THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9, 217-284

Printed in the United States of America

Precis of The Foundations of

Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical
Critique
Adolf Grunbaum
Departments of Philosophy, Psychiatry, and History and Philosophy of
Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260

Abstract: This book critically examines Freud's own detailed arguments for his major explanatory and therapeutic principles, the
current neorevisionist versions of psychoanalysis, and the hermeneuticists' reconstruction of Freud's theory and therapy as an
alternative to what they claim was a "scientistic" misconstrual of the psychoanalytic enterprise. The clinical case for Freud's
cornerstone theory of repression - the claim that psychic conflict plays a causal role in producing neuroses, dreams, and bungled
actions - turns out to be ill-founded for two main reasons: (a) Even if clinical data were valid, the method of free association has failed
to support the psychoanalytic theory of unconscious motivation; (b) Clinical data tend in any case to be artifacts of the analyst's self-
fulfilling expectations, thus losing much of their evidential value. The hypothesis that psychoanalytic treatment is in reality a placebo
poses a serious challenge to the assumption that insight is a key causal factor when therapy is successful. This challenge has yet to be
met by psychoanalysts. Similar conclusions undermine the neorevisionist versions of psychoanalysis. The most influential
hermeneuticists, on the other hand, are shown to have imposed an alien philosophy on psychoanalysis, partly through their reliance
on gross misconceptions of the natural sciences. Karl Popper's criticism of the Freudian corpus as empirically untestable has
misjudged its evidential weaknesses, which are more subtle. If there exists empirical evidence for the principal psychoanalytic
doctrines, it cannot be obtained without well-designed extraclinical studies of a kind that have for the most part yet to be attempted.

Keywords: dream interpretation; explanation; Freud; hermeneutics; neurosis; philosophy of science; placebo; psychoanalysis;
psychopathology; repression

The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Cri-
tique (Grunbaum 1984; henceforth Foundations) offers a
philosophical assessment of the theoretical, epis-
temological, and heuristic grounds of Freud's monu-
mental clinical theory.1 The appraisal concentrates on the
central arguments offered by the founding father, be-
cause his own reasoning, though deeply flawed, is consid-
erably more challenging than most of the defenses by his
later exponents.2 The latter - orthodox and revisionist -
are also subjected to critical scrutiny, with special atten-
tion to one such post-Freudian development, the so-
called hermeneutic reconstruction of psychoanalysis.
Introduction: Critique of the hermeneutic
conception of psychoanalytic theory and therapy
During the past 15 years, the philosophers Paul Ricoeur
(1970; 1974; 1981) and Jurgen Habermas (1970; 1971;
1973), as well as the psychoanalysts George Klein (1976)
and Roy Schafer (1976), have put forward the so-called
hermeneutic reconstructions of the Freudian corpus in
order to supplant Freud's own view of the psychoanalytic
enterprise as a natural science (S.E. 1933, 22:159; 1940,
23:158, 282). Such influential latter-day analysts as
Charles Brenner (1982, pp. 1-5) also espoused Freud's
scientific view.
Thus Ricoeur (1970, p. 358) tried to use the scientific
weaknesses of Freud's clinical theory for a philosophical
"counterattack" against those who criticize it as poor
science. Quite recently Ricoeur (1981, p. 259) endorsed
anew Habermas's complaint that Freud had fallen prey to
a portentous "scientistic self-misunderstanding."
Habermas. According to Habermas, Freud incurred a
"scientistic self-misunderstanding" when he attributed
natural science status to his own clinical theory. As seen
by Habermas (1971, pp. 246-52), and also by George
Klein (1976, pp. 42-49), this error arose from over-
generalizing a projected reduction of the clinical theory to
a neurobiologically inspired (i.e. scientific) "energy"
model of the mind. In my case against Habermas, the
following five considerations are developed in detail:
1. Habermas (and Klein) misrepresent the mature
Freud's notion of what is scientific as requiring reduction
to the laws of the physical sciences, thereby making the
scientific status of the clinical theory parasitic on Freud's
energy model. Such a reading is contradicted by explicit
and definitive texts (S.E. 1925, 20:32-33; 1914, 14:77),
showing that during all but the first few years of his
psychoanalytic career, Freud's view of what is scientific
was based on methodological features, not on reducibility
to physical laws.
2. According to Habermas, the dynamics of psycho-
analytic therapy exhibit a sort of causation not present in

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Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
the causality of nature: The patient's psychoanalytic "self-
reflection" supposedly "dissolves," "overcomes," or
"subdues" the connection linking the neurosis to its cause
(Habermas 1971, pp. 256-57, 271; 1970, pp. 302, 304).
This is simply an error. There is no such causal dissolution
according to psychoanalytic theory any more than there is
in physical theory.
3. Important laws in electromagnetic theory and other
branches of physics contradict Habermas's claim that law-
based explanations in the natural sciences always rely on
"context-free" or nonhistorical laws of nature. On the
basis of this ill-founded claim, Habermas asserts that
there is a fundamental contrast between law-based expla-
nations in the natural sciences and those using psycho-
analytic generalizations, which are applied to individual
life histories in a personalized narrative (Habermas 1971,
pp. 272-73).
4. Habermas's thesis that the analyzed patient has a
cognitive monopoly on the proof or disproof of psycho-
analytic hypotheses completely begs the question. Many
Freudian assumptions are testable without any recourse
at all to the subjective judgments of patients in the
treatment setting. Yet Habermas insists that there is a
critical difference between the analytic patient's priv-
ileged knowledge and that of the objective observer in the
natural sciences.
5. Habermas's 1971 book failed to take into account
Pierre Duhem's insightful discussion of refutation in
physics, written half a century earlier. Thus uninformed,
Habermas relied on an incorrect notion of how physical
hypotheses are refuted, and posited a false contrast with
the logic of falsifying psychoanalytic interpretations.
Freud's "scientistic self-misunderstanding" (Haber-
mas 1971, Chapter 10) is claimed to be demonstrated by
just the theses that Foundations shows to be untenable.
Habermas claims that this misunderstanding has had far-
reaching consequences, if only because it prevented our
recognizing that psychoanalysis was actually a depth-
hermeneutic mode of inquiry, the only tangible example
of a science incorporating methodical self-reflection, and
potentially a prototype for the other sciences of man.
Ricoeur. In his "hermeneutic" account, Ricoeur ignores
the fact that observations in physics are already theory-
laden and are then further interpreted theoretically, a
point emphasized by Freud (S.E. 1915, 14:117). Ricoeur
thereby creates a false contrast between the psycho-
analyst and the natural scientist in the garb of the behav-
iorist: "Strictly speaking, there are no 'facts' in psycho-
analysis, for the analyst does not observe, he interprets"
(Ricoeur 1970, p. 365). In truth, well before the ap-
pearance of Ricoeur's (1970) book, Popper (1959), Sellars
(1961), and Hanson (1958) - not to mention Kant with his
"percepts without concepts are blind" - had already
discredited the crude observation-theory dichotomy that
Ricoeur (1981, pp. 247-48) uncritically assumes for the
natural sciences. Thus, to the serious detriment of his
case for hermeneutics, he is unaware that insofar as the
interpretative activity of any observer already implies
that there can be no "pure" data - i.e. "facts" to be
explained - theory in the natural sciences is on the same
epistemic footing as the clinical hypotheses generated by
analysts.
218 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
Having run afoul of this commonplace, Ricoeur goes on
to restrict the application of psychoanalytic theory to the
patient's speech from the couch: Its subject matter, he
tells us (1970, p. 275), is "analytic experience [in the
dyadic clinical doctor-patient setting], insofar as the
latter operates in the field of speech." Again, the object of
psychoanalytic knowledge is "only that part of [analytic]
experience which is capable of being said" (1981, p. 248).
From this, Ricoeur draws the following conclusions: (t)
Unlike the behavioral "facts" of scientific psychology,
"facts in psychoanalysis are in no way facts of observable
behaviour" (1981, p. 248), and (it) the empirical scrutiny
characteristic of the observational sciences cannot in-
trude on the hermeneutic construal of Freudian theory.
The "facts" dealt with in psychoanalysis, we are told, "are
not verifiable by multiple independent observers" (1974,
p. 186). As partial grounds for (t), Ricoeur depicts Skin-
nerian behaviorism as the prototype for scientific psy-
chology. Yet his use of behaviorism as the paradigm is
incorrect and misleading, if only because cognitive psy-
chology, for example, takes mental states into considera-
tion, no less than psychoanalysis does. [See also BBS
special issue on the work of B. F. Skinner: BBS 7(4) 1984. ]
Thus it emerges that Ricoeur's claims (i) and (it) are ill-
founded, even if one does not challenge his restricting of
psychoanalytic theory to the dyadic "work of speech with
the patient" in the treatment setting. It is extensively
argued in Foundations, however, that this restriction is
itself unwarranted. For example, it is unsound to infer
that dreamers' verbalized recollections of their dreams,
rather than the dreams themselves, are the domain of
relevance for any theory of dreams, merely because these
utterances are presumed to be the only available data for
such a theory. Of course, Freud himself never made this
inference, although he accepted its premise.
Ricoeur attempts in vain to strengthen his case on the
basis of Freud's modification of the original seduction
theory of hysteria. Freud had initially claimed that actual
childhood seductions were the causes of this neurosis, but
later he was driven to substitute imagined seductions: "In
the world of the neuroses it is psychical [as contrasted
with material] reality which is the decisive kind" (S.E.
1917, 16:369; italics in original). But ascribing this causal
role to psychic reality does not help Ricoeur's her-
meneutic thesis. Even for imaginary seductions, there
remains the burden of showing that they have patholog-
ical effects. Nowhere does Ricoeur provide even a hint of
evidence that children who fantasize seduction develop
hysteria because of these fantasies. Gathering the requi-
site evidence would require precisely the scientific meth-
ods rejected by the hermeneuticist.
Thus, just as the free association method cannot show
that actual childhood seductions have caused hysteria, it
is unable to show that imagined ones have done so.
Indeed, Freud's substitution of fantasies for real seduc-
tions only makes it harder to provide evidence of causa-
tion. By the same token, the very quest for the veiled
"meaning" that psychoanalytic explanation is expected to
disclose cannot succeed without relying on methods of
causal inquiry and validation that hermeneuticists de-
clare inappropriate outside the natural sciences. A hydro-
phobic's fear of drinking is connected in thematic content
to a repressed feeling of disgust for seeing a dog lapping

water from a person's glass. But no matter how strong
such a thematic affinity between a supposedly repressed
thought and a neurotic symptom, this "meaning connec-
tion" is not enough to show that the repressed thought is
the "hidden intentionality" behind the behavior. Thema-
tic affinity itself is not sufficient for causation. Even
analysts who do not consider themselves hermeneuticists
are susceptible to what might be dubbed "the thematic
affinity fallacy."
It would even be wrong to suppose that there is
typically thematic affinity between the ideational or affec-
tive content of a repressed desire and the symptoms that
provide an outlet for it. As Breuer and Freud emphasized
at the outset (S.E. 1893, 2:5), "the typical hysterical
symptoms" or outcroppings of repressed ideation do not
have any apparent thematic connection at all to their
presumed causes. And, as Freud stressed later, the
products ("derivatives") of the dynamic unconscious that
are thrust back into consciousness usually have a rela-
tively distant topical connection to the repressed motif in
which they presumably originated (S.E. 1915, 14:149-
51, 190-91).
The upshot of these observations is that, pace Ricoeur,
neither the supposed causal role of seduction fantasies
nor the explanatory role of "meaning" exempts psycho-
analysis from the modes of explanation and validation of
natural science.
In a further futile effort to hermeneuticize psycho-
analysis, Ricoeur offers a "semiotic" construal of the
various outcroppings of repressed ideation as linguistic
communications, with the clinical theory providing a
"semantics of desire." In psychoanalytic theory, both full-
fledged neurotic symptoms and minineurotic ones (e.g.
manifest dream contents, Freudian slips, jokes) are seen
as compromise-formations, products of the defensive
conflict between the repressed ideas and the repressing
ones (S.E. 1896, 3:170; 1917, 16:358-59). As such, symp-
toms have also traditionally been viewed as "symbols" of
what is repressed. But they are "symbols" in the nonse-
mantic sense of being substitutive formations affording
replacement satisfactions or outlets, not linguistic repre-
sentations of their hypothesized unconscious causes.
Vicarious wish-fulfillment in dreams, for example, hardly
amounts to the semantic function of linguistic commu-
nication. As one might accordingly expect, Freud himself
tells us that "a dream does not want to say anything to
anyone. It is not a vehicle for communication" (S.E. 1916,
15:231). Ironically, Ricoeur (1970, p. 5) bases his seman-
tic construal on dreams.
To take another example, when paranoiacs give verbal
or nonverbal expression (e.g. by suspicious glances) to
their delusions of persecution, this distrustful behavior is
taken as good psychoanalytic evidence of repressed ho-
mosexual longings. Even assuming that this interpreta-
tion is correct, however, the behavior still does not
constitute communicative acts that refer semantically to
the unconscious sexual feelings. More generally, even .
when symptoms and other derivatives are actually ver-
balized, and even if they are thematically connected to
their unconscious causes, they do not linguistically desig-
nate the repressions that engender them (although they
manifest them)!
In sum, it is incorrect to assimilate to one another the
Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
following two sets of relations: (i) the way an effect
manifests its cause and can hence serve as evidence for its
operation and (it) the way a linguistic symbol represents
its referent semantically or designates its attributes. Fur-
thermore, to be a vicarious outlet for an ungratified,
hidden desire is plainly quite different from being any
kind of linguistic representation. In conflating the psy-
choanalytic and semantic uses of the term "symbol,"
Ricoeur has wrongly assimilated inferrability and
vicariousness, on the one hand, to semantic reference, on
the other. His "semantics of desire" are themselves the
result of a semantic error.
Reasons versus causes. The thesis that, in psycho-
analysis, explanatory motives are reasons but not causes is
shown to be untenable on the following grounds:
1. The thesis rests on a misconception of the relation of
causal relevance between an antecedent X and an out-
come Y; it overlooks that X may be physical, mental, or
psychophysical, so long as it makes a difference to the
occurrence of Y, and affects the incidence of Y. But in
psychoanalysis, explanatory unconscious motives are
held to have just that kind of relevance to the phenomena
they explain. Thus, the hypothesized unconscious
motives X can be (partial) causes of human conduct Y,
whether or not psychoanalytic explanations conform to
the so-called practical syllogism (see below).
2. Explanations in terms of reasons normally do con-
form to the practical syllogism: An agent carries out an
action A, because he desires to achieve a goal G, and also
believes that doing A will achieve G. Thus the desire-
cum-belief set supplies "the reason" for doing A. And, in
virtue of (1), an explanatory reason for an action is causally
relevant to its performance. Hence such reasons are
causes.
3. Though explanatory reasons do qualify as (partial)
causes, it is shown that unconscious motives do not
constitute such "reasons," because classical psycho-
analytic explanations typically do not even conform to the
practical syllogism. It turns out that the explanatory
motives do not include an unconscious belief that the
explained behavior is a means of realizing the repressed
aim. Therefore, such behavior fails to be a species of
intended action, although the impulse that instigates it
can be said to be a repressed aim or "intention."
Thus, when Freud maintained that both unconscious
and conscious motives qualify as causes (S.E. 1909,
10:199; 1910, 11:38), he certainly was not erroneously
supposing that all causes had to be physical. Yet Klein
(1976, p. 56, also 12, 21) has claimed that bona fide
psychoanalytic explanations provide "reasons rather than
causes" for human conduct. In the same vein, Roy
Schafer (1976, pp. 204-5) writes that the unconscious
"reasons" fail to qualify as causes. Apparently, the expo-
nents of the reasons versus causes thesis are, in effect,
contradicting Freud's views rather than explicating them.
Overall, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the
"humanistic" implementation of the Freudian enterprise
by a hermeneutic reconstruction is just an investigative
cul-de-sac and a negativistic ideological battle cry, hardly
a promising prototype for the human sciences generally.
In view of the weakness of the arguments offered to
hermeneuticize Freud, it is difficult to avoid making
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 219
Grtinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
conjectures about underlying ideology. Proponents seem
to want (a) to free the study of human ideation from the
evidential burdens of the standard empirical sciences and
(b) to draw an ontological boundary line between mental
and other natural processes so as to strengthen the case
for (a). Their motivation is likely to be religious, political,
or the understandable desire to safeguard a lifetime
professional investment in the practice of psychoanalytic
treatment. What other stakes could the proponents of
hermeneutic reconstructions have?
Freud's actual criteria for theory validation were essen-
tially those of hypothetico-deductive inductivism (S.E.
1914, 14:77; 1915, 14:117; 1925, 20:32). He regarded
adherence to these as the hallmark of the scientific status
he claimed for his theory. I undertook to appraise Freud's
arguments for his clinical theory of personality and thera-
py by those very standards. Hence the verdict I reached
on that basis was not based on imposing some extraneous
methodological purism. Nor does my application of
Freud's avowed norm of scientific rationality to psycho-
analysis imply that I consider it the criterion of demarca-
tion between science and nonscience. In short, I grant
Freud his own canons of scientific status in addressing the
following key question: Did his clinical2 arguments vindi-
cate the knowledge claims he made for his evolving
theory in labeling it "scientific"?
My answer has two parts. First, the reasoning on which
Freud rested the major hypotheses of his clinical edifice
was fundamentally flawed, even if the validity of his
clinical evidence were not in question. Second, as it
happens, far from deserving to be taken at face value, the
clinical data are themselves suspect; more often than not,
they may be the patient's responses to the suggestions
and expectations of the analyst.
The clinical method of psychoanalytic
investigation: Pathfinder or pitfall? (Part I)
Is Freud's theory empirically testable? (Chapter 1)
Freud himself always claimed that the treatment setting
is the arena par excellence for psychoanalytic research,
experimental tests being essentially superfluous, if not
inappropriate. By contrast, Eysenck (1963) asserted that
Freudian theory is experimentally testable but denies
that well-designed clinical tests are feasible. Others, such
as Glymour (1980), have contended that there are after all
viable strategies for supporting or refuting psychoanalytic
hypotheses on the couch. Glymour allowed for both
clinical and experimental tests. Thus, all of these writers
do agree that at least some parts of the Freudian corpus
are in fact testable by empirical findings of some sort.
Just this shared assumption of actual testability has
repeatedly been denied by Popper, who has even re-
jected the logical possibility of testing psychoanalysis
empirically. As recently as when he replied to his critics
in 1974 (pp. 984-85), Popper reiterated his earlier claim
that Freud's theory, as well as Adler's, is "simply non-
testable, irrefutable. There was no conceivable human
behaviour which would contradict them" (Popper 1962,
p. 37). Indeed, Popper emphasizes that "psychoanalysis
was immune [to falsification by any logically possible
empirical findings] to start with, and remained so" (1974,
p. 986). It is then a mere corollary of this thesis of
220 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
nontestability that clinical data in particular cannot serve
as a basis for genuine empirical tests.
[At the time that the writing of Foundations was com-
pleted, Popper's 1983 book, Realism and the Aim of
Science, was not yet available in print. I could not take
this later discussion of psychoanalysis into account, but I
will have the opportunity to do this in the section of my
Response that is devoted to Popper's accompanying
commentary.]
When Popper claims that his falsifiabiliry criterion
excludes psychoanalysis from the pantheon of the bona
fide empirical sciences, his principal concern is not with
Freudian theory as such, important though psycho-
analysis is. In Popper's earlier works (1962, pp. 156-57,
255-58) we find psychoanalysis playing a role not so much
as itself the prime target of his charge of nonfalsifiability,
but rather as a centerpiece for his critique of inductivism
as a method of scientific theory-validation or a criterion of
demarcation between science and nonscience. For, as I
read Popper (pp. 33-38), inductivism does accept the
claims of abundant empirical confirmation made by ad-
herents of Freud's theory, as well as by proponents of
Adler's revisionist version of psychoanalysis and by con-
temporary Marxists.
Indeed, Popper (pp. 35-37) seems to have become
convinced of the unfalsifiability of psychoanalysis partly
because he thought it was always confirmed inductively,
come what may. Thus, by 1919 he had persuaded himself
both that inductivism does not have the methodological
resources to challenge the scientific status of psycho-
analysis and that Freud's theory - as well as Adlerian
revisionism and Marxism - was in fact empirically irre-
futable. On this basis, Popper argued that the inductivist
method of confirmation and its criterion of demarcation
are unacceptably permissive.
Hence, the real philosophical villain of Popper's story
was inductivism rather than psychoanalysis or Marxism as
such, although he deplored the latter in their own right.
Having found to his dismay in 1919 that inductivism still
held sway as a criterion of demarcation, Popper used
psychoanalysis - Freudian and Adlerian - as the pi&ce de
resistance in his case against it. He therefore concluded:
"Thus there clearly was a need for a different criterion of
demarcation" (1962, p. 256). In short, psychoanalysis has
been and (at least as of 1974) remains Popper's prime
illustration of the superiority of his falsifiability criterion.
But if he were right that Freud's theory is untestable
altogether, then it would clearly be pointless to inquire
whether this theory has been or can be tested clinically.
Popper's challenge must accordingly be dealt with from
the outset. It turns out to be ironic that Popper should
have chosen psychoanalytic theory as a prime illustration
of his thesis that inductive confirmations can easily be
found for nearly every theory if we look for them: It is
precisely Freud's theory that furnishes compelling evi-
dence against this caricature of the inductivist tradition
(Foundations, p. 280).
Popper is concerned to contrast the scientific status of
modern physics with the nonscientific or pseudoscientific
character of psychoanalysis. He does so by claiming that
the former is empirically falsifiable whereas the latter is
not. But before he can say that potential negative findings
can refute physical theories, Popper must make use of
two important qualifications.

