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ABHANDLUNGEN
IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE?
Karl Popper versus Sigmund Freud*
S 1. Introduction
Those who have seen the exploits of the former nightclub magician
Uri Geller on television may have asked themselves: Are the pheno
mena produced by Geller genuine evidence for the actual occurrence
of extrasensory perception? A well-known article in the prestigious
journal Nature (Targ and Puthoff [1974]) argues that the answer is
"yes". But a contrary conclusion is advocated in a paper entitled
"ESP: Teaching 'Scientific Method' by Counterexample" (Blatt
[1975]; see also the more detailed critiques by Hanlon [1974],
Christopher [1975], Randi [1975] and Gardner [1976]). Blatt pro
poses to analyze purported cases of clairvoyance, precognition, tele
pathy and psychokinesis in order to show students of physics how "to
sort out what is science and what is not science in themodern twen
tieth century world" (p. 1079).
Recently a group of eminent scientists in theUnited States issued a
formal denunciation of astrology as a pseudo-science whose horo
scopes defraud the public. Shortly afterward, David Susskind con
vened a television panel to discuss the scientific merits of astrology.
One of the panel members expressed sympathy with intelligent
scep tics who reject astrology, because he believes that only weak
defenses of it had been offered by its advocates. But he hastened to
* This
paper is a preliminary version of the author's much larger and revised essay of the
same title that is to appear in R. Stern, L. Horowitz & J. Lynes (eds.), Science and Psycho
therapy, New York, Haven Press, 1978. In that larger version, considerable attention is
devoted as well to Freud's psychogenetics, etiological theory and metapsychology, which
had to be neglected in the present, shorter paper for lack of space. Furthermore, the
account given there of the inductivist conception of supportive instances is considerably
more rigorous than the formulation which was possible in the lesser space here.
The author is indebted to Stanley Rachman and Edward J. Shoben, Jr. for very helpful
advice on both substance and bibliography relevant to this paper. He has also benefited
from the scholarship of George Alexander, Cynthia Freeland, Stanley Imber, Ian Mitroff,
Irwin Savodnik, Alvin Shapiro, Karl Popper and Gerhard Werner. And he thanks the
National Science Foundation as well as the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung for support of research.
Additional are found within the text.
specific acknowledgements
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334 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
state that in his view, sound evidential support can be cited in favor of
astrology.
Turning to psychoanalysis, let us focus initially on only that part of
psychoanalysis which is a congeries of purported methods of therapy.
Here we find a rather acrimonious situation of claims and counter
claims. Thus, Erich Fromm wrote:
"Indeed, the facile denial of the therapeutic success of psychoanalysis says
more about the difficulty of some fashionable authors to grasp the complex data
with which psychoanalysis deals than about psychoanalysis itself. Criticism by
people with little or no experience in this field cannot stand up against the
testimony of analysts who have observed a considerable number of people relieved
of troubles they complained about. Many patients have experienced a new sense
of vitality and capacity for joy, and no other method than psychoanalysis could
have produced these changes" ([1970], pp. 3-4).
In short, outside psychoanalysis, there is no salvation for troubled
souls. Statements of this sort have provided ammunition for the
following harsh indictment of psychoanalytic treatment by the British
Nobel laureate cancer researcher P. B. Medawar who wrote:
"The opinion is gaining ground that doctrinaire psychoanalytic theory is the
most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century; and a
terminal product as well - something akin to a dinosaur or a zeppelin in the
history of ideas, a vast structure of radically unsound design and with no
posterity" ([1975], p. 17).
Why are there such diametrically opposed appraisals of the scien
tific status of psychoanalysis? Before trying to deal with this
question, some words of caution about the meaning of the omnibus
term "psychoanalysis" are in order. In the first place, it is necessary to
distinguish psychoanalysis as a developmental theory of the psycho
dynamics of human behavior from the various modes of treatment or
psychiatric intervention which have been labeled "psychoanalytic" by
their practitioners. This distinction is important, if only because the
answer to the following key question is still a matter of debate:
Exactly what is the logical connection, if any, between the etiological
hypothesis that a specified kind of infantile experience is causally
relevant to a stated sort of adult disorder, on the one hand, and the
kind of treatment which Freud or his followers have administered to
patients afflicted by that disorder, on the other? In the second place,
when someone like Erich Fromm speaks of administering psycho
analytic treatment, he may well be referring to a type of presumed
therapy which differs from Freud's in its avowed ol]ectives no less
than in its procedures. Thus, whereas Fromm talks about positive joy
as an outcome of treatment, Freud [1962] much less ambitiously
aimed at the exchange of outright hysterical misery for just the
common garden variety of unhappiness. Freud would consider it a
satisfactory outcome of treatment, if he could restore a patient's
ability to have affectionate interpersonal relations and to work
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IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE? 335
1 For an illuminating discussion of some of the most recent alternative construals of psycho
analytic treatment, see Morris N. Eagle [1978], forthcoming.
