last sentence proves it: noone knows what exactly is happening (i.e. which are the relevant variables), and further: we can apply that consideration about ruling out unknown variables to any science in any moment. For example: maybe physics is wrong about premise that nothing (with mass) can go faster than light. Maybe relationship between speed and mass is, just like you say, "a false relationship caused by a third confounding variable." Clearly such accusations don't help us much, be it in physics or psychoanalysis. We need experiments on this matter.

Mr.Samsa wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by "we can never know for sure what is nonsense and what isn't"? This is what we do with scientific experimentation. Of course, theories (and science) aren't descriptions of "reality" but we can identify relationships in our observations and if we identify a false relationship/correlation, then that explanation or theory is "nonsense".

I meant that we can never know the absolute truth about our observations. It was meant to clarify that in absence of better approach (or more realistically: in a situation where we can't decide which approach is better) psychoanalysis can give us some starting points for further investigation.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Hmm.. well debating the philosophy of science usually isn't the best way of determining how science is done. The point is that very few science courses will teach the concept of paradigm shifts etc, whereas every single course in science (from high school upwards) will emphasise the necessity of falsification in science. I cannot even comprehend how science could function without falsifiability.

Maybe it's wrong to emphasize alleged necessity of falsification. Maybe it would be better to teach paradigm shifts or (as Feyerabend argued) epistemological anarchism. And for me it is certainly not incomprehensible to imagine how science would work without such (paradigmatical?... ) emphasis on falsifiability: Galileo and Kopernik did it just fine.

Mr.Samsa wrote:But the point of my comparison is that parapsychology has argued that they have shown evidence for their claims, for example Daryl Bem has published a few papers on the topic: Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect.

That's odd, I always thought that no such paper exists. Well, every day I learn something new:).

Mr.Samsa wrote:The interesting thing is that the parapsychologists make the exact same arguments the psychoanalysts make: RCTs aren't applicable to the subject they're studying, historical studies showing a negative effect were due to the bias against the field, there has been relatively few studies done because of a lack of interest in the field in universities, etc.

Well Galileo made the same 'arguments', so I'm not worried about this.

palindnilap wrote:Hello Home and welcome to the forum !

Thanks!

palindnilap wrote:Having being bathed in the French culture, I have myself for a long time considered psychoanalysis as a given. After having read about the weakness of evidence for it, I have like you being asking myself whether so many brilliant people could have been so wrong all along. Here is my current and non-expert take about psychoanalysis.

Well my story is something like this: I came to be interested in psychoanalysis through philosophy, particularly through poststructuralist's criticism towards Heidegger. The thing was, that I really liked Heidegger's philosophy (and I still do), but these guys (among which was Lacan - we have a very very strong philosophical school of Lacanian philosophy in my country, Žižek&co) really despised it. So I despised them back;D - I basically started with the opposite situation as you and Mr.Samsa did. I started with a strong negative view on psychoanalysis, because it failed to grasp some of Heidegger's fundamental questions. But essentially I realized that poststructuralism offers some other interesting claims and I started to take it more seriously. Later I became interested (for non-philosophical reasons, just interest) in how psychoanalysis developed and how does it justify it's claims. That's how I came to this point where I am now.

palindnilap wrote:I don't think that all the Freud theories are completely off target, but he had so many odd theories that it is not clear whether he did much better than throwing darts at random.

That's why we need tests. No other way to decide on this matter.

palindnilap wrote:Now it seems that there is a construct named "personality integration", that more or less represents the consistence of a person's self-image, and that is positively correlated to well-being. This is a bit of an unknown territory to me, but here is a sample article about the subject

This sounds interesting, thank you for the link!

palindnilap wrote:Now if that is all what psychoanalysis is about, it may be reasonably efficient but an ethical problem remains. How much bullshit does one accept to tell people in order to make them better ? What about people finding out much later that the theories they have built about themselves don't hold water ? Is psychoanalysis really better than a religion, sect or quack therapy about energies ?

It's interesting that you are appealing to ethical reasons. Then what would you say about scientific theories that were disproven and abandoned? Are we justified to label them unethical? And what about those theories which are, at this moment, a mere speculation without any data to back them up? It should be noted that there is a lot of such theories (for example string theory in physics). And also this: do you consider religions unethical? Maybe the latter is the most important question.

home_ wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:I disagree, falsification is a hugely important concept in science and the people who argue against it are usually misunderstanding what he meant by falsification.

Well I follow Kuhn on this matter (or Lakatos or Feyerabend, since they share this point) - alleged falsifiability is historically just not the way science was done. I even checked with my own eyes many of the examples that were given for this matter, since it is a very bold claim.

Hello home. I think you're wrong on this issue: there's no evidence in the writings of Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend that support your rejection of Mr.Samsa's claim (that falsification is a hugely important concept in science).
Kuhn proposed that there're stages of normal science and of paradigm shifts. But falsifiability has an important role within both stages. Kuhn's concept of incommensurability was first interpreted as a radical form of epistemic relativism that would prevent the comparison of rival theories, but there're good reasons to reject this interpretation, and it was rejected by Kuhn himself (e.g., see The Essential Tension). In Kuhn's later works, incommensurability is semantic, and doesn't prevent the comparison of rival theories.
Lakatos argued that a theory is not necessarily rejected when some evidence is incompatible with some of its predictions, and that a sophisticated falsationism requires competing research programs, so the relative positive and negative evidence for each competing research program must be considered. But this doesn't imply a rejection of falsifiability. It's only a rejection of some inaccurate versions of falsationism.
Feyerabend defended a pluralism of heuristic and methodological strategies, but this defense doesn't support a rejection of falsifiability.
Regarding the main topic of this thread, I agree with Mr.Samsa that the core concepts of psychoanalytic theory (Freudian unconscious, repression, return of the repressed, Oedipus complex, castration complex) have obtained no evidence so far (in Lakatos' terms, the psychoanalitic research program is degenerative), non-psychoanalytic theories have outperformed psychoanalytic ones regarding the explanatory/predictive power and the effectiveness of treatments, and only a small set of psychoanalytic concepts (e.g. transference, defense mechanisms) still remain fruitful for current and future research (but only if they're detached from the unsupported core concepts).