1. All reports of observations codifying contrary evi-
dence in physics are fallible, if only because they them-
selves are already theory-laden; hence "falsifications" are
revokable.
2. "Disregarding the possibility of immunizing strat-
agems" (Popper 1974, 11:1004), potential falsifying data
do exist in physics. But because of this ever-present
logical possibility of resorting to immunization, it would,
in my view, have been preferable if Popper had used the
term "disconfirmability," rather than "falsifiability" or
"refutability." In discussing his views, I will use his
locutions, however.
It is important to note that, immediately after predicat-
ing the falsifiability of Newtonian physics upon "dis-
regarding" feasible immunizing strategies, Popper de-
clares in the next sentence: "And this is the heart of the
matter, for my criticism of Freud's theory was that it
simply does not have potential falsifiers" (1974, p. 1004).
But what is sauce for the goose is, I submit, sauce for the
gander. Accordingly, it is to be understood that when I
claim that Freud's clinical theory does have potential
falsifiers, I do so subject to the same two qualifications on
which Popper relied in the case of physics.
Chapter 1 sets forth seven sets of grounds to refute
Popper's charge that psychoanalytic theory is not falsifia-
ble. This charge, I must emphasize, is logically indepen-
dent of the sociological objection that Freudians are not
responsive to criticism of their hypotheses. After all, a
theory may well be invalidated by known evidence, even
as its true believers refuse to acknowledge this refutation.
That the recalcitrance of Freudians in the face of falsifying
evidence, however scandalous, is not at all tantamount to
the irrefutability of their theory should be especially
evident from some of Popper's other doctrines. As he tells
us, theories, on the one hand, and the intellectual con-
duct of their protagonists, on the other, "belong to two
entirely different 'worlds'" (1974, 1:144, italics in origi-
nal). Yet because Popper sometimes discusses them in
the same breath, my response to his views on psycho-
analysis takes both into account.
Foundations offers the following items in connection
with the supposed unfalsifiability of Freudian theory: (1)
Examples of Freudian causal hypotheses that are demon-
strably falsifiable and of predictions derivable from them
that qualify as "risky" by Popper's standards; (2) Popper's
failure to furnish an actual proof of empirical irre-
futability, with reliance instead on a contrived illustration
of psychoanalytic explanation involving two men and a
drowning child (1962, p. 35; 1974, 11:985); (3) Freud's
own successive modifications of his evolving clinical theo-
ry (Fancher 1973; Sulloway 1979), conceptual changes
that were neither immunizing maneuvers nor capricious,
but rather reactions to seemingly adverse findings; (4)
Freud's explicit statement about the sort of evidence he
would acknowledge as a refuting instance for his hypoth-
esized etiology of anxiety neurosis, as well as other
documentation of sophisticated methodological tactics
not vulnerable to Popper's wholesale criticism, even
when Freud delayed for nearly a decade public acknowl-
edgment of the 1897 collapse of his seduction theory of
hysteria; (5) Popper's total neglect of Freud's 1937 "Con-
structions in Analysis" paper, which is addressed to the
issue of evading clinical falsifications on the principle
"heads I win, tails you lose. "
Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
Did Freud vindicate his method of clinical
investigation? (Chapter 2)
Despite Freud's basic reliance on clinical testing, he did
acknowledge the challenge that data from the couch may
be unreliable, because they are influenced by patients'
conformity to the doctor's self-fulfilling expectations. For
example, the patient may obligingly produce a
pseudomemory that would lend spurious confirmation to
the therapist's reconstruction of his patient's childhood.
In this way, the doctor can regiment the "memories"
recovered by free association. Even friendly critics such
as Wilhelm Fliess have charged that analysts induce their
docile patients by suggestion to furnish the very re-
sponses needed to validate the psychoanalytic theory of
personality (Freud 1954, pp. 334-37). Freud himself
deemed it necessary to counter decisively this serious
charge of spurious clinical confirmation. For if the pa-
tient's responses are merely a result of brainwashing,
then Freudian analysis might have beneficial emotional
effects not because it allows the patient to acquire genu-
ine self-knowledge, but because of suggestion operating
as a placebo under the guise of nondirective therapy. [See
also Rosenthal & Rubin: "Interpersonal Expectancy Ef-
fects" BBS 1(3) 1978.]
Freud had actually provided fuel for such criticism. In
order to overcome patients' fierce resistances to analysts'
interpretations of their unconscious conflicts, he ex-
plained, analysts cannot rely on the patients' intellectual
insight but must decisively enlist their need for their
doctor's approval as a parental surrogate, the so-called
positive "transference" feelings (S.E. 1917, 16:445; 1919,
17:159). In fact, Freud himself points out that precisely
this affectionate help-seeking subservience on the part of
the patient "clothes the doctor with authority and is
transformed into belief in his communications and expla-
nations" (S.E. 1917, 16:445). Thus, at the end of his 1917
lecture "Transference," and much more fully in the
crucial following one, "Analytic Therapy," Freud square-
ly addressed the serious possibility that suggestion is the
decisive agent in his therapy and at the same time, the
fatal flaw of the psychoanalytic method of investigation.
As he put it there:
You asked me why we do not make use of direct
suggestion in psychoanalytic therapy, when we admit
that our influence rests essentially on transference
[which amounts to the utilization of the patient's per-
sonal relationship to the analyst] - .that is, on sug-
gestion; and you added a doubt whether, in view of this
predominance of suggestion, we are still able to claim
that our psychological discoveries are objective [rather
than self-fulfilling products of unintentional sug-
gestion]. I promised I would give you a detailed reply
(S.E. 1917, 16:448)
From the careful answer Freud goes on to give, I have
teased out a central postulate on which he relies when it
becomes one of the two premises of what I have dubbed
his "tally argument." As I read this bold premise, it is a
conjunction of the following two causally necessary
conditions:
1. Only the psychoanalytic method of interpretation
and treatment can yield or mediate for the patient correct
insight into the unconscious causes of his neurosis.
2. The patient's correct insight into the confiictual
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 221
Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
cause of his condition and into the unconscious dynamics
of his character is in turn causally necessary for the
durable cure of his neurosis.
I refer to the conjunction of these two Freudian claims
as his "Necessary Condition Thesis" or, for brevity,
"NCT." In view of its importance, I have also dubbed it
"Freud's Master Proposition" (Griinbaum 1983, p. 17). It
is to be understood that Freud asserts it with respect to
the "psychoneuroses," as distinct from the so-called actu-
al neuroses. A "psychoneurosis" is a mental disorder
caused by repressed infantile experiences, whereas the
etiologic factors in an "actual" neurosis are external ones
in an adult's current life situation.
Freud states his NCT more cryptically and immediate-
ly draws the corollary conclusion that the clinical data
from successfully analyzed patients are reliable after all:
After all, his conflicts will only be successfully solved
and his resistances overcome if the anticipatory ideas
[i,e. psychoanalytic interpretations] he is given tally
with what is real in him. Whatever in the doctor's
conjectures is inaccurate drops out in the course of the
analysis [footnote omitted]; it has to be withdrawn and
replaced by something more correct. (S.E. 1917,
16:452)
More explicitly, if NCT is to be believed, the disclosure of
the patient's hidden conflicts is indispensable to his cure
and will occur only if incorrect analytic interpretations -
spuriously confirmed by the patient's contaminated re-
sponses - have been discarded in favor of correct ones.
Such interpretations will then presumably have derived
from clinical data not distorted by the patient's com-
pliance with his doctor's subtly communicated expecta-
tions. Though the data are initially contaminated by
suggestion, they can be selectively sorted as they accu-
mulate so as to discard the unreliable ones.
In short, Freud postulated his NCT, asserted that his
therapy achieves genuine cures, and then went on to use
these two risky claims to vouch for the trustworthiness
(i.e. the reliability and validity) of clinical data from
neurotic patients whose analyses had presumably been
successful. In view of his use of the phrase "tally with
what is real," I have introduced the label "tally argu-
ment" for the argument whose two premises I have just
stated and whose conclusions I am developing. This
designation has since been adopted by other writers.
Indeed, if one grants Freud the truth of his NCT, and
the finding that there are successfully analyzed ("cured")
patients, then a whole series of major conclusions can be
drawn. Each of these consequences, if true, contributes
to answering the objection that suggestion contaminates
clinical data and is the real cause of any therapeutic
success.
These conclusions of the tally argument include:
1. If a patient has been cured, the causal interpreta-
tions his doctor gave him (at least in the later stages of the
analysis) must have been correct or close to the mark.
Hence the collective success of psychoanalytic treatment
is evidence for the truth of the Freudian theory of
personality, including the specific causes to which it
attributes the psychoneuroses, and even its general hy-
potheses about psychosexual development. Further-
more, Freudian analysis of the unconscious by means of
free association is validated as an investigative method by
its therapeutic success.
222 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
2. The clinical data furnished by successfully treated
neurotics do not result from self-fulfilling predictions.
The patient's assent to his analyst's interpretations is
reliable and his own introspections can be believed, once
his repressions no longer distort his outlook.
3. Only psychoanalytic treatment can produce genuine
cures of neuroses (S.E. 1917, 16:458), hence it can take
credit for the recoveries of its patients without statistical
comparisons with the results from untreated control
groups or from controls treated by rival modalities (cf.
S.E. 1917, 16:461-62).
Moreover, analytic therapy's successes are not placebo
effects, for if NCT is to be believed, the working through
of the patient's unconscious conflicts is the decisive
therapeutic factor (although the analyst's role as a parent-
surrogate serves as an icebreaker). Freud did recognize
that the patient's so-called transference attachment to his
doctor plays a catalytic role in the earlier stages of treat-
ment (S,E, 1926, 20:190), Yet he evidently singled out
the patient's correct causal insight as the one quintessen-
tial ingredient "which distinguishes [the therapeutic dy-
namics of] analytic treatment from any kind of treatment
by suggestion" (S.E. 1914, 12:155-56; cf. also 1917,
16:450-52).
As long as Freud believed in the validity of his NCT and
the genuineness of his cures, he could have confidence in
the three theses just formulated. The NCT, however, still
requires successful treatment outcomes in order to be
interpreted as a justification for making causal inferences
on the basis of free associations. Thus, in Freud's tally
argument, therapeutic success was needed to justify even
those hypotheses that, by themselves, pertain neither to
the dynamics (causal factors) nor to the outcome of psy-
choanalytic treatment.
Given that the empirical tenability of the NCT premise
is the pivot on which the tally argument turns, what clues
does Freud give us as to the evidence that prompted him
to hold this premise until at least 1917? Apparently, he
felt driven to postulate it to account for the observed
patterns of failure and success in treatment. Before a
decade had elapsed, however, even Freud's own evi-
dence conflicted with the claim that the cure of a neurosis
depends on the patient's correct insight into its causes.
Thus, by 1926, he conceded that his type of treatment was
not indispensable and merely expedited recoveries that
were in the offing anyway (S.E. 1926, 20:154). The
possibility of such spontaneous remission contradicts
NCT, which can then no longer be used to justify count-
ing even spectacular therapeutic successes as support for
causal inferences.
Then in 1937 Freud went on to report that a satisfactory
psychoanalysis will not even prevent the recurrence of
the problem for which the patient was treated, let alone
immunize him against the outbreak of a different one
(S.E. 1937, 23:216-53). Thus, far from holding out hope
for cures, Freud essentially confined the prospects of
psychoanalysis to palliation. Evidently, far from continu-
ing to claim that there was empirical support for the two
premises of his tally argument in his later years, Freud
himself gradually renounced or significantly weakened
both of them.
As if this were not enough, in recent decades, in
comparative studies of treatment outcome from rival
therapies, psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy has