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336 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
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IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE? 337
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338 ADOLF GRtNBAUM
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IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE? 339
instantiates both the presumed type of cause and the predicted kind
of effect does not at all require the neo-Baconian inductivist to grant
that the given Freudian causal hypothesis has good scientific
credentials. The reason is that the neo-Baconian inductivist predicates
the supportiveness of the specified positive instances in - which will
hereafter be said to be of sort "A" - on the logically contingent
availability of a further sort B of known positive instances as follows:
In each of the latter positive instances of the given strong causal
hypothesis, the presumed cause and its purported effect are both
absent. But if it is logically contingent whether instances inwhich the
presumed cause is absent are also devoid of the corresponding effect
(and conversely), then the given causal hypothesis T must be falsi
fiable in Popper's (fallible) sense as follows: It must be logically
possible that there be instances in which the presumed cause C is
absent while the alleged effect E is present, a state of affairs which
would falsify T's assertion that C is causally necessary for the
occurrence of E. It is clear, therefore, that Baconian inductivism
predicated the scientific credibilification of the stated sort of strong
causal hypothesis on its falsifiability several centuries before Popper
deemed the latter to be the touchstone of scientific status in his
criterion of demarcation. Thus, at least for the case of such causal
hypotheses, Popper no more origiated the falsifiability requirement
for potential scientific acceptability than he inventedmodus tollens!
But in fairness to Popper, it should be noted that there has been
one important school of inductivists among both philosophers and
eminent scientists who championed the following doctrine, though
without particular regard to the case of causal hypotheses: Any
positive instance of a hypothesis also necessarily qualifies as a
supportive instance of the hypothesis such that the evidential support
for the hypothesis is increased by the sheer repetition of further posi
tive instances3. This doctrine that any positive case of a hypothesis is
thus automatically also supportive to some degree is usually called
"enumerative inductivism".
But, Bacon rejected enumerative inductivism as "puerile" (cf.
Griunbaum [1976 b], Section 2, pp. 215-222). And so did J. S. Mill
([1887], Book III, ch. III, ?? 2 and 3; ch. XXI, ? 3), who was mindful
of law-like hypotheses asserting specific causal connections when he
characterized induction by simple enumeration pejoratively as
follows: "This is the kind of induction which is natura to the mind
when unaccustomed to scientific methods" (ibid., p. 226)4. Little
3 Cf. E. Nagel ([1963], Section VI, pp. 805-808), who argues (p. 807) that nearly all of
Carnap's inductive methods adopt this doctrine and that it leads to results which "are
incongruous.. .with any plausible rationale of controlled experimentation".
4 In amplification of his Baconian condemnation of inductio per enumerationem simplicem,
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340 ADOLF GRONBAUM
Mill writes: "When a fact has been observed a certain number of times to be true, and is not
in any instance known to be false, if we at once affirm that fact as a universal truth or law
of nature, without either testing it by any of the four methods of induction, or
deducing it from other known laws, we shall in general err grossly" (ibid., p. 402). "Popular
notions are usually founded on induction by simple enumeration; in science it carries us
but a little way. We are forced to begin with it; we must often rely on it provisionally, in
the absence of means of more searching investigation. But, for the accurate study of nature,
we require a surer and a more potent instrument. It was, above all, by pointing
out the insufficiency of this rude and loose conception of Induction, that Bacon
merited the title so generally awarded to him, of Founder of the Inductive Philosophy"
?
