| > Citation needed. Sure, I will cite the Wikipedia page on Psychoanalysis, which itself has many citations which you can follow: 1. "Psychoanalysis is a controversial discipline, and its effectiveness as a treatment has been contested" 2. "Linguist Noam Chomsky has criticized psychoanalysis for lacking a scientific basis." 3. "Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould considered psychoanalysis influenced by pseudoscientific theories such as recapitulation theory." 4. "Psychologists Hans Eysenck, John F. Kihlstrom and others have also criticized the field as pseudoscience." 5. "Philosopher Frank Cioffi cites false claims of a sound scientific verification of the theory and its elements as the strongest basis for classifying the work of Freud and his school as pseudoscience." 6. "Karl Popper argued that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience because its claims are not testable and cannot be refuted; that is, they are not falsifiable: ....those "clinical observations" which analysts naively believe confirm their theory cannot do this any more than the daily confirmations which astrologers find in their practice. And as for Freud's epic of the Ego, the Super-ego, and the Id, no substantially stronger claim to scientific status can be made for it than for Homer's collected stories from the Olympus." 7. "Imre Lakatos wrote that "Freudians have been nonplussed by Popper's basic challenge concerning scientific honesty. Indeed, they have refused to specify experimental conditions under which they would give up their basic assumptions."" 8. "Scruton nevertheless concluded that psychoanalysis is not genuinely scientific, on the grounds that it involves an unacceptable dependence on metaphor." 9. "The philosopher and physicist Mario Bunge argued that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience because it violates the ontology and methodology inherent to science. According to Bunge, most psychoanalytic theories are either untestable or unsupported by evidence." 10. "Cognitive scientists, in particular, have also weighed in. Martin Seligman, a prominent academic in positive psychology, wrote that: Thirty years ago, the cognitive revolution in psychology overthrew both Freud and the behaviorists, at least in academia.… The imperialistic Freudian view claims that emotion always drives thought, while the imperialistic cognitive view claims that thought always drives emotion. The evidence, however, is that each drives the other at times." 11. "Historian Henri Ellenberger, who researched the history of Freud, Jung, Adler, and Janet, while writing his book The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry, argued that psychoanalysis was not scientific on the grounds of both its methodology and social structure: Psychoanalysis, is it a science? It does not meet the criteria (unified science, defined domain and methodology). It corresponds to the traits of a philosophical sect (closed organisation, highly personal initiation, a doctrine which is changeable but defined by its official adoption, cult and legend of the founder)." 12. "Richard Feynman wrote off psychoanalysts as mere "witch doctors"" 13. "Likewise, psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, in Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists (1986), agreed that psychoanalytic theories have no more scientific basis than the theories of traditional native healers, "witchdoctors" or modern "cult" alternatives such as EST." 14. "Psychologist Alice Miller charged psychoanalysis with being similar to the poisonous pedagogies" 15. "Psychologist Joel Kupfersmid investigated the validity of the Oedipus complex, examining its nature and origins. He concluded that there is little evidence to support the existence of the Oedipus complex." > Psychoanalysis is widely practiced Astrology is widely practiced as well. Doesn't mean it's scientific. > and it’s efficacy has been repeatedly scientifically demonstrated. That is a very controversial statement within modern psychology. Although I have no doubt that most psychoanalysts believe that, just as homeopaths and other pseudoscientific practitioners also believe that their disciplines are scientific. |