not been found to be superior to any of the other therapies
that exceed the spontaneous remission rate for untreated
controls. Adequate comparative studies for long-term
psychoanalysis still remain to be carried out, but it is not a
promising sign that recent comparative investigations of
psychotherapy do not find professional psychotherapy
superior to treatments designed to be placebos (Prioleau,
Murdock & Brody 1983). These results cast some further
doubt on NCT, which implies that only analytic therapy
can cause genuine cures of neuroses.
Yet if analytic treatment is not superior to its rivals in
the pertinent diagnostic categories, it becomes quite
reasonable - though not compelling - to interpret its
therapeutic achievements as placebo effects. If so, any
success of psychoanalysis is not produced by the patient's
acquiring self-knowledge after all. In this vein, Jerome
Frank (1973) has contended that both analysts and their
rivals heal neurotics by being supportive, not by uncover-
ing their repressions. Indeed, Frank's hypothesis even
allows rival therapies to have differential efficacy through
different degrees of placebo effect. To be sure, it is still
arguable that improvements after psychoanalytic treat-
ment are not placebo effects. But because, as some noted
analysts have conceded, "all-pervading" improvements
or even cures can be produced by rival treatments such as
behavior therapy, and also by extraclinical life events
(Malan 1976, pp. 172-73, 269, 147), Freud's NCT has
become untenable.
The collapse of the NCT completely undercuts the
pivotal therapeutic argument given by the mature Freud
for the evidential value of the clinical data generated by
the psychoanalytic method. As Chapter 10 shows, with-
out the tally argument, Freud's appeal to cross-cor-
roboration by converging clinical findings fails, because
each corroborating piece is secured by the free-associa-
tion method whose validity is in question. Moreover, no
empirically viable substitute for the NCT capable of
supporting Freud's conclusions seems to be in sight.
Without a substitute for the NCT there appears to be no
way to free clinical data from the possibility of contamina-
tion by suggestion. Yet after Freud gave up the NCT, he
seems to have forgotten that this left the evidential value
of clinical data in serious doubt, and he continued to rest
his case on clinical findings (S.E. 1926, 20:254; 1917,
16:255).
The emphasis in Part I was on Freud's unsuccessful
effort to neutralize doubts about the evidential value of
clinical data. Part II shows that even if clinical evidence
could be taken at face value, Freud's principal clinical
arguments for his entire cornerstone theory of repression
still turn out to be fundamentally flawed.
The cornerstone of the psychoanalytic edifice: Is
the Freudian theory of repression well founded?
(Part II)
In Part I, the focus was on Freud's appeal to therapeutic
success as his evidence for claiming that his clinical
method did not lead merely to self-fulfilling predictions.
Freud relied on therapeutic success, however, not only to
validate (via the NCT) the data obtained by free associa-
tion, but also as a basis for inferring the causal hypotheses
of his theory of psychopathology in the first place. In 1926
Griinbauiri: Foundations of psychoanalysis
he wrote that evidence of therapeutic gain was from the
start intrinsic to the clinical validation of the psycho-
analytic theory of the unconscious: "In psycho-analysis
there has existed from the very first an inseparable bond
between cure and research" (S.E. 1926, 20:256). Indeed,
we shall now see that, in the cathartic method, the
dependence of the causal inferences on treatment out-
come was crucial: It was therapeutic success that enabled
Breuer and Freud to conclude that repressed traumatic
experience was necessary to cause hysteria.
Thus, psychoanalytic causal hypotheses that do not
themselves pertain either to the dynamics or the outcome
of analytic therapy (e.g. the trauma theory of hysteria)
have nonetheless been parasitic on therapeutic results,
since Freud used such results partly to validate making
inferences from clinical data at all, and partly to guide and
support the specific inferences themselves.
Appraisal of Freud's arguments for the repression
etiology of the psychoneuroses (Chapter 3)
The causal and explanatory significance of unconscious
processes in psychoanalytic theory rests on two funda-
mental inductive inferences. These were made by Freud
in collaboration with his senior mentor Josef Breuer. As
we are told in their joint "Preliminary Communication"
of 1893 (S.E. 1893, 2:6-7), they began with an observa-
tion made after having treated hysterical patients cathar-
tically with hypnosis. In the course of the treatment it had
turned out that, for each symptom, the victim had re-
pressed the memory of a trauma that had closely pre-
ceded its onset and was somehow thematically connected
to it (see "thematic affinity fallacy" in earlier section on
Ricoeur). For example, Breuer's pioneering patient Anna
O., who had a phobia for drinking liquids, had repressed
the sight of a dog drinking water from a friend's glass,
which had disgusted her. Besides repressing this trau-
matic memory, the patient had also suppressed the affect
induced by the trauma. In the case of each symptom, our
two therapists tried to lift the repression of the trauma
and to release the pent-up affect. When their technique
succeeded in both respects, they observed, a dramatic
(and apparently permanent) disappearance of the
symptom.
Impressed by this outcome, Breuer and Freud formu-
lated their first major causal hypothesis: The improve-
ments observed after treatment were caused by the
cathartic lifting of the repressions. But before the found-
ers of psychoanalysis attributed the improvement to the
lifting of the repression, they had considered the rival
hypothesis that it was actually caused by the patient's
expectations of relief from his symptom rather than by his
achieving insight into his repression. In this perspective,
the search for insight is only a treatment ritual serving to
strengthen the patient's therapeutic expectations. Breuer
and Freud believed they could rule out this rival hypoth-
esis, which I call "the hypothesis of placebo effect"
(Grunbaum 1981; 1986).
Breuer and Freud pointed out that symptoms had been
removed, one at a time, such that any one symptom
disappeared only after the lifting of a particular repression
(S.E. 1893, 2:7). I suggest, however, that even such
separate symptom removals need not be caused by the
lifting of repressions; instead, they may be placebo effects
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 223
Grunbaurn: Foundations of psychoanalysis
after all, generated by the patient's awareness that the
therapist was trying to uncover an episode thematically
connected to the symptom. Thus, it was presumably
communicated to the patient that his doctor believed that
recalling the episode might help to eliminate the symp-
tom. Breuer and Freud do not tell us why the likelihood
of a placebo effect is lower when several symptoms are
wiped out than when only one symptom is involved. As
evidence against the placebo hypothesis it would have
been essential to compare treatment outcome with the
results from a suitable control group whose repressions
were not lifted. If that control group fared equally well
therapeutically, treatment gains from psychoanalysis
would then presumably be placebo effects, because they
would not have been caused specifically by psycho-
analytic insight. Hence there existed no adequate evi-
dence that lifting repressions caused symptoms to
disappear.
Yet Breuer and Freud did believe at the time that their
therapeutic results had ruled out the placebo hypothesis
and they accordingly attributed the gains made by their
hysterics to the resurrection of buried painful memories.
They also thought that this hypothesized process of pro-
ducing therapeutic success was evidence that an original
act of repression was necessary to cause the neurosis, and
continuing repression was necessary to maintain it. It
then followed that the removal of the repression would
eliminate the neurosis.
Notice that the improvement itself was not what justi-
fied inferring that repression had caused the symptom: It
was the causal attribution of the improvement to the
lifting of the repression. Thus, without relying on what
they assumed to be the causal dynamics that produced
their therapeutic results, Breuer and Freud could never
have interpreted these clinical data as evidence that
repression was a cause of hysteria. Yet even if the
therapeutic gains had been caused by lifting repressions,
there would only be grounds for attributing the mainte-
nance of the symptoms to those repressions, not their
initial formation. Moreover, this conclusion still requires
the qualification that either the cognitive repression or
the affective suppression of a trauma is the required cause
(Foundations, pp. 180-81).
Freud soon replaced Breuer's hypnotic technique by
free association, believing that the new method retrieved
repressed traumatic experiences, and concluding that
free associations not only recover repressed memories,
but can establish that the repression of the latter caused
the neurosis in question. In this way, Freud elevated free
association to the status of a specific causal litmus test:
There was no other justification. In other words, the
hypothesis that therapeutic success is caused by the
removal of repressions is to this day the sole justification
for assuming that free associations show repressions to be
causes; hence there is nothing left when Freudians dis-
claim the therapeutic efficacy of their treatment.
Soon after Freud began to practice without Breuer, it
became evident that they had been too hasty in rejecting
the rival hypothesis of placebo effect. The remissions
achieved by further patients Freud himself treated ca-
thartically did not turn out to be durable. The pattern of
relapses, additional treatment, temporary remissions,
and further relapses made it doubtful that removing the
224 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
repressions of adult traumas was therapeutically effec-
tive. Freud began to be haunted by the triumph of the
placebo hypothesis over his (and Breuer's) therapeutic
hypothesis. As he recognized, the vicissitudes of his
personal relations to the patient were highly correlated
with the pattern of symptom relapses and intermittent
remissions. In his own view, this correlation "proved that
the personal emotional relation between doctor and pa-
tient was after all stronger than the whole cathartic
process" (S.E. 1925, 20:27). But without the therapeutic
support for the causal role of repression, the very cor-
nerstone of psychoanalysis was completely undermined.
Hence at that point, the new clinical psychoanalytic
structure tumbled down and lay in shambles. So also did
free association as a method of establishing causation.
Nonetheless, Freud was undaunted. He took courage,
because he thought that, in a new sexual version, the
etiologic repression hypothesis could be rehabilitated on
secure therapeutic foundations after all. The elimination
of adult repressions had been a therapeutic failure. He
conjectured, however, that uncovering much earlier
childhood repressions with sexual content might elimi-
nate hysteria, and he hypothesized that the patient's free
associations would indicate an early sexual repression as
the cause of hysteria (S.E. 1896, 3:194-99). As he reports,
the very early repressions that then emerged had sexual
themes.
Freud now rejected the placebo hypothesis by invok-
ing NCT, as we saw. But, as the summary of Chapter 2
made clear, his attempt to provide therapeutic support
for the new childhood sexual hypothesis in 1917 fared no
better empirically than his and Breuer's original appeal to
cathartic success in the mid-l890s. (Freud had disavowed
Breuer's nonsexual etiologic hypotheses as clinically du-
bious in 1896.) Nor has there been any other therapeutic
validation. [See my response to Cioffi's accompanying
commentary for further details.]
Let me caution against a possible serious misunder-
standing, however. Like Freud, the vast majority of his
followers continue to maintain that free associations are
crucial for the validation of both their etiologic hypoth-
eses about the causes of neuroses and the psychoanalytic
theory of dreams and slips. These advocates cannot dis-
pense with a therapeutic foundation. For my own part,
however, I find it unwarranted to use free association to
validate causal inferences. I therefore see no reason to
assign any privileged role to therapeutic results among
possible tests of psychoanalytic hypotheses. For example,
Freud's 1915 theory of paranoia could be tested epidemi-
ologically without any recourse to therapeutic data [see
my response on issues of falsifiability.]
Freud did not limit his reliance on free association to
research on the causes of neurotic symptoms. When he
found that his patients reported their dreams while free
associating to their neurotic symptoms, he concluded that
"manifest" dream contents are produced very much the
way neurotic symptoms are (S.E. 1900, 4:101). He saw
such symptoms as vicarious gratifications and outlets, or
"compromises between the demands of a repressed im-
pulse and the resistance of a censoring force in the ego"
(S.E. 1925, 20:45). Thus, he made the extrapolation that
repression is causally necessary for both neurotic symp-
toms and dream production. He accordingly enlarged the

scope of the free-association method from research on the
causes of neurosis (aimed at therapy) to research on the
unconscious causes of dreaming (S.E. 1900, 4:101, 5:528).
The extrapolation was also extended, mutatis mutan-
dis, to slips and bungled actions. Here too Freud used
free association not merely heuristically, as a means of
generating causal explanations of slips, but also as a basis
for validating the explanatory hypotheses. For example,
he conceived of a slip of the tongue as a compromise
between a repressed motive that crops up in the form of a
disturbance, on the one hand, and the conscious inten-
tion to make a certain utterance, on the other.
The theoretical extrapolation to dreams and slips of
course inherited the problem of the original theory of
neurotic symptoms, namely, the collapse of the
therapeutic support. But even if that support had actually
turned out to be empirically viable, the extrapolations
would have been unjustified because they lacked any
therapeutic base or other supporting evidence of their
own. Freud provided no evidence that the permanent
lifting of a repression to which he had attributed a slip
would be "therapeutic" in the sense of enabling the
person to correct the slip or to avoid repeating it. Thus the
two extrapolations had no independent support.
Chapter 3 concludes with an important caveat. Plainly,
the very occurrence of repression - in the psychoanalytic
sense of banishing a thought from consciousness or deny-
ing it entry (S.E. 1915, 14:147) - is a necessary condition
for the causal role that Freud attributed to it. If repression
does not even exist, it can hardly cause other phenomena.
Yet it must not be overlooked that the mere existence of
repression as a psychological phenomenon (which was
conjectured before Freud by Herbart and Schopenhauer)
is not sufficient to demonstrate that it causes neurotic
symptoms, dreams, or slips.
Paul Kline (1981, pp. 196, 208, 436), Seymour Fisher
(1982, p. 680), as well as others (Erdelyi & Goldberg
1979), gloss over the large gap between merely showing
that repression exists and providing evidence that it has
the causal role that Freud attributed to it. These investi-
gators use the phrase "theory of repression" in a highly
ambiguous way. It can denote either the hypothesis of
bare existence or the far stronger assertion of a multiple
causal role. [My responses to Kline's and Erdelyi's com-
mentaries will develop this point.]
Examination of the psychoanalytic theory of slips - of
memory, the tongue, ear, and pen (Chapter 4)
Freud referred to slips generically in German as
Fehlleistungen, which means "misbegotten perfor-
mances" or "bungled actions." His translator James
Strachey coined the neologism "parapraxes" to render
the German term. The category "slips" does not include
every failure of memory, speech, or action, however. It is
restricted to errors one does not make normally or
habitually.
There are two necessary conditions that must be fulfill-
ed by any slip if it is also to qualify as a Freudian slip in the
technical, rather than the colloquial, sense. As Freud
tells us: "If we perceive the parapraxis at all, we must not
be aware in ourselves of any motive for it. We must rather
be tempted to explain it by 'inattentiveness,' or to put it
Grtinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
down to 'chance' (S.E. 1901, 6:239). A further necessary
condition is that the slip be caused by a repression in the
sense of being a compromise, resulting from the conflict
between a repressed motive and a conscious intention.
Typically, the repressed motive is one of so-called "un-
pleasure" (Strachey's translation of Unlust) such as pain,
distress, aversion, or moral censorship. Thus, Freud's
theory explains slips "in which the parapraxis produces
nothing that has any sense of its own'Tor either the
subject who commits the slip or for others (S.E. 1916,
15:41). Plainly, slips resulting from conscious or "pre-
conscious" motives are not Freudian, though Freud does
give examples of them for the purpose of comparison
(S.E. 1916, 15:40-55).
The mere statement of what is meant by the term
"Freudian slip" does not entail that there do exist slips
with the requisite property of being caused by a re-
pressed motive and being laden with some negative
affect. The burden of the psychoanalytic theory of para-
praxes is to furnish evidence that there actually are such
slips. My main aim in the chapter is to examine whether
Freud's arguments were able to show this.
A certain memory lapse in the recitation of a Latin
quotation is cited in the psychoanalytic literature as a
typical example of a Freudian slip. A young man forgot
the Latin word aliquis ("someone") in his recitation of a
line from Virgil's Aeneid. The full line reads: "Exoriare
aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor" ("Would that someone
arise from our bones as an avenger"). The young man, an
Austrian Jew - hereafter "AJ" - used the passage to
convey his resentment of religious discrimination against
him. Freud supplied the missing word. Then AJ's associa-
tions issuing from this word - interspersed with some of
Freud's interjections - revealed, in due course, that he
had harbored a repressed fear. He suspected that an
Italian girlfriend had become pregnant by him. Freud
then informed him that this repressed anxiety had "unde-
niably" produced his aliquis lapse, whereas the subject
was doubtful that his worry - though genuine - had had
any causal bearing on his forgetting. Freud was convinced
that AJ's repressed wish not to have any progeny from his
sexual liaison had interfered with his Latin rendition of
his desire to have descendants who would avenge the
adversity suffered by the Jews.
In a detailed examination of the aliquis slip, I argue that
far from furnishing evidence for the existence of bona fide
Freudian slips, it serves to exhibit the weakness of the
empirical basis of the psychoanalytic repression model of
parapraxes. The grounds for this unfavorable conclusion
include the following: There is no justification for drawing
a causal connection between the fear of pregnancy and
the memory lapse merely on the basis of the thematic
connection between the content of the repressed wish
and the desire expressed by the Latin phrase. As argued
earlier, thematic affinity alone is not evidence for a causal
connection; there is need for further evidence that a
thematically connected repression actually caused the
memory lapse. Moreover, in typical parapraxes, the the-
matic affinity is considerably more tenuous than in the
aliquis example. In fact, it is always possible tofindsome
thematic thread, however farfetched, connecting any
given lapse to some repression or other. Thus, even if
strong thematic affinity alone did implicate a repressed
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 225
Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
cause, it would not be present in typical parapraxes. The
aliquis example is not representative.
Doubts about whether a given repression is really the
cause of a slip cannot be countered by pointing, as Freud
did (S.E. 1916, 15:50), to the introspective confirmation
of the subject who made the slip. Even if the person who
"slipped" were not under the suggestive, intimidating
influence of the analyst, how could he possibly know any
better than the rest of us that the unconscious fear in
question had actually caused his slip? The case against
Freud's appeal to introspective confirmation is well sup-
ported. There is substantial experimental evidence from
cognitive psychology that subjects do not have knowledge
of the causes of their own behavior (Nisbett & Ross 1980).
The important conclusion is this: If any slips are actu-
ally caused by repressions, Freud gives us no good reason
to think that his clinical methods could identify and
empirically confirm their causes as such, no matter how
interesting the elicited "free" associations might other-
wise be. This conclusion seems unavoidable, even if one
were to grant that the analyst does not influence the
subject's "free" associations to the content of a slip. (The
experimental psychologist Motley [1980] claims to have
found experimental support for the psychoanalytic theory
of speech errors. I argue that his ingenious experiments,
valuable though they are, do not provide evidence for or
against the Freudian theory of slips of the tongue.)
Thus far it has been granted, for argument's sake, that
the analyst does not influence the patient's free associa-
tions, but in the remainder of this chapter, several sorts of
questions are raised: Does free association indeed bring
out repressed wishes, or anger, guilt, fear, and so on,
without contamination by other influences? If uncon-
scious thoughts surface, by what criteria does the analyst
decide when, during the investigation of parapraxes and
dreams, to call a halt to the flow of associations? Presum-
ably if the intelligent and imaginative patient is permitted
to free associate in this way long enough, his unfettered
ruminations will in due course yield almost any kind of
thematic content of which he had (at least recently) not
been conscious: thoughts about death, God, and indeed
cabbages and kings. But, if so, how does the analyst avoid
a selection bias in the face of the thematic variety of the
associations, particularly since imposing some limit on
duration is unavoidable?
One of the answers is drawn from writings of the analyst
Judd Marmor (1970), who summarizes experimental
studies indicating how compliant patients are, even un-
der free association, and how they thereby render clinical
hypotheses self-fulfilling.
The chapter concludes with a discussion of how some
analysts coax their patients to fulfill prior theoretical
expectations (e.g. penis envy in women), whereas other
analysts deplore this practice without providing a recipe
for successfully avoiding it.
Repressed Infantile wishes as instigators of all dreams:
Critical scrutiny of the compromise model of
manifest dream content (Chapter 5)
In 1895, Freud had a dream - the "Irma Injection
Dream" (S.E. 1950, 1:340-42) - which was destined to
become the "Specimen Dream" of his clinical theory
226 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
(S.E. 1900, 4:chap. 2). It was his attempt to interpret the
Irma dream which begat a "eureka" experience yielding
the "secret" of all dream formation (Freud 1954, p. 322):
The dream "content was the fulfillment of a wish and its
motive was a wish" (S.E. 1900, 4:119; italics omitted).
In his 1895 "Project," Freud proposed a neurological
rationale for the "secret." That neurobiological account,
and its clinical notion of wish fulfillment, have been
challenged by Hobson and McCarley in two influential
papers (Hobson & McCarley 1977; McCarley & Hobson
1977). As they point out, during the past 80 years various
findings have undermined the concepts of neuronal func-
tion and of the energy economy of the brain out of which
Freud's account was built. They conclude that recent
neurophysiological findings have largely supplanted
Freud's psychological theory of dreaming as wish-fulfill-
ment by providing a better explanation of dream produc-
tion. Yet, they do not claim to have refuted the purely
psychological aspect of the theory.
Chapter 5 critically analyzes Freud's psychological
theory of dreams with reference to his treatment of the
Irma dream. His argument was that, in the case of Irma,
free association yields wish motives that, from the view-
point of commonsense psychology, have clearly given rise
to that particular dream. Freud is then prepared to base
his general theory of dreams as wish fulfillments on the
results from the method that he claims to have validated
by his analysis of Irma (S.E. 1900, 4:121). I argue,
however, that Irma fails to validate Freud's method of
dream interpretation or to support the hypothesis that
repressed infantile wishes cause dreams.
Though touted as "the dream specimen of psycho-
analysis" (Erikson 1954), Irma no more qualifies as a
paradigm for Freud's theory of dreams than the aliquis
slip does for his theory of parapraxes. First, in this dream
analysis, free association does not play the role it is
claimed to play in revealing repressions. Moreover, Irma
does not illustrate the causal role of a repressed wish
(infantile or otherwise). At best, the Irma dream is a
pedagogical preparation for psychoanalytic dream theo-
ry, rather than a representative specimen. At worst, it is a
piece of salesmanship, offering a snare and a delusion to
the unwary. Erikson's (1954) attempt to give Irma the
infantile motivational underpinning required by
orthodox doctrine does nothing to alter this verdict.
The chapter's main findings are that Freud's theory of
dreams is at best ill-founded and that there are even two
independent clinical arguments implying that it is false.
Appraisal of Freud's further arguments for the
emergence of unadulterated repressions under
"free" association (Chapter 6)
The doubts that have been raised so far concerning the
psychoanalytic accounts of slips and dreams include the
failure of free association to ensure that repressed idea-
tion emerges without contamination by suggestion. Al-
ways mindful of this problem, Freud kept offering further
reasons for his belief that free association "guarantees to a
great extent that . . . nothing will be introduced into it
by the expectations of the analyst" (S.E. 1925, 20:41). In
this vein, he assures us of the analyst's ability to dis-
tinguish the patient's bona fide memories from imagined

