A scholar, psychologist, physician, and experienced psychoanalyst, Marshall Edelson is uniquely qualified to respond to questions about the scientific status of psychoanalysis. He has written this book both for psychoanalysts and for philosophers of science, intending to bridge gaps in communication between them. It is also a book for anyone interested in the nature of psychoanalytic knowledge.
Marshall Edelson identifies the core theory of psychoanalysis and shows how free association and the case study method can provide rational grounds for believing its clinical inferences about the causal role of unconscious sexual fantasies. "Dr. Edelson has committed himself with gusto, persistence and intelligence [to] a spirited defense of psychoanalysis as science—not necessarily as it is, but as it can be in the best of hands as it should be. . . . It is a defense that I hope can resonate strongly in psychoanalytic ranks. It is also a message that I hope would receive a warm reception in that wider intellectual world where ideas matter and where enlightened social policy and cultural cachet are fostered."—Robert Wallerstein, New York Times Book Review
In his Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique, Adolf Grunbaum claimed that the arguments supporting psychoanalytic hypotheses are both logically invalid and unsound. They are invalid because they violate the cannons of inductive elimination, and unsound because the clinical data is contaminated by the suggestive influence of the analyst.In a spirited defence of psychoanalysis, the author asserts that Grunbaum's argument over suggestibility is not supported by textual evidence and gives her own formulation of Freud's argument to show how the problem of suggestibility can be dealt with. To counter the charge of the invalidity of the repression argument, the author addresses the two specific objections of Grunbaum: first, that repression can be a maintaining rather than an originating cause of neurotic symptoms, and, second, that by eliminating rival candidates it is possible to formulate a valid argument for repression aetiology. This book is a must-read for all those interested in the stature and reputation of psychoanalysis in the scientific world.
Consider a poem as the literary critic reads it; consider the language of an analysand as the psychoanalyst hears it. The tasks of the professionals are similar: to interpret the linguistic, symbolic data at hand. In Language and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis, Marshall Edelson explores the linguistics of Chomsky, showing the congruence between Chomsky and Freud, and comparing linguistic interpretations in the psychoanalytic situation with interpretations of a Bach prelude and Wallace Stevens's poem "The Snow Man."
In this landmark volume-- already acclaimed as "certain to become a milestone in the history of psychoanalysis and ego psychology"-- Joseph Weiss' theory of the psychotherapeutic process is presented and supported by the systematic, quantitative research carried out by Sampson, Weiss, and the Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group. This remarkable work delineates clear-cut implications for doing therapy and for conceptualizing the therapeutic process. The theory extends and develops concepts that Freud introduced in his later writings. It assumes that psychopathology stems from certain grim, unconscious, pathogenic beliefs that the patient acquires by inference from early traumatic experiences. The patient suffers unconsciously from these beliefs and the feelings of guilt, shame, and remorse that stem from them. He is, therefore, powerfully motivated unconsciously to change them. Moreover, the patient is able to exert considerable control over unconscious mental life and, indeed, to make and carry out unconscious plans. He works unconsciously throughout his treatment to change pathogenic beliefs, both by testing them in relation to the analyst and by using insights conveyed by the analyst's interpretations. Since the theory is close to observation it enables the clinician to monitor the patient's progress--to understand, throughout the treatment, how the patient improves, or is set back, by the analyst's interventions. The quantitative, empirical research presented bears directly on this theory. It offers strong evidence that the patient exerts control over the emergence of previously repressed mental contents, bringing them to consciousness when he unconsciously decides he may safely experience them. Supporting the hypothesis that the patient tests pathogenic beliefs throughout treatment in an effort to disconfirm them, it shows that the patient is very likely to respond favorably to interpretations that he can use in his struggle to disconfirm his pathogenic beliefs--but unfavorably to interpretations he cannot use for this purpose. A model of how rigorous psychoanalytic research can both sharpen and modify theoretical constructs and also lend support to a clinical approach, this distinguished volume will be valued by theoreticians, clinicians, researchers, and anyone interested in how the mind works. It provides a clear, accessible, and empirically testable approach to psychoanalytic practice.
