Strenger, C. (2013). Why Psychoanalysis Must not Discard Science and Human Nature. Psychoanal. Dial., 23(2):197-210
This paper's main thesis is that Irwin Z. Hoffman's thesis that
psychoanalysis must choose between its worldview and
quantitative scientific research creates a misleading dichotomy.
First, because scientific research is not in itself a worldview but
a means to ascertain empirical claims, and to the extent that
psychoanalysis has such claims, they need to be ascertained
scientifically. Second, the dichotomy is misleading, because there
is nothing in science per se that contradicts the psychoanalytic
ethos of exploring the self's complexity and helping patients to
become more autonomous and lead fuller and richer lives.
Finally, the paper calls for a deepening of the dialogue between
psychoanalysis and the evolving paradigm of the cognitive
neurosciences that has, in many ways, inherited Freud's original
program of an evolutionary science of human nature. Such
dialogue will enrich both psychoanalysis and this paradigm, and
taking into account the findings of biologically based
investigation of the human psyche will not dilute the
psychoanalytic ethos.
see also
Hoffman, I. Z. (2009) Doublethinking our way to “scientific” legitimacy: The dessication of human experience Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 57:1043-1069
A multifaceted contemporary movement aims to correct alleged
weaknesses in the scientific foundation of psychoanalysis. For
both pragmaticpolitical and scientific reasons we are encouraged
to do and/or study systematic empirical research on
psychoanalytic process and outcome, as well as apparently
relevant neuroscience. The thesis advanced here is that the
privileged status this movement accords such research as against
in-depth case studies is unwarranted epistemologically and is
potentially damaging both to the development of our
understanding of the analytic process itself and to the quality of
our clinical work. In a nonobjectivist hermeneutic paradigm best
suited to psychoanalysis, the analyst embraces the existential
uncertainty that accompanies the realization that there are multiple
good ways to be, in the moment and more generally in life, and
that the choices he or she makes are always influenced by culture,
by sociopolitical mind-set, by personal values, by
countertransference, and by other factors in ways that are never
fully known. Nevertheless, a critical, nonconformist
psychoanalysis always strives to expose and challenge such
foundations for the participants' choices. The “consequential
uniqueness” of each interaction and the indeterminacy associated
with the free will of the participants make the individual case
study especially suited for the advancement of “knowledge”—that
is, the progressive enrichment of sensibility—in our field.
Hoffman, I.Z. (2013). Response to Strenger. Psychoanal. Dial., 23(2):225-229
Despite certain apparently common values, Strenger's critique is
addressed largely to an inaccurate account of my views. It is also
internally contradictory in various ways. On one hand, for
example, Strenger favors a dialectic of science and the humanities
as they bear on psychoanalysis; on the other hand, he declares
science to be the exclusive psychoanalytic “metaphysic.”
Remarkably, he claims that my critique of technical rationality is
tantamount to advocating a passive reflective stance on the
analyst's part, precluding anything akin to “coaching” to foster
change. But I've written consistently about the dialectic of
proactive therapeutic influence and critical reflection on that very
influence and its implications. What's unacceptable about
technical rationality is its positivist confidence about the
effectiveness of prescribed interventions based on allegedly
scientific evidence. With his lengthy survey of extra-analytic
studies, Strenger evades engaging my specific arguments since
they are strictly about the unwarranted privileging of the findings
of psychoanalytic process and outcome research relative to
clinical experience. He mistakenly equates my repudiation of
such privileging with rejection of the value of “science”
altogether for psychoanalysis. Finally, Strenger's claim that my
“dialectical constructivism” eschews formulating universal truths
about human nature ignores my consideration of human potentials
for both denying and confronting mortality and the associated
challenge of human agency. Embracing that challenge constitutes a
moral position for psychoanalysis that is unequivocally opposed
to uncritical compliance with culturally shaped demands for
various types of therapeutic services.