ones: "Any danger of falsifying the products of the pa-
tient's memory by suggestion can be avoided by prudent
handling of the technique; but in general the arousing of
resistances is a guarantee against the misleading effects of
suggestive influence" (S.E. 1923, 18:25). This is the myth
that analytic interpretations are nondirective and that
analysts are mere catalysts for the emergence of uncon-
taminated repressions.
There is empirical evidence against the view that
psychoanalytic treatment is a valid means of gaining
access to memories. Loftus (1980) has shown that (1)
human memory is to a remarkable extent malleable (as
illustrated by a pseudomemory from Jean Piaget's early
life); (2) there is considerable interpolation, reconstruc-
tion, and distortion of memories by theoretical beliefs or
expectations; and (3) under the influence of leading ques-
tions, there is a strong tendency to fill memory gaps with
confabulated material.
Nonveridical memories seem to be most likely with
just those responses that are supposed to lay bare repres-
sions and disguised defenses after resistances have been
overcome. Yet Freud particularly emphasized such data
in the validation of his theory of repression. To say that
the contamination of clinical data cannot be eliminated
without recourse to extraclinicalfindingsis not, of course,
to say that every analytic interpretation to which a patient
agrees under the influence of the analyst is false. Howev-
er, in the analytic setting one cannot identify which
clinical data are valid.
Remarks on post-Freudian defenses of the fundamental
tenets of psychoanalysis (Chapter 7)
Is the present critique of the basic pillars of psycho-
analysis anachronistic? Does it not focus on Freud's
reasoning while disregarding the specific modifications
and elaborations by those post-Freudians whose doc-
trines are recognizably psychoanalytic (in content rather
than only in name)? The answer is that the unfavorable
conclusions of Parts I and II are just as applicable to the
currently fashionable revisionist versions of psycho-
analysis that go under the names of Kohutian "self-
psychology" and of "object relations theory." Insofar as
these post-Freudian theories are indeed psychoanalytic,
they do subscribe to some version of the theory of
repression. They also rely on free association to find the
unconscious causes of behavior, using the lifting of re-
pressions as one means of therapy (Eagle 1983a).
How, for example, can Kohut claim stronger clinical
validation for his pre-Oedipal variety of unconscious
cause than Freud can for the sexual ones? Eagle (1983a;
1984a) has argued that the causal and therapeutic claims
of self-psychology and of object relations theory rest on
even more dubious bases than do Freud's corresponding
hypotheses. Hence the neorevisionist work does not
answer the objections I have raised against orthodox
psychoanalysis.
Can the repression etiology of psychoneurosis be
tested retrospectively? (Chapter 8)
As noted in prior chapters, Freud's clinical support for his
causal inferences has ultimately been predicated on
Grtinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
therapeutic achievements. Hence one could by now ask
impatiently: Why could Freud not dispense with
therapeutic arguments altogether and rely instead on
other sorts of clinical evidence (see footnote 2) to provide
support for his theory of psychopathology? Chapter 8
develops the reply that such attempts have been just as
unsuccessful as therapeutic validation by considering
Clark Glymour's recent account (1980) of testability on
the couch. Here I will summarize only one of several
reasons given in Foundations for this conclusion.
Freud conjectured that the development of a neurosis
N depends not only on an individual's exposure to patho-
genic experiences P, but also on his hereditary vul-
nerability: P is necessary but not sufficient to cause JV.
One can hence retrodict that anyone afflicted with N has
suffered P. It has been suggested that in Freud's Rat Man
case, for example, clinical evidence would have sup-
ported this causal necessity hypothesis by confirming the
occurrence of the retrodicted childhood experience P
(Glymour 1980, p. 272).
Suppose for argument's sake that in his analysis the Rat
Man had reported remembering the traumatic sexual
event retrodicted by Freud. Assume further that one can
trust so early a memory under the suggestive conditions
of an analysis. It is then evident that confirming the prior
occurrence of the trauma does not show that it was a cause
of the Rat Man's obsessions. Surely the mere fact that an
event is traumatic does not indicate a causal role in a
neurosis. The human condition would be much worse
than it already is if every psychic blow gave rise to a
neurosis. Yet prominent psychoanalysts have reasoned
that the causal relevance of P to N is supported by the
mere fact that those who are beset by N and suffered P fit
Freud's retrodiction (Waelder 1962, pp. 625-26). Such
an inference is no better than post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Two results emerge: (i) The analytic setting appears
unable to yield evidence to support the inference that the
retrodicted P was a cause of N, and (it) its retrospective
methods cannot even verify that P occurred. To my
knowledge, apart from the sorts of arguments I have
examined, there is no other clinical support (either
therapeutic or nontherapeutic) for Freud's theory of sexu-
al repression as the cause of the neuroses. I conclude that
the sexual version of Freud's theory of psychopathology
has no more clinical support than Breuer's nonsexual
version.
Epilogue (Part III)
The method of free association and the future appraisal
of psychoanalysis (Chapter 9)
In this Chapter I welcome the analyst Eissler's (1969)
refreshing anticipation of the conclusion that the future
validation or discontinuation of Freudian theory will
come largely from extraclinical findings. However, de-
spite his suggestion that we expand the investigative
horizons of Freud's theory well beyond the clinical set-
ting, the lesson that Eissler derives from the limitations of
clinical findings does not go nearly far enough. Accepting
the validity of Freud's method of free association, he
glosses over the serious problems of clinical testing set
forth in Chapters 2-8.
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 227
Commentaryi'Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
Critique of Freud's final defense of the probative value
of data from the couch: The pseudo-convergence of
clinical findings (Chapter 10)
As noted at the end of the summary of Chapter 1 (apropos
of Popper), in a very late paper (S.E. 1937, 23:257-69),
Freud claims that psychoanalytic interpretations do not
rely on "heads I win, tails you lose" to evade falsification
nolens volens. He argues that the analyst's response to the
patient's assent and dissent does not invariably twist the
patient's remarks into a confirmation (p. 262).
Freud appealed to converging evidence, contending
that other clinical data can cross-validate a patient's ac-
ceptance or rejection of his analyst's interpretations. All
clinical evidence, however, whether corroborative or
not, is suspect, because it all depends on the method of
free association with its potential suggestive effects.
Three major conclusions emerge from the appraisals I
have given in Foundations:
1. Insofar as the evidence for the psychoanalytic corpus
depends on data from the treatment setting, this support
is remarkably weak.
2. In view of the methodological shortcomings of
clinical psychoanalytic inquiry, a proper test of Freud's
central hypotheses calls for well-designed extraclinical
studies, either epidemiologic or experimental (Eysenck
& Wilson 1973; Kline 1981; Masling 1983). For the most
part, such studies have yet to be performed.
3. Despite the poverty of the clinical support, it could
still conceivably turn out that Freud's brilliant theoretical
imagination was actually serendipitously right in some
respects. But whereas psychoanalysis may thus be said to
be scientifically alive, it is currently hardly well, at least
insofar as its clinical foundations are concerned. Nor are
the experimental findings I mention in Chapter 3 (pp.
188-89), Chapter 4 (pp. 202-5), Chapter 5 (pp. 217-19),
and Chapter 9 (p. 270) favorable.
Coda on exegetical myth-making in Karl Popper's
indictment of the clinical validation of
psychoanalysis (Chapter 11)
The inductivist methodology I used to assess Freud's
causal hypotheses is the modern version of the centuries-
old tradition going back to F. Bacon and J. S. Mill. On this
basis, Chapters 1-10 reached a rather negative conclu-
sion about the clinical evidence for the theory of repres-
sion, and even about clinical testability in general. As is
now clear, the clinical validation of psychoanalysis would
be no more acceptable to a traditional inductivist (like
Bacon or Mill) than to Popper (1962, p. 38, fn. 3). Hence,
the specifically clinical support claimed by many Freudi-
ans, but rejected by inductivism, can no longer be used as
a basis for Popper's charge that an inductivist criterion of
demarcation between science and nonscience is too per-
missive. Since psychoanalysis is in fact falsifiable, Popper
cannot use Freud's theory to strengthen the case for his
criterion of demarcation. Finally, his astonishing omis-
sion of Freud's reference to the tally argument from a key
passage in his critique makes Popper's account of Freud
rather unfair and misleading.
NOTES
1. All citations of Freud's writings in English will be from the
Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works ofSig-
228 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
mundFreud, trans, by J. Strachey etal. London: Hogarth Press,
1953-1974, 24 volumes. Each reference will use the abbrevia-
tion "S.E.," followed by the year of first appearance, volume
number, and page(s).
2. Note that clinical arguments rest on data that are "clinical"
only in the following technical sense (in which the term will be
used throughout this Precis and my Response): Clinical data are
data obtained from the psychoanalytic treatment-setting
through the analysts observations of what the patient says and
does. The results of research done outside psychoanalytic ses-
sions - such as those of epidemiologic or experimental studies -
are called extraclinical data.
Open Peer Commentary
Commentaries submitted by the qualified professional readership of
this journal will be considered for publication in a later issue as
Continuing Commentary on this article. Integrative overviews and
syntheses are especially encouraged.
With a friend like Professor Grunbaum does
psychoanalysis need any enemies?
Arthur Caplan
Hastings Center, Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. 10706
Few disciplines in biomedicine or the natural sciences have had
to endure the kind of abuse and admiration heaped upon
psychoanalysis. It is the kind of theory (or theories), and its
proponents the kind of theoreticians, that philosophers of sci-
ence yearn to confront. Its proponents and critics do not even
agree on what psychoanalysis is - a clinical therapy, a theory of
mental functioning, or both. In fact, the staunchest advocates of
psychoanalysis are so insecure about the theoretical soundness
and scientific status of the discipline that they attend closely to
the comments of philosophers of science as to the soundness of
the whole enterprise. This willingness to heed philosophy in
itself makes psychoanalysis almost unique among all of the
disciplines that wish to lay claim to the mantle of science,
although cynics might complain that by the time a discipline is
paying close attention to philosophers of science it is on its last
legs anyway.
Nonetheless, students of psychoanalysis or those interested
in the discipline would seem to me to be well served by paying
close attention to the methodological analysis offered by Pro-
fessor Grunbaum. Although his prose often makes for difficult
reading, perhaps reflecting too many long hours spent working
through the obtuse grammar of most psychoanalytic writings,
Grunbaum in The Foundations of Psychoanalysis has provided
an important and lucid analysis of the methodological commit-
ments of the Freudian roots of psychoanalysis.
Grunbaum shows that those such as Habermas (1973),
Ricoeur (1970), and Klein (1976) who have been concerned to
defend psychoanalysis against its many fervent critics by de-
bunking the "scientistic" elements of Freud's work have
achieved, at best, a Pyrrhic victory. Those of a hermeneutical
frame of mind argue for the abandonment of the attempt to
assess psychoanalytic theory and technique (at least in their
Freudian guise) with respect to its success in providing lawlike,
causally based principles and laws of human behavior in favor of
some form of narrative interpretation of the allegedly unique,
context-specific, historically bound, and reason-based rumina-
tions of patients on an epistemically privileged couch. It is quite
clear that this simply .misses the point of Freud's theoretical

enterprise. Whereas it may be possible to construct a her-
meneutical psychoanalysis, a prospect Grunbaum does not
acknowledge, it seems to me that Griinbaum's arguments irre-
futably prove that, whatever such a psychoanalysis might be, it
would not, in any interesting sense, be Freudian.
Similarly, Grunbaum seems to me to be equally on target in
his scathing dismissal of psychoanalysis's most notorious bete
noire, Karl Popper (1962, q.v.), contending instead that it is
simply wrong to claim that psychoanalysis makes no testable,
falsifiable claims either with respect to therapeutic efficacy or to
the ontological hardware of the unconscious. If falsification is
the only criterion standing between psychoanalysis and entry
into the august company of the sciences, then entry is assured,
for there are plenty of instances of falsified hypotheses to be
found littering the Freudian and neo-Freudian corpus.
But Griinbaum's most important contribution to the debate
about the scientific status of psychoanalysis is his recognition of
the essential role that therapeutic efficacy played for Freud in
the empirical confirmation of psychoanalytic theory and tech-
nique. Nearly all of the existing contemporary discussion of
psychoanalysis (e.g. Fisher & Greenberg 1977; Lieberson 1985)
is concerned to show either that Freud was terribly obtuse in
failing to recognize the irremediably flawed nature of clinical
evidence from the couch in testing psychoanalytic hypotheses or
that he simply failed to realize how amenable psychoanalytic
technique would be to confirmation and discontinuation once
such indices as subliminal perception, galvanic skin responses,
and the epidemiological prevalence of lesbianism became
available.
Grunbaum shows that neither claim is sound vis-a-vis Freud's
work. Freud was acutely aware of the danger that clinical data
derived from therapeutic encounters with patients would be
dismissed either as the by-product of theoretically inspired
suggestion or as just so much placebo effect. Surely Grunbaum
is right in this since how could Freud, whose earliest
therapeutic efforts were so closely tied to the technique of
hypnosis, not be extraordinarily sensitive to the powers of
suggestion or the placebo effect?
Griinbaum's reconstruction of the "tally argument" as
Freud's attempt to circumvent the challenge posed by sug-
gestibility is a seminal contribution to the understanding of both
the history of Freud's work and the central role that therapeutic
efficacy must play in any assessment of Freudian theories of
psychoanalysis. The only way in which the centrality of the
analysis of transference in Freudian theory can be made credi-
ble is by viewing this aspect of the therapy in the context of
Freud's concern with developing a technique that would escape
the dangers of suggestibility while at the same time preserving
the value of clinical data and, ultimately, the significance of
therapeutic efficacy.
If Grunbaum is right, as I believe he is, to point to the tally
argument as the methodological linchpin of Freudian psycho-
analysis, then it is easy to see why those who would turn to
extraclinical methods for verifying psychoanalysis have moved
outside the realm of the Freudian research strategy or program.
Perhaps, as many have argued, it is possible to verify elements
of Freudian theory by means of prospective trials or cleverly
designed, controlled experiments. But the hypotheses that are
verified in this way will bear little relation to the theoretical
structure that Freud and his early followers believed they had
constructed to explain the therapeutic efficacy of psychoanalytic
techniques.
I would argue that the most interesting questions raised by
Griinbaum's analysis do not concern what psychoanalysis is or
should become once its Freudian foundations are removed.
Rather, I should think that those committed to the Freudian
research strategy would want to reexamine Griinbaum's attack
on the validity of the tally argument to see whether anything can
still be salvaged from this methodology.
Three lines of inquiry appear most promising. First, is it
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
really the case that there is no difference in the degree of
permanence of symptom alleviation among those who have
been treated with some form of Freudian technique and those
who have not? Is there really a sound enough data base available
concerning the ubiquitousness of spontaneous remissions or the
permanence of symptom alleviation in those who have not been
subjected to analysis to know that this element of what Grun-
baum refers to as "the necessary condition thesis" must be
abandoned? The inadequate status of epidemiological data con-
cerning therapeutic efficacy in most areas of medicine should
give the defenders of the Freudian enterprise pause before they
yield to Griinbaum's critique of this element of the tally
argument.
Second, is the analysis of transference a hopeless method for
disentangling by-products of suggestion or mere placebo effects
from what is valid insight on the part of a patient into the nature
of the sources of his afflictions? So little is known about the
effects of suggestion or the power and nature of the placebo
effect that devout Freudians might be poorly served by follow-
ing Griinbaum's suggestion that this technique has not stood the
test of empirically based research.
Last, are there no means for retrospectively analyzing what
takes place in the clinical encounter so as to show that at the end
of what is viewed as a successful analysis a patient's introspective
self-observations can be given probative force by an analyst who
is persuaded that they "tally" with his own causal hypotheses?
To some extent only the obstinacy of analysts themselves, who
refuse to try and obtain consent for research purposes to the
taping of psychoanalytic sessions, makes this claim such an easy
mark for Griinbaum's darts.
The rage today among those analysts interested in saving
psychoanalysis from its harshest philosophical critics is to move
outside the clinical encounter to try and find data that would
vindicate their theory. They are surely welcome to do so, but if
they do, what they ultimately discredit or vindicate will in all
likelihood have little to do with Freudian psychoanalysis.
Grunbaum has done psychoanalysis a far greater service by
pointing out the exact nature of the methodological commit-
ments the founder of the discipline has left to his followers.
Those who wish to follow in Freud's "pedal invasions" are,
thanks to Grunbaum, in a position to better understand where
they must go. One could hardly ask a friend to be more helpful
than that.
The scaffolding of psychoanalysis
Peter Caws
George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 20052
What does "foundations" mean in Griinbaum's title? His book is
about the claims of psychoanalysis to scientific status, and it rests
on an implicit assumption that sciences have'foundations on
which theoretical edifices are built. Now, in the singular, the
term has a nice ambiguity that is nevertheless illuminating: The
foundation of psychoanalysis as we have inherited it was due to
Freud, and even Grunbaum has no wish to challenge that. But
the foundations (in the second sense of the term) laid down at the
time of the foundation (in its first sense) may have been flawed,
and in that case it would be reasonable to look for weaknesses in
the resulting edifice.
However, we have to be sure that the edifice was actually
built, and I am not sure, in the case of psychoanalysis, that it
ever was. Perhaps all that could be built was the scaffolding. And
the scaffolding might not, and indeed probably would not, rest
on the foundation at all. I do not wish to strain this metaphor,
but it explains my title and its implications are obvious enough.
A lot of what Grunbaum criticizes, even in Freud's own work,
has very little to do with what Freud originally wanted the
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 229
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
foundations of psychoanalysis to be. In the Project for a Scien-
tific Psychology his ambition was to have a causal account resting
on neurophysiological evidence, even though such evidence
was strictly unobtainable at the time. What he actually did
manage to build was not on this foundation (and of course he
knew this perfectly well). It is true that he claimed scientific
status for it anyway - or at any rate he claimed that it had
scientific interest and should be regarded as a part of the science
of psychology. But it has to be admitted that psychoanalysis as a
fiill-fledged natural science has remained promissory.
Part of Griinbaum's intention is to expose theoretical and
methodological inadequacies, and in this he is devastatingly
successful. However, there is something about his enterprise
that makes one wonder whether perhaps it was too easy. His
book is one of the most combative I have ever read, although it
must be said that it is jovially combative - Grunbaum enjoys his
victories and signals them with triumphant exclamation points.
But from the very beginning, when he rolls in to crush Haber-
mas with a sort of argumentative tank, one has a sense of
mismatch between the weapons and their target. The latter's
work is soflimsythat it just tumbles down. But this may perhaps
be because in its clinical (rather than its metapsychological) form
psychoanalysis wasn't built on any foundation.
Grunbaum nevertheless provides one by reverse extrapola-
tion. It consists of an argument and a hypothesis: The tally
argument and the hypothesis of the etiological centrality of
repression. Needless to say he demolishes both to his own
satisfaction and, I may add (with one caveat), to mine: I have
very few arguments, in fact, with the particular destructive
conclusions that Grunbaum reaches. The caveat has to do with
the interpretation of an expression in the premise of the tally
argument. Freud says that the ideas given to the patient must
"tally with what is real in him" (my emphasis), but Grunbaum
sometimes seems to make this mean what was true about him,
which of course is a very different matter. It may be irrelevant
whether the patient's past external history confirms what he
claims about his childhood if in fact there is a present internal
structure of fears and repressed memories (which need not be
veridical) that needs to be dismantled.
What is at issue is the patient's predicament, and that is why
Habermas insists, to Grunbaum's scornful indignation, on the
privileged status of the patient's own judgment. Grunbaum is of
course right when he says that the patient is in one way as
ignorant as the therapist about the causal links he embodies, and
has to resort to theoretical clarification even to identify, let alone
confirm them. But this raises the central question I want to pose
(and, given the limitations of this commentary, must leave
largely unresolved): What kind of theory does the patient have
at his disposal? The desirable answer would seem to be a
natural-scientific theory resting on hypotheses about the sort of
patient he is and confirmed by clinical experience. Grunbaum
shows that no such thing is currently available. But I would like
to suggest another possibility, one I do not think Freud
entertained.
In making this suggestion I do not wish (like Habermas
or Ricoeur) to try to save Freud from what Habermas
calls "scientists self-misunderstanding" (Grunbaum, p. 42): I
think he really did mean psychoanalysis to have natural-scien-
tific status and to be true of the class of human beings, and I
think Grunbaum is right in saying that that claim fails. The
direction in which I believe we have to go (and I can only point to
it here) is to say that psychoanalysis is a natural science all right,
but the natural domain of which it is the science is the idiosyn-
cratic world of the individual patient, not the class of human
beings over which the natural science of psychology applies. In
other words, I think that clinical findings cannot reliably be
extrapolated beyond the case from which they are drawn. Every
new patient who walks into the analyst's office is a new world to
be explored - that is why treatment takes a long time - and the
230 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
task of analysis is the establishment of causal connections that
hold within the complex structure of that patient's cognitive and
emotional life.
Of course the experienced and sensitive analyst will be
helped by other cases, or case studies, or even general the-
oretical considerations, in the formulation of hypotheses about
the case in question. But the reason psychoanalysis is not the
science Freud hoped for, and the reason it collapses so readily
before Grunbaum's onslaught, is, I believe, that the science
itself, and not just some new boundary conditions, has to be
built afresh in every new clinical encounter. We can't be sure it
will even look Freudian, even though the process might begin
(and very likely with profit) from Freudian assumptions. All that
is publicly available for this building is the scaffolding. If, when
it is torn down, the edifice - in this case the self-understanding
of the patient - remains standing, its weaknesses will after all
perhaps not have mattered that much.
Did Freud rely on the tally argument to meet
the argument from suggestibility?
F. Cioffi
Department of Philosophy, University of Essex, Colchester C04 3SQ,
England
Grunbaum's ambitious and illuminating book is marred by a
profound misconception as to the role that appeal to therapeutic
efficacy played in Freud's defense of the legitimacy of his
interpretative practice and therefore of the claims it was invoked
to support. According to Grunbaum, "Freud had placed car-
dinal reliance on the Tally Argument [i.e. that interpretations
and reconstructions are only therapeutically effective when they
are true] to counter the indictment that clinical data are inauth-
entic as a result of suggestibility" (p. 166).
Insofar as Freud placed "cardinal reliance" on anything, it
was on what Grunbaum refers to as the "consilience" between
his inferences and the clinical and extraclinical data. He be-
lieved in the overwhelming influence of the Wolf Man's primal
scene not because of its therapeutic effect but because of its
narrative power - its ability to confer intelligibility on the data.
For the tally argument to have any credibility, Freud would
have to have been in a position to assert not only the superiority
of his therapeutic achievements to that of his rivals but the
dependence of this superiority on the content of his disputed
etiological and dynamic theses. He knew that he could assert
neither and he had a juster appreciation of the limitations of the
tally argument than Grunbaum who describes it as "brilliant."
The tally argument thus depends on a premise which Freud
could have had no reason to believe true and which he might
have had some reason to believe false.
Would not Freud's therapeutic successes while holding the
mistaken seduction theory undermine the tally argument?
Grunbaum attempts to deal with this difficulty by quoting from a
letter to Fliess in which Freud complains of his therapeutic
results (p. 159), but we are entitled to suspect that he might not
have found the state of these patients so unsatisfactory had he
not already decided that the assumptions on which he had
treated them were mistaken. In any case, within months of the
seduction debacle, Freud was speaking of his "countless suc-
cesses. " It can hardly have escaped his notice that these suc-
cesses were achieved while he held erroneous views.
Freud's tally argument was too weak to give him what he
needed because even his developmental claims far outstripped
the validating power, such as it was, of favourable therapeutic
outcome. These claims pertained to normal character structure