Originally published in 1973 the editors of this book collected together those studies which had been considered at the time to yield the best evidence in support of Freudian theory, and found on close examination that they failed to provide any such proof. Each paper is printed in full and is followed by a critical discussion which raises questions of statistical treatment, sufficiency of controls and alternative interpretations. The particular usefulness of this format is that it allows readers to form their own opinions while providing helpful suggestions and guidelines on how to approach experimental studies with a critical mind.
In literary theory, the philosophy of law, and the sociology of knowledge, no issue has been more central to current debate than the status of our interpretations. Do they rest on a ground of rationality or are they subjective impositions of a merely personal point of view? In Doing What Comes Naturally, Stanley Fish refuses the dilemma posed by this question and argues that while we can never separate our judgments from the contexts in which they are made, those judgments are nevertheless authoritative and even, in the only way that matters, objective. He thus rejects both the demand for an ahistorical foundation, and the conclusion that in the absence of such a foundation we reside in an indeterminate world. In a succession of provocative and wide-ranging chapters, Fish explores the implications of his position for our understanding of legal, literary, and psychoanalytic interpretation, the nature of professional and institutional culture, and the place of reason in a world that is rhetorical through and through.
This book offers different theoretical approaches about what clinical research is. Clinical Research in Psychoanalysis is a unique contribution to the attempts to bridge the gap between clinicians and researchers and to create a culture of a more rigorous and systematic inquiry. It provides an innovative experience because for the first time different methods and perspectives were used to analyse one same clinical material. This was done by analysts from different working parties of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), from a range of different schools of psychoanalytic thought. This allows the reader to have a vision of the different methods that are currently being used by some working parties of the IPA and to learn about the strengths of each one for certain situations and types of research. This book revaluates clinical research, intending to make links between the analysts working through the working parties and the different ways of thinking in clinical research. By covering key topics, such as how working parties can facilitate different types of research; the place of metaphor in psychoanalytic research and practice; and the future for psychoanalytic research, this text is a fruitful dialogue between different theoretical conceptions and between clinicians and researchers, that will expand our perspectives on the evidence we find in clinical material and will broaden our views on the patient. This book offers a unique and invaluable experience to psychologists and psychoanalysts who are trying to improve their clinical practice and bring research evidence into their psychoanalytic practice. It is an invaluable contribution to psychoanalytic training of candidates, teachers, and students.
How do people search evidence for a hypothesis? A well documented answer in cognitive psychology is that they search for confirming evidence. However, the rational strategy is to try to falsify the hypothesis. This book critically evaluates this contradiction. Experimental research is discussed against the background of philosophical and formal theories of hypothesis testing with striking results: Falsificationism and verificationism - the two main rival philosophies of testing - come down to one and the same principle for concrete testing behaviour, eluding the contrast between rational falsification and confirmation bias. In this book, the author proposes a new perspective for describing hypothesis testing behaviour - the probability-value model - which unifies the contrasting views. According to this model, hypothesis testers pragmatically consider what evidence and how much evidence will convince them to reject or accept the hypothesis. They might either require highly probative evidence for its acceptance, at the risk of its rejection, or protect it against rejection and go for minor confirming observations. Interestingly, the model refines the classical opposition between rationality and pragmaticity because pragmatic considerations are a legitimate aspect of 'rational' hypothesis testing. Possible future research and applications of the ideas advanced are discussed, such as the modelling of expert hypothesis testing.
The Practice of Lacanian Psychoanalysis lays out an Aristotelian framework to account for the different types of knowing and not-knowing operative in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. The book proposes a new model for diagnosis, giving preference to fewer over more diagnoses, and seeks to better organize them by distinguishing between structure and surface symptoms. It examines many principles of Lacanian clinical practice, including different types of frames and evidence, the practice of citation and listening, the resistance and desire of the analyst, transference love as a metaphor, the role of negative transference at the end of analysis, and the identification with the sinthome as Lacan's last formulation regarding the end of analysis. The text also suggests that there are three forms of love and hate based on the works of Lacan and Winnicott. Underpinned by extensive practical knowledge of the clinic and case examples for clinicians, analysts, and practicing Lacanian analysts, this book should be of interest to academics, scholars, and clinicians alike.