(ibid., p. 227). "Why is a single instance, in some cases, sufficient for a complete induc
tion, while in others, myriads of concurring instances, without a single exception known or
presumed, go such a very little way toward establishing a universal proposition? Whoever
can answer this question knows more of the philosophy of logic than the wisest of the
? It is with
ancients, and has solved the problem of induction" (ibid., p. 228). regard to
furnishing inductive support for "particular laws of causation" (ibid., pp. 402?403) that
Mill denies the value of enumerative inductions, which had been countenanced probatively
ever since antiquity. But he contrasts specific causal laws with what he takes to be a true
"law of cause and effect" . .we are
generalized (ibid., p. 403). And he contends (id.) that ".
justified in the seeming inconsistency, of holding induction by simple enumeration to be
good for proving this general truth, the foundation of scientific induction and yet refusing
to rely on it for any of the narrower inductions." His argument for this conclusion is as
follows: "Now the precariousness of the method of simple enumeration is in an inverse
ratio to the largeness of the generalization. The process is delusive and insufficient, exactly
in proportion as the subject-matter of the observation is special and limited in extent. As
the sphere widens, this unscientific method becomes less and less liable to mislead; and the
most universal class of truths, the law of causation, for instance, and the principles of
number and of geometry, are duly and satisfactorily proved by that method alone, nor are
they susceptible of any other proof (ibid., p. 402).
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IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE? 341
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342 ADOLF GRONBAUM
that in point of empirical fact, it is far from easy - even 80 years after
the birth of psychoanalysis - to find data which pass muster as even
moderately strong inductive support for the folowing therapeutic
thesis of many analysts: In some stated diagnostic categories,
(neo-)Freudian treatment is more efficacious - in specified ways -
not only than no treatment but also than non-analytic treatment
modes, both of which can issue in nothing better than symptom-sub
stitution, at least in the long run. Thus, it will turn out that
neo-Baconian inductivists are far from helpless to discount instances
of improvement in psychoanalytically treated patients as non-suppor
tive of the claim that their (neo-)Freudian treatment as such was
causally relevant to their improvement, and indeed necessary for it.
We are now ready to deal more specifically with both the falsi
ficationist (Popperian) and the inductivist (neo-Baconian) assessment
of the scientific status of psychoanalysis.
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IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE? 343
6 On fetishes, see Freud ([1971], Essay I, pp. 42?44). On aetiology, see esp. p. 44 and
footnotes by Freud on pp. 44?45 of the 1910, 1915, and 1920 editions. An example of a
foot fetish and its aetiology is discussed in the 22nd Lecture of Freud ([1966], p. 357).
7 On paranoia and homosexuality, see Freud ([1955], Vol. 2, p. 151).
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344 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
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IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE? 345
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346 ADOLF GRONBAUM
outcome I in the treated group may well furnish a remission rate lower
than the spontaneous one, thereby giving rise to the possibility that
the treatment made at least some of the patients in D worse! In
psychiatry no less than in somatic medicine, there can be iatrogenic or
doctor-induced disease.
Hence it would clearly be a commission of the fallacy of post hoc
ergo propter hoc to ascribe causal efficacy to Freudian treatment
merely on the strength of improvement exhibited by analytically
treated patients. By the same token, it would fallaciously trivialize a
Freudian claim of therapeutic efficacy, as we saw, to construe it as
asserting merely that some psychoanalytically-treated patients
improve in specified ways. For to credit analytic treatment as such
causally with therapeutic efficacy is to assert at least that its results
significantly exceed the relativized spontaneous remission rateg.
Therefore, contrary lesser results would have the form of statistical
information about pertinent samples. But nonetheless Popper would
presumably not wish to deny qua deductivist that constant failure to
surpass the spontaneous remission rate would serve to refute the
hypothesis of therapeutic effectiveness under the avowedly fallible
assumption of suitable initial or auxiliary conditions! Such assump
tions are explicitly countenanced by Popper as part of his schema for
falsifications. Therefore, by Popper's standards- though not by Pierre
Duhem's! (cf. Gruinbaum [1976 b], Section V) - the claim that
Freudian treatment is effective is falsifiable, albeit only fallibly and
hence revocably. To say that this falsifiability is revocable is to say
that any given presumed falsification is corrigible but not that the very
logical possibility of some falsification or other of the thesis of thera
peutic efficacy is itself revocable.
But according to Popper's demarcation criterion, such falsifiability
of a hypothesis is sufficient for its scientific status though not, of
course, for its being a corroborated scientific hypothesis. Therefore,
by Popper's standards, which are those of a fallibilist rather than
dogmatic falsificationist, the thesis that psychoanalytic treatment is
therapeutic does qualify for scientific status without prejudice to
whether this therapeutic claim will turn out to be actually
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IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE? 347
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348 ADOLF GRONBAUM
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IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE? 349
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IS PSYCHOANALYSIS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE? 351
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