as well as to pathological conditions over which Freud believed
no therapeutic influence could be exerted. Furthermore, the
tally argument could not be invoked when it was a question of
Freud's interpretations of dreams and errors where there was no
therapeutic upshot to vouch for their veridicality.
If Freud really believed his tally argument rendered the
analysts' suggestions "epistemically innocuous," why would he
have gone to such lengths to deny (untruthfully) that he antici-
pated the patients' productions? Grunbaum notes Freud's prac-
tice of anticipation but not Freud's repeated denials that he
engaged in it. Of the Rat Man, Freud tells us, "I got him to agree
that I had not led him to the subject of childhood or sex but that
he had raised them of his own free will" (Freud 1925, p. 320). In
"The Question of Lay Analysis," "the analyst never entices his
patients on to the ground of sex" (Freud 1962, p. 118). Nor does
Grunbaum's thesis square well with Freud's remark, "It is often
just in those cases where treatment fails that most discoveries
are made" (the lengthy footnote to the Rat Man case.) And isn't it
strange that Freud should think his most irrefragable proof came
from just those conditions, for example, dementia praecox,
which are resistant to psychoanalytic treatment? Is this the
behaviour of someone who is convinced he has rendered sug-
gestibility "epistemically innocuous"?
Another device for meeting the suggestibility argument
which goes unnoticed by Grunbaum is the attempt to shift the
evidential basis of Freud's theories to his extraclinical explanato-
ry triumphs (Oedipus, Hamlet, totem and taboo) in which
suggestion could not operate.
Grunbaum is also mistaken to say that if challenged as to the
grounds for his theory of infantile sexuality Freud "would" have
appealed to his tally argument. We know what he "would"
appeal to because we know what he did appeal to: direct
observation. "My surprising discoveries as to the sexuality of
children were made in the first instance through the analysis of
adults. But later, from about 1908 onwards, it became possible
to confirm them in the most satisfactory way in every detail by
direct observation upon children." (Freud 1935, p. 70).
A plethora of illustrations of the independence of Freud's
confidence in his etiological and dynamic constructions from
their therapeutic effects is to be found in the case histories.
Freud often expresses certainty as to the correctness of an
interpretation in which there is no question of therapeutic
effect, such as Dora's playing with her reticule, her pseudoap-
pendicitis, her limp, and so on (Freud 1905). Such examples
seem more frequent than those in which Freud appeals to
therapeutic effectiveness. It is arguable that even in these cases
Freud's conviction that his interpretations were therapeutically
effective was based on their thematic affinity with the symptom
content which remitted. Freud's allusions to the Wolf Man case
after it became apparent that he was once more deranged are
untouched by any trace of uncertainty or tentativeness.
One is curious as to how Grunbaum will deal with Freud's
complacency once his therapeutic pessimism precluded his
appealing to the tally argument. He cites a consilience argument
put forward in 1937 and explains that, because Freud no longer
felt he could fall back on the tally argument, he now had to resort
to considerations of consilience. But considerations of con-
silience had been, from the child's picture puzzle analogy of
1896 (Freud 1924) to the jigsaw puzzle analogy of 1925 (Freud
1950), the principal basis adduced by Freud in support of his
reconstructions.
Grunbaum's emphasis on the tally argument is not only
mistaken in itself but is a great strategic error. The right
procedure would have been to examine the specimens of con-
silience put forward by Freud and to have shown that not only
do they fail to surpass that of rival accounts but they generally
fail to meet the standards of plausible story telling (vague as
these are) current in good historical, biographical, or forensic
practice.
Com??ientarj//Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis as hermeneutics
Morris N. Eagle
Department of Psychology, York University, Downsview, Ontario, M3J 1P3,
Canada
I believe that Grunbaum's book represents a major contribution
not only to thinking about psychoanalysis but also to a number of
broader issues. In this limited space I cannot enumerate, let
alone discuss, the various contributions the book makes. I want
to focus on Grunbaum's discussion of the hermeneutic concep-
tion of psychoanalysis because, for reasons I will try to show, I
think its importance goes well beyond an evaluation of psycho-
analysis. However, I want to state my view that if at least some of
the critical questions Grunbaum raises regarding psycho-
analysis are not dealt with, it will be difficult to justify, on
rational grounds, its continued influence and growth.
Were Grunbaum's book limited to his long introductory
critique of the hermeneutic conception of psychoanalytic theory
and therapy, it would represent a major contribution, not only
to clear thinking about psychoanalysis, but to clear thinking
about human behavior in general. Because of its purported
emphasis on interpretation and meaning rather than causal
explanation, reasons rather than causes, "narrative truth" rather
than "historical truth," psychic reality rather than objective
reality, psychoanalysis has been "selected" by hermeneutic
thinkers to serve as a prototype for the hermeneutic approach to
the "human sciences" or Geisteswissenschoften, as envisioned
by Dilthey (1961) and others. Hence, the concerns here are
much broader and larger than the proper construal of psycho-
analysis. Although psychoanalysis is the case in point and the
arena in which the battles are to be fought, the broad issue at
stake is nothing less than the question of the proper account of
human phenomena - human behavior, feelings, cognitions, and
so on. With regard to human behavior, we are told by her-
meneuticians that "actions have no causes" (Schafer 1976); that
"there are no facts" (Ricoeur 1974); that both science and causal
explanation entail ontological reduction to the physical; that
"the patient himself is the final authority" in regard to psycho-
analytic interpretations (Habermas 1971); that the success and
failure (of a psychoanalytic interpretation) cannot be intersub-
jectively established (Habermas 1971); that when a formulation
or statement is persuasive and convincing, it thereby acquires a
special kind of "narrative truth" (Spence 1982; 1983); that
"because [a] newly composed [analytic] story of the analysand's
life is more beautifully wrought, it works better. The truth of
this story is thereby contingent on aesthetic and pragmatic
considerations" (Geha 1984); and a host of other things so vague
and fuzzy that merely repeating them here would serve no
purpose - their meaning would not be clear. The programmatic
aim of hermeneuticians seems to be nothing less than to render
human behavior exempt from causal accounts and scientific
explanation. In this regard, it continues the until now futile
efforts of the post-Kantian idealists who issued promissory notes
toward the establishment of epistemologically and meth-
odologically unique and independent "human sciences."
Over the years, psychoanalysis has been subjected to crit-
icisms and basic questions having to do with the need for
empirical testing, the validity of interpretations, the problem of
suggestibility, and adequate demonstrations of therapeutic
efficacy. These questions and criticisms, all of which have in
common the central issue of accountability, have not been
adequately confronted, let alone dealt with successfully. One
irresistible appeal the hermeneutic construal of psychoanalysis
has had for some psychoanalytic thinkers is that in one fell
philosophical swoop psychoanalysis is immunized against these
various persistent and troubling problems of accountability and
need no longer be troubled by them. Thus since "there are no
facts" and "actions have no causes," psychoanalysts need only
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 231
Commentary /Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
generate self-consistent and persuasive accounts and they will
thereby acquire a special kind of truth, "narrative truth." The
most striking example of avoidance of accountability is that in
the whole corpus of hermeneutic literature on psychoanalysis,
there is, remarkably enough, little or no recognition of the
compelling need to evaluate and test, systematically and
rigorously, claims concerning the therapeutic efficacy of psy-
choanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Hermeneutic
writers are fond of speaking of the transformative powers and
effects of psychoanalysis - Habermas (1971) writes about the
therapeutic power of self-reflection, for example. But nowhere
in their writings do they appear to recognize that merely
asserting repeatedly that psychoanalysis has transformative
powers and effects bears no connection to whether or not it does
in fact have these powers and effects. Nor do they appear to
recognize the need for controlled and systematic studies to test
these grand claims. Even if psychoanalysis were entirely a
hermeneutic discipline, one can test empirically the claim that it
has such and such specifiable effects on human behavior and
experiences (just as one could test empirically the claim that
reading the New Testament has such and such specifiable effects
on human behavior and experiences).
Griinbaum's devastating critique of hermeneutic conceptions
and formulations - for example, his demonstration of the embar-
rassingly fallacious thinking underlying Habermas's "causality
of fate"; his reminder that causality can link events of diverse
ontological sorts; his equally important reminder that, contrary
to hermeneuticians, science is defined methodologically rather
than via ontological reduction to the physical; his demonstra-
tions of the incredibly fuzzy and sloppy thinking behind many
hermeneutic formulations - all of these constitute vital contri-
butions not only to clarity regarding the psychoanalytic enter-
prise, but to attempts to think clearly and fruitfully about how
human behavior can be meaningfully explained. It is vitally
important to respond to hermeneutic arguments and to expose
their weakness and essential emptiness. This alone represents a
major contribution.
The evidential value of the psychoanalyst's
clinical data
Marshall Edelson
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven,
Conn. 06519
Griinbaum asserts that empirical warrant for the credibility of
psychoanalytic hypotheses is, given scientific standards of meth-
od and reasoning, insufficient. (This is very different from
asserting, as some critics of psychoanalysis have been wont to
do, that it is justifiable on present knowledge to dismiss psycho-
analytic hypotheses as either false or scientifically meaningless;
the difference is a sign of the sophistication of Griinbaum's
critique.) According to Griinbaum, the inadequacy of the em-
pirical foundation of psychoanalysis is in large part a conse-
quence of the stubbornness with which psychoanalysts have
fallaciously argued and mistakenly concluded that their clinical
data, obtained in the psychoanalytic situation, provide sufficient
and satisfactory empirical support for the scientific credibility of
their hypotheses. But in his view such data, because of the clash
between essential characteristics of the psychoanalytic situation
and essential requirements of scientific method and reasoning,
cannot possibly test psychoanalytic hypotheses and thereby
provide the required support. He challenges psychoanalysis,
therefore, to produce instead the extraclinical - epidemiologic
and experimental - data that are capable of testing the causal
claims made by psychoanalytic hypotheses, for passing tests
such as these is necessary if a contemporary psychoanalysis is to
build the strong empirical foundation upon which its scientific
credibility must ultimately depend.
232 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
There can be little question about the cogency of Griinbaum's
detailed demonstrations that psychoanalysts have argued fall-
aciously when they have concluded that data obtained in the
psychoanalytic situation provide scientific support for in-
ferences that a particular causal event (whether situational or
intrapersonal) has occurred and furthermore (assuming one is
willing to grant that this event has occurred) that it bears a causal
relation - is causally relevant - to the clinical phenomenon of
interest. Examples are his documentation of psychoanalysts'
dependence on the tally argument (with its empirically un-
justified premises), on "confirmation" of hypotheses by enu-
meration of mere positive instances of them, and on post hoc
ergo propter hoc reasoning. Yet, as should be clear from my
recent book, Hypothesis and Evidence in Psychoanalysis (1984),
whereas I do agree with Griinbaum that the canons of elim-
inative inductivism are the canons of scientific reasoning and
method, that the case study investigations of psychoanalysis
have involved serious violations of these canons, and that it is
the responsibility of contemporary psychoanalysis to bring its
investigations into conformity with these canons, I cannot agree
with his conclusion that any reliance by psychoanalysis on data
obtained from the psychoanalytic situation to support its causal
inferences according to these canons is by the very nature of
things doomed to failure and that psychoanalysis must turn
instead entirely to epidemiologic and experimental research for
such support.
Of course, I would have no trouble agreeing with Griinbaum
that epidemiologic and experimental studies should be at-
tempted. What one looks for in psychoanalysis as in any science
is a convergence of conclusions based on tests of the same
hypotheses carried out in different ways - intraclinically, epide-
miologically, and experimentally; each way has its advantages
and disadvantages with respect both to internal and external
validity (Edelson 1984, pp. 125-26). Yet, Griinbaum seems to
me to be uncharacteristically ingenuous in recommending car-
rying out epidemiologic and experimental studies to test psy-
choanalytic hypotheses (while also maintaining that it is fruitless
to turn to clinical data to test these hypotheses), without at the
same time emphasizing:
(1) the exceptional difficulties posed even in using such studies
to test nonpsychoanalytic hypotheses in the clinical realm;
(2) how much greater the difficulties are in psychoanalysis,
where causal variables are often intrapersonal (e.g. fantasies)
rather than situational (e.g. parental behavior) and where it is
impossible, unfeasible, or unethical to mobilize the phenomena
of interest (e.g. intense and, for the subject, highly objection-
able sexual or aggressive impulses) in anything like the relevant
intensities outside the clinical situation.
This apparent ingenuousness is especially manifest in one
rather startling lapse by Griinbaum from the scholarly apprecia-
tion he has shown throughout his book for what Freud is up to.
Griinbaum seriously proposes that the putative causal link
between paranoia and unconscious conflicts over homosexuality
should be tested by comparing groups of subjects, one group
from a society with more and another from a society with less
tolerant attitudes toward homosexuality, on the assumption that
it follows from psychoanalytic theory that the former group
should have a lower incidence of paranoia than the latter. But
many psychoanalytic hypotheses cannot be tested in this way
just because it may not be a situational variable such as "social
attitude" that is held to be causally relevant by psychoanalytic
theory. What if the theory holds that unconscious conflicts about
homosexuality develop in early childhood, more or less inde-
pendently of the rationalized social codes of adult life even as
these are translated into child-rearing practices, and that these
conflicts have their origin in the child's instinctual wishes,
unfolding and varying in intensity relatively independently of
the intrinsic features of actually and accurately experienced
situations; and that these wishes are expressed in the child's
fantasies about his own and others' bodies, about certain kinds of

