Since the first critiques of psychoanalysis, there has been widespread disagreement between psychologists regarding the status of psychoanalysis as a science; contemporarily, the debate still rages. Recently, cognitive behavioural therapists have

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“Psychoanalysis is a part of the mental science of psychology” (Freud, 1938: 282.) Discuss this assertion with respect to Freud’s views on the development of personality.

Introduction
           
 Since the first critiques of psychoanalysis, there has been widespread disagreement between psychologists regarding the status of psychoanalysis as a science; contemporarily, the debate still rages.  Recently, cognitive behavioural therapists have declared psychoanalysis to be without a “shred of evidence” (Norcross cited in The Observer, 19th February 2006) while leading psychoanalysts attack cognitive behavioural therapy as “crude” and “lacking in nuance” (Samuels, ibid).  This essay will discuss Freud’s assertion of psychoanalysis as part of the mental science of psychology with respect to his views on the development of personality:   firstly, the unconscious and the triarchic theory of personality will be considered, secondly, it will discuss the theory of the psycho-sexual stages of development, thirdly, the methodology of psychoanalysis will be examined. Finally, this essay will discuss if psychoanalysis can be considered a science if observed using a different paradigm to the commonly used positivist understanding of science.

Definitions
          In order to discuss this question effectively, it would be useful to consider some definitions of the terms used in the title.  Psychoanalysis has been defined as the form of psychotherapy that Freud created
 (Gross, 1999).  Freud considered psychoanalysis a science from within his own contextual understanding of science; Freud based his theory of the human personality as constituted of an energy system on Helmholz’s principle of the conservation of energy; that it cannot be destroyed, only transformed.  Freud considered the functioning of a psychodynamic person to obey the same physical laws which “regulate the soap bubble and the movement of the planets” (Hall in Pervin, 1993: 69).  However, modernacademic thought has developed since Freud’s time.  This essay will assume a positivist definition of science by which to judge psychoanalysis on.  “According to positivist theories of knowledge, all knowledge is ultimately based on sense-experience.  There cannot be different kinds of knowledge.  All genuine enquiry is concerned with the description and explanation of empirical facts. There is therefore no difference in principle between the methods of the phsycial and the social sciences” (Mautner, 1996: 438).    This essay will therefore concentrate on whether Freud’s assertions of the validity of psychoanalysis as a science with respect to his theories of the development of the personality are congruous with the definition of science as presented here.  

The unconscious
           
Freud posited a structure of personality that was underpinned by the idea of having a dual cognitive mechanism, the conscious and the unconscious.  The need to satisfy basic needs is represented in the id, or the unconscious mind.  These compel the conscious mind, the ego towards certain goals, according to external stimulus.  These goals are to satisfy the pleasure principal, but in fact are tempered by the superego, in which are represented the moral code of the individuals socialization. Freud theorised that conflicts break out between these during the development of personality and may lead to neurosis.   The goal of psychoanalysis is to seek out these conflicts and help rationalise them (Richardson, 1989).   Freud considered proof of the unconscious to be found in dreams: “it is from these dream thoughts and not from a dream’s manifest content that we disentangle its meaning” (Freud 1909 in Kolkotroni et al, 1999: 49), in slips of the tongue (Freud, 1966), and in forgetting words and names (ibid).  Furthermore, Gellner comments that the existence of a dynamic unconscious is well supported in everyday experience (Frosh, 2003).  

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However, many critics argue that such subjective evidence cannot be empirically substantiated in order to award psychoanalysis the accolade of “science.”  As Frosh suggests: “…there is no data which can establish the truth of the unconscious because the unconscious ruins the possibility of actual knowledge – it calls everything into question” (Frosh, 2003: 6).   So, by the fact of its inscrutability, the unconscious cannot be scientifically proven as having actual existence or not; however, Freud might suggest that the proof of its validity is in the results of psychoanalysis as a treatment for neurosis and psychopathy.  As one of ...

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