acts, and about the imagined consequences, both desired and
undesired, of carrying out these acts? This is a possible, interest-
ing theory, whether true or not, even if its testability by the
methods Griinbaum urges upon psychoanalysis in place of its
reliance on clinical data is problematic.
For similar reasons, I am not happy with Griinbaum's treat-
ment of free association. He argues that the method cannot bear
the weight Freud places upon it. Griinbaum questions the
credentials of free association as a method that, it is claimed,
warrants conclusions about causes. According to him, such
claims are based on a misextrapolation from the experiences
described in Studies on Hysteria (Breuer & Freud 1893-1895);
the mere appearance of a content in a stream of associations
cannot provide warrant for the conclusion that an event has
occurred or has causal relevance. Despite Griinbaum's overall
appreciative depiction of Freud as sophisticated and knowl-
edgeable about methodological issues (even granting that Freud
failed to solve methodological problems of which he was aware),
Griinbaum's portrayal of the reasoning Freud used in his meth-
od of free association suggests that Freud was here guilty of the
most egregious errors in logic and gross causal fallacies. It seems
more likely to me that Freud believed his inferences from data
obtained by the method of free association were justified by a
complex set of premises about the mental apparatus, adum-
brated, for example, in The Interpretation of Dreams (see
Edelson 1984, pp. 134-35). I would prefer a criticism of Freud
that raised questions about the credibility of these premises,
rather than one that here suddenly has him become a simpleton.
Because I want to argue for the potential evidential value of
the psychoanalyst's clinical data, I may pay more attention than
it deserves, given the power of Griinbaum's overall perfor-
mance, to his strange lapse (as he attempts to discredit the
method of free association) from his usual high level of fairness,
his masterly grasp of the complexity of the theory he critiques,
and the care and generosity with which he reads other passages
of Freud in the light of his knowledge of the context of the
passage and aim of its author. The lapse to which I refer is
apparent when, in writing about the Irma Dream as the paradig-
matic depiction offreeassociation, Grunbaum takes the associa-
tions Freud reports and on the basis of these mocks Freud's
claims for free association - to the effect that unconscious
infantile wishes can be discovered by free association that have
been and are active and which have played a causal role in
dream-formation. Grunbaum zeros in on the fact that Freud's
reported associations involve recent conscious wishes only.
Why, here, in particular, does Grunbaum ignore Freud's many
explicit statements that on grounds of discretion he was giving a
much edited approximation to the products of free association,
an imperfect illustration of what a patient's free associations
might sound like - wouldn't Freud have been the first to
acknowledge that this patient was having a good deal of difficulty
suspending judgment and conscious control over the direction
of her thinking and was very reluctant to utter aloud what she
was in fact consciously thinking?
Grunbaum should not be blamed for this particular lapse,
because Freud's unsolved problem in exposition is in part also
conceptual and it has never been solved in the psychoanalytic
literature. With respect specifically to the problem of the
evidential value of what is produced by free association, Grun-
baum, with his customary perspicacity, seems here to have at
least touched a nerve. For surely the degree of success with
which any procedure is carried out must make a difference in the
evidential value of what is obtained through its use. And just
what difference does the degree of success make, and how is this
difference to be detected and calibrated? About these matters,
Freud and others in the psychoanalytic literature have very
little to say.
In fact, neither Grunbaum nor the many discussions of free
association in the psychoanalytic literature carefully distinguish
the procedure itself, and the degree of success with which on a
Commentary I'Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
particular occasion it is implemented, from the various kinds of
productions obtained when attempts are made to carry out the
procedure, and the properties these productions manifest on
particular occasions of attempted use of the procedure (es-
pecially those properties that bear on their evidential value).
Theoretical presuppositions always underlie a procedure for
obtaining data in science. What theoretical presuppositions
about the mental apparatus do in fact underlie free association
(regarded now solely as an instrument for obtaining data rele-
vant to the assessment of the credibility of psychoanalytic
hypotheses)? What empirical support exists independently of
the use of the procedure itself for these presuppositions? We
psychoanalysts have not even precisely specified what variables
(e.g. suspension of conscious purposiveness) constitute the
procedure itself; how to estimate the values these variables take
(e.g. the degree to which.such suspension is achieved); and how
to determine just what properties of communications change,
and in what way, as these variables take different values. The
answers to such questions must be sought by psychoanalysis in
the years ahead if it is to refute convincingly Griinbaum's claim
that there is no way to differentiate among the mass of clinical
material those communications having greater degrees of evi-
dential value from those having lesser degrees.
In short, I am not inclined to quarrel with Griinbaum's
diagnosis, whatever quibble we may have over details, but I am
prepared to question his remedy. I have made my own proposal
for dealing with the problems he has so compellingly identified
(Edelson 1984, especially pp. 157-60), and this includes in part:
(a) clarification of just what the hypotheses are that require
testing; (b) exploitation of recent conceptual and methodological
developments in single subject research; (c) building upon the
directions set by Luborsky (1962; 1973; Luborsky & Mintz
1974), who has used his symptom-context method to test hy-
potheses according to the canons of eliminative inductivism in
single subject studies, and Glymour (1980), who has explicated
how a bootstrap strategy may be used to test hypotheses in such
a case study as the Rat Man; and (d) exploitation of methods
recently developed in the social sciences for making valid causal
inferences when data are nonexperimental or qualitative.
Grunbaum has every right (and perhaps from his point of view
every reason) to remain skeptical that such a program can or will
be carried out and that taking such a direction will ever remedy
the defects in the foundation of psychoanalysis he has identified.
Here, of course, only time will tell. But, to my colleagues, I
suggest, let us make a hopeful beginning. What if we were to
adopt the following minimal set of standards to be met by clinical
case studies in order to be accepted in our psychoanalytic
literature? (I refer here of course only to that literature which
purports to constitute a scientific body of knowledge.)
1. What the author is asserting - his hypothesis, conclusion,
or generalization about a case or treatment - is clearly and
prominently stated.
2. The author shows how his hypothesis about the case or
treatment explains or accounts for the observations he reports;
he does not merely juxtapose them.
3. The author is careful to separate facts or observations from
his interpretations of them, which is to say he distinguishes what
can be observed without knowledge or use of the theory being
tested from interpretations based upon the very theory such
observations are being used to test.
4. The author specifies what observations, if they had oc-
curred, he would have accepted as grounds for rejecting his
hypothesis.
5. The author reports at least some observations that appar-
ently contradict his hypothesis, or that he has difficulty explain-
ing, and indicates how he plans to deal with such counterexam-
ples. If he does not reject his hypothesis, he makes clear his
grounds for holding on to it or how these counterexamples limit
its scope.
6. Since any set of observations can be explained in different
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 233
Commentary!'Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
ways, the author gives some argument why his observations are
better evidence for his hypothesis than for at least one compara-
ble rival or competing hypothesis.
7. Even if the author's observations can be argued to favor his
own conjecture over a rival, he considers - as Freud himself did,
for example, in the case of the problem of suggestion - what
factors operating in the situation in which he made his observa-
tions could have resulted in his obtaining these favorable data
even if his hypothesis were false. He presents some argument,
even though it be a nondesign argument, for dismissing at least
one such factor as a plausible alternative explanation for his
having obtained the data he would like to regard as favorable to
his hypothesis.
8. He makes clear to what extent he proposes to generalize his
hypothesis about the case or treatment to similar cases or
treatments, and presents some argument justifying such a
generalization.
Can we then not imagine a day when Grunbaum, faced just by
case studies meeting these standards - we will not now imagine
confronting him also with studies involving more complex or
sophisticated single subject research methodologies - finds
himself compelled to acknowledge that clinical data not only
might but do contribute critically to the assessment of the
credibility of psychoanalytic hypotheses?
Psychoanalysis has a wider scope than the
retrospective discovery of etiologies
Matthew Hugh Erdelyi
Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York,
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11210
The gist of Grunbaum's position on psychoanalysis is that Freud
was much more sophisticated methodologically than he is cred-
ited with having been; that he maintained - and not through any
confusion - the natural science character of psychoanalysis; that
he was acutely aware of the methodological problem of
therapeutic suggestion contaminating, indeed creating, the
clinical "data" that undergirded the "science"; that Freud had
actually proposed a brilliant, hitherto undiscovered defense of
his clinical data, which Grunbaum calls the "tally argument";
but that the defense failed to hold for a variety of reasons; and
that therefore the probative value of clinical data is after all
unavailing.
The tally argument that Grunbaum attributes to Freud (I
believe there is more Grunbaum in it than he allows) is some-
what complex, comprising, according to Grunbaum, two con-
clusions following from two premises (p. 140). Its essential
Freudian ingredient is that although incorrect insights sug-
gested by the therapist to the patient might be accepted for a
while, they eventually drop out because they do not lead to a
cure. Thus, therapeutic success ensures that the insights that
led to the patient's cure "tally with what is real in him" (Freud
1917). The problem that Grunbaum sees with the argument is
that other types of therapy that do not depend on insight also
produce cures and that, moreover, remissions regularly occur
with no therapy. Because cures can arise with no insight, cures
cannot be the warrantors of insight. Hence there is no protec-
tion against the possibility that the patient's "insights" are the
therapist's creations via suggestion, and that, therefore, the
therapist's theory solipsistically manufactures the clinical data
that validate it.
My problem with the tally argument is not Grunbaum's
criticism, but his original enthusiasm for it. Even if research had
shown that psychoanalysis and no other treatment modality was
effective, that there were no spontaneous remissions of symp-
toms (which are not an embarrassment for psychoanalysis, as
Grunbaum seems to believe), and that some insights but not
234 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
others produced cures, it would still not follow logically that the
curative insights are veridical. Before the turn of the century,
Janet (1889) had pioneered a memory reconstruction therapy in
which traumatic memories were converted, under hypnosis,
into pleasant pseudomemories. These reconstructions were
claimed to result in long-term cures. The right kind of false
memory or insight may be therapeutic - and not only because of
suggestion effects; actually, true insight, as some modern re-
search on depression implies, may be countertherapeutic. It
seems, therefore, that there was good reason for the tally
argument to have languished undiscovered. It does not have the
power, even in principle, to validate insights without extra-
clinical corroboration. This does not have the catastrophic con-
sequence that Grunbaum perceives for psychoanalysis, howev-
er, in part because psychoanalysis has a far wider scope than the
retrospective discovery of etiologies.
Grunbaum does not sufficiently allow for the evolution of
psychoanalytic therapy from its turn-of-the-century form. What
had been a hypermnesic instrument for recovering repressed
pathogenic memories became, through the medium of free
association and transference, a vehicle for insight. This insight is
not, as Grunbaum seems to conceive of it, merely the recovery
of veridical memories from childhood, but the expanding
awareness - and emotional "working through" - of thematic
patterns in the patient's life. Much of the data base for such
insights are outcroppings from the here-and-now of the trans-
ference relation and of the patient's current life.
Furthermore, psychoanalysis is not merely a therapeutic
enterprise; it is also, as Freud emphasized, a branch of general
psychology. Its ambit extends far beyond psychopathology,
encompassing an incredibly rich network of propositions about
unconscious processes, defense mechanisms, symbolism, trans-
formational processes, the distinction between manifest and
latent contents, jokes, development, fantasy, and the like.
Etiology is hardly the ubiquitous preoccupation of psycho-
analysis. Nor need psychoanalysis be hobbled by an exclusion-
ary reliance on clinical data. Freud himself drew extensively
from extraclinical materials over which he had no suggestive
influence - for example, the autobiography of the psychotic Dr.
Schreber (1911); even experimental work, such as Potzl's classic
study of 1917 of the emergence of subliminal stimuli in dreams,
formed an early part of the psychoanalytic tradition. Freud was
not against experiments, only against silly experiments.
Grunbaum's undue emphasis on merely the clinical aspect of
psychoanalysis leads to the confounding of a number of the-
oretical points. Since he devotes at least two chapters to the
problem, it is worth underscoring that the cornerstone theory of
repression (defense) is not the same as the hypothesis that
repression is the etiological determinant of certain neuroses.
Grunbaum seems to shrug off the former as either trivial or
unoriginal. This stance, however, is idiosyncratic. The etiology
tail need not wag the repression dog.
Grunbaum's overriding concern with etiology seems to re-
flect a commitment to a cause-and-effect conception of meaning.
Although Freud, as a determinist, often expressed this type of
view, his actual interpretations of the meaning of dreams, slips,
symptoms, and so on, belie such a narrow approach. Typically,
the meanings that Freud uncovered were not deterministic but
determinate relationships, ones involving coherences, inter-
connections, patterns (cf. Erdelyi 1985). When one establishes
the meaning of an unknown word from its context, one does not
establish that the context has caused the unknown word. One
need not know the cause of a joke to understand its meaning. It
may be true that free associations do not necessarily yield causes
(and therefore etiologies) by retracing the cause-and-effect
chain; but that may be the wrong model. Rather, free associa-
tions may yield meanings, and they may therefore function after
all as microscopes/telescopes of the mind, by providing the
contextual ecology from which meanings may be derived (Er-
delyi 1985).

Grunbaum emphasizes some of the methodological defects
of the clinical method (which has many, but then so do the lab-
oratory methods of experimental psychology and of the neuro-
sciences). The issue is not either-or or all-or-none. The scien-
tist is not an armchair methodologist: He must make the best of
imperfect (if improvable) tools. The clinical method has not
only weaknesses but also strengths. Questions concerning exis-
tence, for example, can be answered through the clinical meth-
od. Thus, it is not necessary to refer to modern experimental
studies of hypnotic hypermnesia to assert that hypnotic recall is
often confabulatory. The phenomenon of hypnotic paramnesia
was painfully brought home to Freud by his clinical data and is
an important empirical contribution from the clinic. The clini-
cian can also use a variety of within-subjects strategies in which
the patient serves as his own control (cf. Freud 1892-1893).
Clinical sessions can be videotaped and subjected to rigorous
and impartial analyses; thus, processes manifesting themselves
in therapy sessions may be exactingly investigated within a
clinical framework. Moreover, because clinical work often ex-
tends over many years, long-term phenomena are elicited
(such as transference) which the typical laboratory approach
would not even contact. Implicit between-subject designs are
also possible when base rates are available. And, ultimately,
clinical situations can be treated in an experimental fashion -
as when comparing different kinds of therapeutic intervention.
In the last 30 pages or so of his book, Grunbaum begins to
touch on such possibilities and, it seems, to back off somewhat
from his disparagement of clinical data; but this really seems an
afterthought, one not reflected in his main conclusions. Grun-
baum does suggest that "serendipity" might account for the
possible validity of some psychoanalytic propositions. This may
be so, but it may also be the case that the clinical method, with
all its imperfections, had something to do with it.
Defending Freudianism
Edward Erwin
Philosophy Department, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. 33756
Grunbaum's work presents a serious challenge to those who
believe that they have rational grounds for accepting Freudian
doctrines. Freudians are likely to respond in any of several
ways.
1. First, it might be argued (Flax 1981) that contemporary
psychoanalysts have made significant modifications in Freudian
theory; so, attacking Freud's views does not necessarily damage
current psychoanalytic theories. As Grunbaum points out in his
book, there are at least two difficulties confronting this re-
sponse. First, he is challenging the evidential support for
certain Freudian hypotheses that are common to almost all
variants of psychoanalytic theory. An example is the hypothesis
that repression plays a key causal role in the development of
neurotic problems. If one rejects this hypothesis and all of the
others said by Grunbaum to be unfounded, then it is unclear
why one's theory should be counted as a form of psychoanalysis.
Second, the epistemological problems that Grunbaum raises for
the clinical confirmation of orthodox Freudian theory are also
problems for newer versions of the theory.
2. A Freudian may concede the weaknesses of the clinical data
but still appeal to experimental studies of Freudian theory. This
response, however, would not vindicate Freud's confidence in
his theory, for Freud relied almost entirely on clinical evidence.
That is also true of most contemporary analysts. So, pointing to
the experimental evidence, even if it is cogent, fails to show that
most Freudians have a rational basis for their theoretical beliefs.
Those who appeal to experimental evidence might agree, but
reply that their goal is only to show that firm evidence for
Freudian theory does exist. Even on this point I am skeptical. I
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
have recently reviewed most of the important experimental
studies, those cited in support of Freudian theory by Kline
(1981), Silverman (1976), and Fisher and Greenberg(1977), and
I have concluded that they fail to provide strong support for any
part of Freud's theory (Erwin 1985). Finally, those who agree
that existing experimental studies are weak might look to future
experimental work to vindicate Freudian views. I would agree
with this, but it fails to show that anyone now has any rational
grounds for thinking Freudian theory true or the therapy
efficacious.
3. A third reply, one likely to be made by most confirmed
Freudians, is to try to show that the clinical data do warrant
acceptance of significant parts of Freudian theory. As far as I
know, Marshall Edelson (1984) has made the only detailed
response of this kind to Grunbaum, although Flax (1981) makes
a few brief comments in support of clinical confirmation, as does
Glymour (1982), but with much caution and qualification. Be-
cause Grunbaum replies to both Flax and Glymour in his book, I
will concentrate on the issues raised by Edelson.
On two points I agree with Edelson, and I suspect that
Grunbaum would too, although he might wish to qualify his
agreement. I agree with Edelson (1984, p. 121) that it is possible
in principle to obtain clinical confirmation of Freudian theory, if
this means that there is at least some possible world in which
clinical confirmation is feasible. I also agree that, under certain
favorable conditions, disconfirmation is possible in our world in
a clinical setting. Edelson, however, also wants to argue that (a)
clinical confirmation is possible in our world and that (b) it has
already occurred. As to the second claim, Edelson offers exactly
two examples. One is Freud's Rat Man case. Grunbaum dis-
cusses this case extensively in his book and, in my view, shows
that it is not an example of clinical confirmation. The other
example is the case of Miss X, discussed earlier by Luborsky
(1973).
While undergoing psychoanalysis, Miss X sometimes mo-
mentarily forgot what she had wanted to say to her analyst. In
approximately 300 sessions, this occurred only 13 times.
Edelson contends that a statistical correlation was found be-
tween intensification of conflict and momentary forgetting (p.
146). What Luborsky (1973) actually found, however, was a
correlation between references to the therapist and momentary
forgetting. Edelson assumes without evidence that if the client
referred to the therapist in any way, this was a sign of emotional
involvement with the therapist. Furthermore, neither
Luborsky nor Edelson rules out a non-Fruedian explanation of
the correlation found by Luborsky. One possibility is that when
Miss X referred to her therapist, she was distracted either by
him or by some conscious thought, and this distraction caused
the momentary forgetting. (In one session in which she referred
to the therapist, and forgetting occurred, session 36, she was
struck by the disquieting thought that he was not really listen-
ing; in another session, 20, it occurred to her that the analyst
believed he could not help her.) Edelson, however, concedes
(p. 146) that Luborsky found only a statistical correlation and
obtained no evidence of a causal relation. If that is true, and if
Grunbaum is right about the Rat Man case, then Edelson is left
with no example whatsoever of a clinical confirmation of a
Freudian causal hypothesis. (It may be that Edelson does not
intend that either the Rat Man case or the case of Miss X be
construed as an example of clinical confirmation, but then he has
no examples, unless he wishes to count Breuer's treatment of
Anna 0, which is discussed below.)
Edelson also suggests that psychoanalytic theory can be
confirmed in a clinical setting through the use of single subject,
experimental and quasi-experimental designs. As an example,
he cites Hersen and Barlow's (1976) discussion of a multiple
baseline design. These authors do say (p. 9) that Breuer used
such a design in establishing the effectiveness of his treatment of
Anna O. However, they also note that Breuer failed to rule out
the possibility that the patient improved because of suggestion
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 235
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
and not because of Breuer's interpretations. The problem that
Breuer faced will arise in other cases: Anyone who wishes to use
a single subject multiple baseline design to establish the effec-
tiveness of a therapy must explain how a placebo hypothesis is to
be ruled out. Other single subject designs may be more suitable
for that purpose, but it still needs to be shown that they can be
used to establish the effectiveness of a therapy such as psycho-
analysis, which involves several components and typically lasts
two years or more, or that they can be used to resolve the very
complex problems that arise in trying to confirm Freud's the-
oretical hypotheses.
If Edelson were to show how single subject designs could be
used to test Freudian hypotheses, this demonstration would
warrant the rejection, or at least a modification, of Griinbaum's
conclusion (p. 278) that confirmation of Freud's ideas must come
from extraclinical studies. Such a demonstration, however,
would not refute his major contention: Insofar as the psycho-
analytic corpus is based on current clinical data, the warrant is
remarkably weak.
I close with a question that Grunbaum does not address in his
book. If there is nofirmevidence in support of Freudian theory,
what should our present epistemic attitude be? Should we
disbelieve the theory or should we merely suspend judgment? I
agree with Grunbaum that future studies might confirm central
parts of the theory and that the absence of evidence does not, by
itself, warrant disbelief. There are, however, two considerations
that incline me toward a tentative belief that much of the theory
is wrong. First, there are clinical and experimentalfindingsthat
are difficult to explain using Freudian theory. An example is the
success of certain behavioral and cognitive techniques, and the
failure to find that symptom substitution generally follows suc-
cessful symptomatic treatment (Erwin 1978; Rachman & Wilson
1980). Even apart from these findings, most of Freud's hypoth-
eses are implausible given our background evidence; that is one
reason they are interesting. Most are neither trivial nor self-
evident. Of course, they are not all equally implausible, and
some may have indirect support even if the evidence does not
yet warrant their acceptance. Nevertheless, for those that are
implausible, all things considered, does not the absence of
evidence warrant a harsher verdict than "not proven"? Are we
not entitled to say, although tentatively, "there is some reason
to think them false"?
Failure of treatment - failure of theory?
Hans J. Eysenck
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, London SE5 8AF,
England
In my own writings (Eysenck 1985a; Eysenck & Wilson 1973) I
have always taken it for granted that the obvious failure of
Freudian therapy to significantly improve on spontaneous re-
mission or placebo treatment (Rachman & Wilson 1980) is the
clearest proof we have of the inadequacy of Freudian theory,
closely followed by the success of alternative methods of treat-
ment, such as behaviour therapy (Kazdin & Wilson 1978). My
reason was simply that Freud clearly predicted two things, on
the basis of his general theory. The first of these was that
psychoanalysis would succeed in curing neurotic disorders,
which clearly it does not, and the second was that no other,
purely "symptomatic" therapy would succeed as well, or better,
which behaviour therapy clearly does. In other words, we have
here one of the few points where Freud makes definite predic-
tions, which can be falsified; hence, their actual falsification is of
considerable importance in judging the general theory.
This argument has not on the whole been favorably received
by psychoanalysts, who continue to state that the theory may
very well be right, even though the treatment may fail and other
236 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
methods of treatment, like behaviour therapy, may succeed,
resulting in neither relapse nor symptom substitution.
Grunbaum turns the argument into a philosophical disquisi-
tion, stating Freud's own position in terms of a syllogism, called
by him Freud's "master proposition." From the conjunction of
two causally necessary conditions he derives two conclusions,
and this "tally argument" is then mercilessly criticised in the
main portion of the book. Griinbaurn certainly has no doubt
about the point that therapeutic success played a pivotal role in
Freud's tally argument, and I feel that this is indeed the core of
the whole book. The first part, dealing with the attempts of
hermeneutic philosophers to capture psychoanalysis from
Freud, and the final portions dealing with various smaller
points, are important but much less central than Griinbaum's
very careful delineation and criticism of the tally argument.
Is this kill, or overkill? Seeing that psychoanalysts have
argued against the conclusion that therapeutic success was
indeed of pivotal importance for Freud's theory, clearly the
answer must be that a detailed examination of the case was
required, and no one could have done it better or have come to
more clearcut conclusions than Grunbaum. It is difficult to see
how psychoanalysts can continue this argument, other than by
having recourse to the hermeneutic principles which Freud
himself would have rejected, and which, as Grunbaum points
out, remove psychoanalysis completely from science. To many
psychoanalysts, eager to rescue what they can from the burning,
this may not matter much; psychoanalytic pretensions to scien-
tific respectability have always been slight, but if we want to
judge Freud's opus in any reasonable manner, then we must
keep in mind what Freud himself was claiming for it. He was in
no doubt that psychoanalysis was aiming to be a science in the
traditional mould, even though in his presentation, mode of
argument, and in many other ways he certainly departed from
tradition (Eysenck 1985a).
It is curious that psychoanalysts themselves have not looked
at this tally argument in detail or discovered its weaknesses.
They seem to have been motivated more by a desire to come to
favourable conclusions about the status of psychoanalysis than
by a concern for logical argument and factual outcome. All this
makes it particularly important, of course, that the argument
should once and for all be stated in its logical form, with proper
deductions from the syllogisms involved, and with due regard to
the factual evidence available at the moment. When I first
pointed out in 1952 that "the emperor had no clothes," I took it
for granted that the relevance of the therapeutic outcome
argument to Freudian theory would be obvious; clearly I was
mistaken, and it needed Griinbaum's patient unravelling of the
skein to drive the point home. For that, many thanks!
The probative value of the clinical data of
psychoanalysis
B. A. Farrell
Corpus Christ! College, Oxford 0X1 4JF, England
Did Freud vindicate his method of clinical investigation? This
question is central to Grunbaum's book; and, in effect, he boils
down Freud's argument to the following. Consider a psycho-
neurotic patient, P, who, we will suppose, has been successfully
analysed. It is causally necessary for therapeutic success for the
patient P to obtain correct insight into the pathogenic aetiology
of his difficulty, and into the unconscious dynamics of his
character. Only through psychoanalytic interpretation and
treatment can the patient obtain this correct insight. But patient
P has been successfully analysed. Therefore, patient P has
obtained the correct insights into his difficulties and his char-
acter. Therefore, Freud's method of clinical investigation has

yielded valid results in this case, and will also yield valid results
in all similar cases.
Griinbaum challenges the soundness of this argument. I find
his challenge a little vague and obscure, but I think it can be
summarised not unfairly as follows: The clinical data are irre-
mediably contaminated epistemically through suggestion by the
analyst. The data are therefore unreliable guides to the nature of
patient P and his problem. So, even in a case where we suppose
the treatment to be successful, we cannot explain this cure by
claiming that the patient has arrived at any correct insights, this
arrival having been causally necessary for the cure. We have to
explain the therapeutic success in some other way. Hence
Freud has not shown that his method validly uncovers the
nature of the patient's psychoneurosis, and the dynamics of the
patient's personality.
Let us suppose that Griinbaum has got the text of Freud right
on this matter. Then, if Griinbaum's claim that the clinical
material is contaminated is correct, Freud does fail to prove that
his method is valid, and hence fails to vindicate it. Freud's
argument fails even if it is merely the case that the clinical data
or materials are contaminated in some small part for some of the
time, rather than in toto for all of the time. Now I have argued
elsewhere (Farrell 1981) that the material produced by psycho-
analytic method is perspective- and method-dependent, and
therefore liable to be artifact-infected. So I think Griinbaum's
empirical claim is correct - the material is contaminated, and in
some relevant ways. It is useful for Griinbaum to bring this out,
especially, no doubt, in view of the fact that so many psycho-
analysts still treat Freud's writings as Holy Writ, rather in the
way that academics and others in some countries of the Eastern
bloc seem to treat the writings of Marx.
However, I confess I have misgivings about Griinbaum's
criticism, for I think it has serious limitations. And it is these
which will make psychoanalysts refuse to give up Freud's claim,
and their claim, that by means of psychoanalytic method, they
can, and do in general, uncover the truth, or part of the truth,
about their analysands.
1. Psychoanalysts will say that Freud's argument for the
validity of the method was built around his early "traumatic"
view of the psychoneuroses, and not around the later, fuller one
of conflict between id and ego. The significance for Grunbaum of
this change of view by Freud is that analysts are not especially
interested in Freud's original defence of his method. They are
concerned with the defence of present-day psychoanalytic theo-
ry and work.
2. Freud's original defence is tied to the notions of therapeutic
cure and success. But analysts are chary today of bandying these
words about, in view of all the doubts and complexities that
surround the notions involved. They are consequently not
interested in tying the defence of their method to notions whose
application is so uncertain. Again, therefore, they would say that
Freud's defence and Griinbaum's concern are out of date.
3. Although it is always likely that the influence of analysts will
contaminate the clinical material, examination of their work
makes it commonsensical to say that this influence can vary -
from great to small. Consider, then, a "traumatic" case which
fits Freud's argument and early views. Suppose we have good
reason to believe that the analyst's influence was small in this
case. Griinbaum's objection to Freud's argument will do little or
nothing to stop the analyst from claiming that he has uncovered
some important truth about this patient. And common sense
will say that he is right. (For examples of such cases, see Malan,
1979.)
4. Something similar applies to other sorts of patients. Ana-
lysts make use of clinical material which is internal to the
psychoanalytic situation to try to arrive at a view of the nature of
the patient's difficulties, and so on. In doing this, they are
guided by criteria to help them identify interpretations which
are correct, and which they rely on to construct their view of the
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
patient. For a recent example of this, see Hanna Segal's answer
to Jonathan Miller (cf. Farrell 1976; 1981; Segal 1983). It is quite
clear that Griinbaum's objections to Freud will not affect Segal
one whit!
5. It may be very tempting for Grunbaum to retort that if
analysts cannot justify the validity of their method via Freud's
early argument then they cannot justify or establish it in its
contemporary form either. Hence analysts are not warranted in
disregarding his objections. But this retort will not do. For the
points made in (1) to (4) suggest that there is something very
wrong with Griinbaum's case against Freud.
Grunbaum has shown that Freud cannot validate his method
in that he cannot prove or demonstrate that it is valid. But it does
not follow from this that the clinical data or material can tell us
nothing about the patient's disorder. The data may still have
probative value, small or great. It is, therefore, very misleading
simply to concentrate on Grunbaum's anti-Freud argument.
For to do so is to lead the reader to overlook the very important
point that the clinical material may still have probative force.
What is more, this force may be strong enough to support quite a
reasonable defence of the claim that psychoanalytic method can
help us to discover the truth about human nature. Accordingly,
psychoanalysts may be inclined to accuse Griinbaum of making
the same sort of misleading moves about method as Nagel and
others have made in the past about psychoanalytic theory. It is
not difficult to convict the theory of being unscientific, and
convict it in a way which misleads us into supposing that the
theory is unrespectable and worthless. What Grunbaum has
done here, analysts may say, is to expose the uncertainties of the
method in a way which misleads the reader into believing that it
is worthless. (Again, Grunbaum is liable to be accused of
overlooking the role and force of clinical material - and being
quite misleading in consequence - when he argues that even if,
per impossible, the clinical material were uncontaminated, it
could not establish the causal propositions from the aetiological
story of analytic psychopathology.)
What is obviously required at this juncture, I think, is for
students to underemphasise what psychoanalysts say about
what they do (Freud included) and instead study what they
actually do. We may then be in a better position to exhibit the
suggestive force of their clinical material and thereby to assess
its epistemic weight. This is a constructive job, which Griin-
baum does not attempt. This is a pity because its omission leaves
a gap which makes the book negative and lopsided.
However, I suspect that Grunbaum may be handicapped
when he attempts the constructive job of assessing the probative
weight of the clinical data or material. For he seems to be
controlled by a picture of epistemic relevance and legitimacy, in
which the concepts of falsification and demonstration play cen-
tral roles. Such a picture is quite inappropriate when we try to
get to grips with the character of psychoanalytic work. For it is
liable to prevent us from appreciating the contribution psycho-
analysis may be making to our understanding of human nature.
Grunbaum on Freud: Three grounds for
dissent
Arthur Fine and Micky Forbes
Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University, Evanston, III. 60201
Grunbaum tells a story about the character of clinical evidence
in psychoanalysis. The moral of his story is that the amount of
charity required to accept the arguments for Freudian theory
would deplete the intellectual reserve and force a general
lowering of scientific standards. We would like to suggest three
aspects to this story that point to its being rather more fabulous
than real.
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 237
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
Griinbaum wants to show that the clinical data and the
patterns of Freudian argument based on them do not support
the fundamental tenets of psychoanalysis, in particular, the
posited causal connection of repression with neurosis and the
use of free association to locate repressions as causal agents. In
comparing Grunbaum's various detailed discussions, we find
him using a common central strategy. This is to show that in the
analytic setting the causal hypotheses used by Freud to explain
and collate the clinical data have competitors, that is, alter-
native, non-Freudian hypotheses that explain and organize the
data almost as well. From the existence of such alternatives,
Grunbaum concludes that Freud's posited causal hypotheses
are not supported by the clinical data. And this is the first of our
problems with Griinbaum's story. For the availability of alter-
native explanatory hypotheses for a given body of data is a well-
known feature of every reasonably complex scientific investiga-
tion. Moreover, one is generally not able to eliminate all the
plausible rivals to a particular hypothesis. It followsfromthe fact
that science goes on in this situation that for data to count as
supporting a hypothesis it is not necessary to first rule out all
competitors. Thus Griinbaum's strategy of pointing to possible
alternatives to the Freudian hypotheses does not actually pro-
vide a sufficient basis for his strong conclusion concerning the
failure of the clinical data to support Freudian theory. Rather,
Grunbaum's strategy embodies the methodological myth that
support accrues only in the absence of rivals.
To succeed in the project of assessing clinical support would
require a more sensitive treatment of the concept of evidence
than Grunbaum offers. Because there is no good and general
theory of evidence (or support), the required sensitivity would
probably have to come about comparatively; for example, by
comparing the evidential structure of Freud's clinical argument
with similarly complex structures that form the clinical back-
ground for theory and therapy in, say, somatic medicine. Per-
haps detailed comparative studies of this sort would offer a
realistic basis for judging the standards of evidence in
psychoanalysis.
Our second problem with Grunbaum's story concerns the
character of the rivals to Freud's causal hypotheses. For, where-
as Grunbaum is quite happy to call attention to any possible rival
that he can find, he almost invariably falls back on one in
particular. It is the hypothesis of suggestibility, that what
transpires in the analytic setting is a result of suggestion (of one
sort or another) from the analyst to the analysand. What we find
problematic is that this generic possibility, like Descartes's
demon, relies on a general, always-available doubt, indepen-
dent of any specific mode of instantiation or mechanism of
operation. Used in this generic way, suggestibility, like its
Cartesian counterpart, is just a place-holder for skeptical doubt,
or fallibility. Real science has evolved a strategy to deal with it:
(1) Admit the possibility; (2) see whether in context it can be
articulated (i.e. made specific, concrete, and testable); (3) if not,
then bracket it off as a mere possibility and proceed with your
work, returning periodically to (2). We would suggest that this is
how one should deal with Grunbaum's skepticism as well.
Certainly it cannot be ruled out diat what we think of as
psychoanalytic work is the result of suggestion only. But until
that possibility can be articulated and tested, the customary
norms of investigation require that we consider it a mere
possibility. Thus if skeptical doubts about suggestibility (or
"placebo effect" or "contamination" - to use their promotional
labels) were the major obstacle to accepting Freud's clinical
arguments, as Grunbaum's critique suggests, then indeed we
would have to conclude, contra-Griinbaum, that psychoanalysis
is supported "in the clinic."
A third problem results from Grunbaum's atomism; that is,
his policy of submerging context and background, and judging
individual causal hypotheses separately. This disregards
Freud's practice of leaning on the parallels between everyday
psychological explanatory modes and those of psychoanalysis.
238 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
For Freud saw psychoanalysis as a refinement and extension of
these common explanatory modes. By depriving Freud's in-
ferences of their natural background in everyday psychology,
Grunbaum can make even the most cogent patterns of reasoning
seem implausible. This is just what happens when Grunbaum
puzzles over how the technique of free association could lead to
repressed material qua "cause of subsequent behavior." For
although Grunbaum argues in favor of Freud's view that reasons
are causes, his atomistic construal of causes strips those reasons
which are causes of their usual ideational components. If we
restore these components then Grunbaum's puzzle dissolves.
For when we follow a chain of associations we see, along the
way, what the connections are, and there is no additional
question, in the causal mode, as to the relation between one end
of the chain and the other. The chain of reasons that guides the
associations encompasses the causal connection as well.
We think that these three problems with Grunbaum's cri-
tique (the methodological myth, the skepticism, and the atom-
ism) indicate that Grunbaum's pessimistic moral about psycho-
analysis and the clinical data is drawn from a fable and not from
real life. Still, cautionary fables are important too.
Psychoanalysis as a social activity
Owen J. Flanagan, Jr.
Department of Philosophy, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass. 02181
Suppose one accepts, as I do, Grunbaum's central claim that the
scientific merits of psychoanalysis have not been remotely
established. What implications does such an assessment have
for the actual practice of psychoanalysis? How should practicing
psychoanalysts conceive of and represent their activity? What
kind of activity should the larger culture take psychoanalysis to
be? Such questions are farfromtrivial. They connect straightfor-
wardly to issues of integrity and professional responsibility, to
issues of how psychoanalysis is best understood as a social
activity, and how much it ought to be valued from an economic
point of view.
Consider the following three models of psychoanalytic prac-
tice and die implications of Grunbaum's diagnosis with regard to
what can honestly be asserted on behalf of each.
1. The misery alleviation model. On this model, psychoanalysis
is devoted in the first instance to the alleviation of the human
misery caused by psychoneuroses. The orthodox version of the
theory claims first that such misery can only be alleviated if the
analysand achieves veridical insight into the repressed material
which is the source of his neurosis, and second that such insight
can best be brought about by standard analytic techniques: free
association, dream analysis, and so on. The temporal and mone-
tary commitments involved in psychoanalysis are commonly
defended on the basis of these claims, as costs we are wisely
willing to pay for a very valuable commodity.
But there are serious problems with the latter claims. First,
many studies have shown that for a wide array of psychological
maladies some therapy is better than none, but no one type
stands out (except behavior therapy in some studies) as more
effective than any other. Second, Grunbaum has shown that
there is virtually no reliable evidence for any of the distinctive
ontological, etiological, or curative claims of orthodox psycho-
analysis, in large part because psychoanalysts, following Freud,
have depended almost exclusively on clinical evidence as a
source of theoretical support, despite its inherently problematic
status.
If these criticisms are correct, then, pending extraclinical
vindication of the theory, simple honesty requires psycho-
analysts to refrain from claiming unique curative powers, in-
deed even relative superiority, for their theory as a technique
for alleviating misery or as a vehicle for understanding human
personality. Grunbaum helps us understand why analysts want

to make these claims, while at the same time making it perfectly
clear why, given ordinary standards of intellectual and profes-
sional integrity, they shouldn't. 1
2. The eclectic model. The eclectic is also concerned with the
alleviation of human misery and is sensitive to some of the latter
issues. He claims superiority for his particular brand of analysis,
however, on grounds that it selectively incorporates only some
elements of the orthodox theory alongside elements of self-
psychology, objects-relations theory, and perhaps even non-
psychoanalytic theories. The trouble with this strategy is that it
can only help support claims of relative therapeutic superiority
and deeper-than-usual insight into persons if the eclectic adap-
tations were made in response to extraclinical data rather than in
response to what the particular therapist or his mentors have
found effective in clinical situations. This is important and worth
emphasizing. It is common in my experience for mental health
professionals of both Freudian and non-Freudian persuasions
(many behaviorists excluded) to respond to the worries of
philosophers of science by citing their own clinically motivated
eclecticism against the thoughtless orthodoxy of others. Such a
defense, however, misses the central point about the contami-
nated status of such evidence. The eclectic analyst is in effect no
better off than the more orthodox analyst so long as his eclec-
ticism is purely clinically motivated.
3. The self-knowledge model. This model is increasingly fash-
ionable. The basic idea is that regardless of how one assesses
psychoanalysis from the point of view of alleviating misery, it is
uniquely fitted to the deepening of self-knowledge for both
neurotic and nonneurotic types. There is something prima facie
plausible here. The plausibility can be explained, however, in
terms of the common-sense intuition that the more time one
spends talking about and reflecting on oneself the greater the
likelihood of discovering or remembering things about oneself.2
But there is nothing specifically about psychoanalysis (except
possibly the amount of time it takes), as far as we currently
know, which uniquely fits it to the project of deepening self-
knowledge. Indeed, if the self-knowledge model is put forward
on specifically psychoanalytic grounds - for example, on
grounds that the project of self-knowledge necessarily involves
recognition and reexperiencing of certain types of repressed
material, or that it is essential for initiates into the profession to
gain psychoanalytic self-knowledge so that they will not defen-
sively obstruct the transference process - we are faced again
with the essential point that it is these very hypotheses and the
assumptions embedded in them that have yet to be tested.
The upshot of my remarks is this: Unless Grunbaum's argu-
ments are effectively answered, neither orthodox analysts,
eclectics, nor advocates of the self-knowledge model can claim
to be in possession of either a well-tested theory of human
personality or a uniquely effective, indeed a more effective than
average, therapy - the intuitive pull to want to claim both
notwithstanding. Simple honesty requires members of the psy-
choanalytic community to acknowledge this much unless they
have some convincing responses to Grunbaum's critique up
their sleeve. This simple honesty, if it occurs, will affect the way
the actual practice of psychoanalysis is viewed from within the
profession and without, and it might quite reasonably require
adjustments in how valuable psychoanalysis is viewed from an
economic point of view. 3
NOTES
1. Amos Tverslcy and Daniel Kahneman's (1974) well-known work on
the availability bias would help some in understanding why clinical
evidence is so gripping and so convincing to clinicians. [See also Cohen:
"Can Human Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated?" BBS 4(3)
1981.]
2. One has to be careful even here of assuming some form of the "tally
argument." Folk psychology assumes that the agent knows best when,
in the course of ordinary reflection, he has hit on some true insight into
himself. There are two problems with this assumption. First, it is
doubtful that "ordinary reflection " is itself untutored or unguided by
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
potentially problematic theories. Second, recent evidence from cog-
nitive psychology undermines the view that powerful feelings of certain-
ty necessarily or, even usually, bespeak veridicality.
- 3. The effects here could be considerable. Many psychologists,
psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, and clinical psychologists in-
corporate psychoanalytic assumptions into their practice. Furthermore,
the majority of analytic patients are themselves mental health workers
or related to mental health workers. See Fisher and Greenberg (1977,
pp. 298-99 on both points. [See also Prioleau et al.: "An Analysis of
Psychotherapy Versus Placebo Studies" BBS 6(2) 1983. J
Warranting interpretations
Alan Gauld and John Shorter
Department of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NC7
2RD, England
Along with the other hermeneuticians he castigates for their
"multiple ontological and epistemic blunders," Griinbaum lists
us (to an extent correctly) as "quondam behaviorists," but also
(quite incorrectly) as overlooking "that conversion to her-
meneutic psychology does not provide absolution from the
stated imperative to validate the causal hypotheses tacitly invok-
ed by their avowed enterprise" (p. 56). And he goes on to
characterize us as "insouciantly endorsing psychoanalytic im-
putations of hidden motives" (p.56) in our discussions, giving
force to his claim by (twice) gratuitously inserting into a phrase
of ours - in which we say it is the task of a hermeneutical
psychologist "to elucidate by any method he can the 'meanings'
which . . . actions had for agents" (Gauld & Shotter 1977,
p. 80) - the word "unconscious" in square brackets before the
word "meanings," thus modifying the sense in which we use it in
an unwarranted (and, as we shall show, quite unwarrantable)
way.
Thus Grunbaum contrives to place us among those he accuses
of producing a "contrived reading" of Freud, when in fact, not
only do we make no reference at all in our text to Freud, and
only passing references to the unconscious and psycho-
pathology, but we have been criticized by others for the omis-
sion. It is therefore both amusing and baffling to find ourselves
condemned for doing what others have in fact condemned us for
not doing.
Elsewhere we also fail to recognize ourselves in the refer-
ences Grunbaum makes to us. Although he is right in saying that
we argue for the ineradicably hermeneutical nature of psycho-
logical investigations, there is no way in which we feel he has
properly portrayed our views. In short, we claim that Griin-
baum has misread us. But in so saying we raise issues beyond a
mere attempt to set the record straight. The problem bears
some relation to the problem Grunbaum raises with psycho-
analysis itself: If he has found something in our text which we
certainly did not intend to be there and contend is not in fact
there, but which he says is there, perhaps not "unconsciously"
but certainly "tacitly invoked," how can we warrant our claim
against his? Whose version of what our text conveys is correct,
not so much in some absolute sense of rightness or wrongness (as
Grunbaum seems to require of insights or interpretations), but
in the sense of the most "fitting"?
The problem is, as we see it, a hermeneutical one, a matter
first of providing an interpretation and then of deciding how that
interpretation can be validated or warranted. As we have said
above, there is no single, special method for elucidating people's
sayings and doings, for clarifying the meaning of their actions.
We do suggest, however, that agents often carry out their
actions to fill a place in some wider scheme of things, and that
obscure actions are to be elucidated by describing the wider
schemes of things and what the function of their actions is. In
this we are in something of an advantageous position. Unlike
Freud or other psychoanalysts, our problems are not ones
occurring in a relatively private interpersonal situation; our text
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 239
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
exists publicly, as at least a vague or partial specification of our
meaning. But like any other human activity, it is still open to
further specification, to different interpretations in fact - but
not to just any interpretation one pleases; interpretation is not,
as Grunbaum suggests, a matter of "mere fancy." He spurns
"thematic affinity" as a ground for elucidating "the 'meanings'
which actions had for the agents." But he is too hasty. The
vague, partially specified meanings of utterances, sentences, or
arguments can only be given a proper, "fitting" interpretation
by being properly "placed" within the whole text of which they
are a part. Thus, when it comes to the interpretation of a text,
our text, others can consult it to see whether, as a whole, it
would still have a coherent sense if the sections Grunbaum cites
or mentions were to have the meanings he claims for them.
Freud, however, is not so well off Although at an interper-
sonal level it would be difficult to frame a more powerful
criterion of the correctness of his interpretations than the
requirement that they must affect his patients' illnesses not their
intellects (what Grunbaum calls the "tally argument"), Freud
cannot claim to be a merely neutral cipher in his exchanges with
his patients. Actively, his treatment of them is informed by his
interpretations. Thus, he cannot avoid the charge that to an
extent he is producing the phenomena he claims merely to be
observing. This is the character of the critique, a hermeneutical
critique, we would mount were it our task, not Griinbaum's, to
criticize the foundations of psychoanalysis. Thus the foundations
of psychoanalysis are, we agree, shaky; patients probably are
influenced by "suggestions" from the analyst. But if they are,
one should not because of this be misled into dismissing it as
unworthy of serious attention; on the contrary, one should stand
back in amazement at the peculiar properties of interpersonal
relations - a special study is required of such phenomena.
So, although Grunbaum finds difficulties with hermeneutical
"reconstructions" of psychoanalysis, this does not mean that
hermeneutical considerations (matters to do with the framing
and warranting of interpretations) can be ruled out of investiga-
tions into psychoanalysis. But the problem is, whose interpreta-
tions are "fitting"? As Humpty-Dumpty put it: "Who's to be
master?" Who is to be the authority on people's meanings: first-
person "patients," second-person analysts, or third-person out-
siders? In practice, decisions are of course made, and it is an
interesting practical problem to study how they are or might be
arrived at. But the fact seems to be, contra Grunbaum, that no
one single a priori principle, intraclinical or extraclinical, can be
formulated by which those decisions should be warranted.
The case against Freud's cases
Roger P. Greenberg
Department of Psychiatry, State University of New York, Upstate Medical
Center, Syracuse, N.Y. 13210
Grunbaum has produced a densely written, painstaking analysis
of the arguments Freud presented to justify his theoretical
hypotheses. Griinbaum's attack focuses not on the validity of
Freud's theoretical statements but on the idea that the psycho-
analytic method, as applied in psychotherapy sessions, can be
used to generate credible, objective evidence to substantiate
psychoanalytic theory. In recent years Seymour Fisher and I
have similarly struggled with the question of the scientific
validity of Freud's thinking, and we have presented an extensive
review and analysis of all the empirical evidence bearing on
Freud's ideas (Fisher & Greenberg 1977; 1985). Like Grun-
baum, we too concluded that it is extremely questionable to
assess the validity of ideas solely on the basis of case study
material. Such material is subject to multiple sources of bias and
distortion. For example, it has been empirically demonstrated
in studies of illusory correlations that theoretical biases tend to
240 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
lead clinicians to observe significant relationships in their data
even when the relationships are absent in the material present-
ed (e.g. Chapman & Chapman 1967; 1969). Research has also
demonstrated that when observers enter into transaction with
the object of their observations, as in psychotherapy, they are
likely to create the behavior they are looking for in a manner
analogous to a self-fulfilling prophecy (Rosenthal 1966). [See
also Rosenthal & Rubin: "Interpersonal Expectancy Effects"
BBS 1(3) 1978.] Thus the psychoanalyst's theoretical commit-
ment is iikely to influence both the patient's statements them-
selves and the manner in which they are organized, interpreted,
and presented in writing.
Even if we lay aside the question of therapist distortion and
suggestion in the treatment, there are still problems with the
substantiation of Freud's ideas from his own presentations. For
example, Grunbaum is right in stating that Freud implied in his
early essays that the success of his treatment constitutes cogent
evidence for his psychoanalytic theory of personality. Yet no-
where in Freud's writings do we get an overview of his practice
that would enable us to come to some objective conclusions
about whether his treatment achieved better results than other
approaches or no treatment at all. In fact, over the course of his
career Freud himself seemed to become more doubtful about
the results of his treatment and moved away from linking
theoretical truth with outcome. Probably Freud's most com-
plete statement regarding his conclusions about therapy occur
in his late career essay "Analysis Terminable and Interminable"
(Freud 1937a). In this paper Freud begins to downplay the idea
that the results of analysis are unusually durable or powerful. As
he remarks, "One has the impression that one ought not to be
surprised if it should turn out in the end that the difference
between a person who has not been analysed and the behaviour
of a person after he has been analysed is not so thorough-going as
we aim at making it and as we expect and maintain it to be . . . 1
really cannot commit myself to a decision on this point nor do I
know whether a decision is possible at the present time" (p.
228). A similar reserved conclusion is exemplified by Freud's
(1933a) remark, "I do not think our cures can compete with
those of Lourdes. There are so many more people who believe
in the miracles of the Blessed Virgin than in the existence of the
unconscious" (p. 152).
It is noteworthy, too, that a reading of Freud's cases reveals
that relatively little stress was placed on describing outcome.
The aim was much more to detail and explain theoretical points.
Furthermore, the described cases come from an early period in
Freud's career when his theories were undergoing significant
change. Elsewhere we have presented a detailed analysis of
Freud's case load and the outcome of his treatment (Fisher &
Greenberg 1977; 1985). This analysis shows that Freud sup-
ported his theories through the detailed written discussion of
only 12 cases and the mention of 133 minor cases. He presented
minimal data except in a handful of select cases, and many of the
presented cases would not be considered adequate examples of
psychoanalysis, either in terms of the techniques employed or
theoretical explanations given. Thus, when Sherwood (1969)
tried to examine Freud's cases as a group he was impressed by
the fact that there were only six extended accounts of individual
patients. Almost all the accounts had basic shortcomings. Two
were not really examples of Freud's therapy since he had no
direct contact with either patient and two other cases, both with
negative outcomes, were terminated in a brief period of time. Of
the remaining two cases, one was described as an unfavorable
case of interminable analysis. The case of Paul Lorenz (the Rat
Man) represents Freud's only published record of a complete
and successful treatment.
In sum, Freud's own writing describes in detail only four
cases he had seen using psychoanalytic treatment. Of these only
one showed any evidence of significant improvement. It is both
striking and curious that Freud chose to demonstrate the
usefulness of psychoanalysis through the presentation of largely

unsuccessful cases. Indeed, we were forced to conclude that
Freud never presented any data, in statistical or case study
form, that demonstrated that his treatment was of benefit to a
significant number of the patients he himself saw (Fisher &
Greenberg 1977; 1985). Equally puzzling, if one wishes to
equate theoretical validity with therapeutic success, is Freud's
warning of the dangers in displaying too great an interest in
patient change. A caution against "furor therapeuticus" appears
in numerous places in Freud's writings (Oberndorf, Greenacre
& Kubie 1949).
Do all of these concerns about Freud's methodology for
proving his assertions mean that his theoretical statements are
incorrect? Obviously not. We have demonstrated that there are
literally hundreds and hundreds of objective studies attesting to
the merits of many Freudian postulates (Fisher & Greenberg
1977; 1985). However, these ideas need to be evaluated inde-
pendently and cannot be successfully defended simply by point-
ing to Freud's case presentations.
Repressed infantile wishes as the instigators
of all dreams
J. Allan Hobson
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. 02115
In this epochal work Adolf Griinbaum devotes his Chapter 5 to a
review of Freud's dream theory. There are three aspects of this
review that may benefit from commentary: The first is Griin-
baum's summary of data and the current status of the alternative
activation-synthesis theory of dreams advanced by our group
(Hobson & McCarley 1977); the second is Griinbaum's own
substantive analysis of the evidential basis for infantile wishes as
the instigators of all dreams; and the third is the more general
problem that surrounds anyone's attempt (Freud's or ours) to
establish causality in the psychophysiological domain. The third
issue was discussed in our paper on the neurobiological origins
of psychoanalytic dream theory (McCarley & Hobson 1977).
Griinbaum's summary of the activation-synthesis hypothesis.
Griinbaum is generous in ascribing to us "the first theory
genuinely attempting to integrate the recent discoveries in the
neurophysiology of dreaming with the peculiarities of dream
mentation" (p. 216). Our general strategy of isomorphism - the
mapping back and forth between mind (dream state) and brain
(REM state) forms - is all represented appreciatively and
accurately. Recently I have presented new evidence on the
dream form commonly called "bizarreness" (Hobson, Hoffman,
Helfand & Kostner 1983). I attribute bizarreness not to the
censor's effort to disguise acceptable wishes, as Freud assumed,
but to such unusual and state-specific operating properties of
the brain in REM sleep as external sensory input blockade,
internal stimulus enhancement, and parallel channel activation.
Griinbaum recognizes that ours is not a simple nonsense theory
of the sort that flourished in the nineteenth century. Rather, we
suppose that the effort to create coherence and meaning by the
brain-mind in REM sleep-dreaming is substantial but unsuc-
cessful; both day residue and motivationally important themes
do enter into, and may even shape, dream content, but neither
is causal of the dream process itself or of its form.
Griinbaum then turns to the counterarguments to activation-
synthesis, by way of prelude to his own substantive critique of
Freud's theory. With respect to the sleep researcher Vogel's
(1978) paper, I would first point out that in a face-to-face debate
we convinced two-thirds of an audience of 2,000 of our peers
that there were now substantial grounds for revising Freud's
dream theory (McDonald 1981; Roche Reports 1981). Since that
debate, Vogel's codebater, the psychoanalyst Morton Reiser,
has publicly stated that "Hobson and McCarley's work refutes
Freud's idea that a dream is instigated by a disguised wish"
Commentary7'Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
(Goleman 1984). I must admit that I do not see how our work
could definitively refute Freud's idea, but I accept the spirit of
Reiser's remark, which I take to mean that we have indeed
"rendered Freud's repressed infantile wishes idea dubious by
evidence suggesting a simpler alternative to the genesis of
dreams" (Goleman 1984).
In my opinion, Vogel is flatly wrong in stating that the
forebrain, as well as the brainstem, is "also necessary for the
instigation, maintenance, and timing of most D episodes' (p.
1534). Jouvet's early work (1962) showed that this is not so; cats
with only pons, medulla, and spinal cord intact generate REM
states on schedule. In this experimental preparation the fore-
brain (and all of its infantile wishes) are in the suction bottle! But
even if it were admitted that it is the whole brain and its whole
mind that creates the dream, it could not weaken the essence of
our basic argument: REM sleep (and therefore dreaming) are
automatic and nonmotivational processes! Developmental stud-
ies indicate that REM sleep may even predate the possible
occurrence of infantile wishes (since it occurs in utero).
I do not deny - rather I affirm most emphatically - that such
choices as dream plot, setting, dramatic personae, and scenario
selection are the business of the forebrain. Enter personally
significant meaning. Enter emotionally significant interactions.
Enter displacement, symbol formation, and the whole bag of
cognitive tricks that make dreams the delightful and strange
psychic experiences that they are. But the house lights are
turned on in the brainstem basement and important cue-lines
(most of them misleading) also issue from the nether promptings
of the brainstem. The state of the brain-mind in REM sleep
dreaming is thus more analogous to the open, plastic situation of
the modern theater of the absurd than the fatalistic determina-
tion of Sophocles's drama.
I agree with Vogel (a priori) that it is the formal state of the
forebrain that determines the formal state of the mind (by the
general principle of isomorphism). It thus follows that there may
be more than one way to reach any given set of isomorphic
states. For example, the occurrences of dreamlike mentation at
sleep onset (or even in waking) when the pons is not in the REM
sleep promoting condition is easily accepted and explained as
the forebrain's capacity to achieve REM-state conditions with-
out the pons. But such independence of forebrain (and, by
implication, dream mentation) from pontine control neither
gainsays the power and significance of such control in REM
sleep (and its associated dreams) nor has any bearing whatsoever
on the role of repressed wishes (if any) in determining the formal
state of mind in waking, in sleep, or at its margins. It is simply
irrelevant to this argument.
The more parsimonious explanation that I would favor is that
as the brain-mind becomes increasingly input-independent
(less data driven) it will become increasingly revelatory of its
own programmatic character: Image generation will increase (as
in fantasy); fabulous narrative frames for these images and ideas
will be created; and associative fluidity will increase. One set of
conditions maximizing these operations - and adding its own
preemptive drive and informational confusion - is REM sleep.
REM sleep is caused by an explicitly detailed set of physiological
conditions in the pons.
This leads us naturally to Vogel's third argument, which is the
most problematical by far: Grunbaum writes that "purely neu-
rophysiological findings cannot serve to test a posited lawlike
connection between purely psychological attributes, unless an
important condition is met: There must be an empirical ascer-
tainment of the character of the correlation, if any, between the
pertinent physiological states and the hypothesized psychologi-
cal ones" (p. 218).
I agree of course with this premise. From a philosophical
point of view, isomorphism assumes that such correlations must
exist. Does Vogel doubt this? In making what Labruzza (1978)
has correctly chacterized as programmatic assertions, we were
trying to create a paradigm shift: from the ad hoc, ad hominem,
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 241
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
and post hoc narrative level of analysis of the particular dreams
of particular individuals by particular psychoanalysts to the
predictive, generic, and formal level of analysis of any dream
from any person by any scientist. Vogel, Labruzza, and others
are free to remain in the retrospective tradition if they like - but
they should understand that what we are proposing is something
radically new and different. Since enunciating activation-syn-
thesis in 1977, our research program has produced three em-
pirical studies showing the strongly and reliably predictive
character of activation-synthesis with respect to formal dream
features: movement typology (McCarley & Hoffman 1981);
spatial trajectory of movement (Hobson & Hoffman 1984); and
bizarreness (Hobson et al. 1983).
Griinbaum blurs a related but distinctly different issue raised
by Vogel, namely, the possibility that pontine activation of the
forebrain may indeed be "the neural correlate of emergent,
archaic unconscious yearnings" (p. 1534). In other words, Vogel
would have us claim discovery of the physiological basis of
Freud's primary process! I accept Vogel's kind suggestion if he
will agree with the following implication: The physiological
activation of the brain, by the pons, in REM sleep is not only a
strong correlate of the distinctive mentation of dreaming, it is an
obligate, i.e. causal correlate. We will come back to this point.
GrQnbaum's critique of Freud's dream theory. Accepting
Vogel's animadversions for his own rhetorical reasons, Griin-
baum then focuses his philosophical microscope on Freud's
science. His critique, which I find devastating for Freud's
arguments, includes the following points:
1. Freud's claim that "the meaning [motive force for the
formation] of every dream is the fulfillment of a wish" (p.219)
relies upon "the trustworthiness of his method of free associa-
tion as a means of certifying the motivational causes of any and
all dreams" (p. 220). Elsewhere in his book, Griinbaum exposes
the methodological flaws of free association.
2. To deal with the obvious exceptions of repetitive traumatic
dreams and nightmares, Freud acknowledged that the volitional
impetus frequently miscarried but that "the attempt at the
fulfillment of a wish" was ubiquitous. Although Griinbaum does
not chide him on this point, I myself find Freud's backtracking
tantamount to emphasizing the banal truism that self-interest is
a factor in all psychological transactions.
3. Griinbaum shows the inadequacy of both free association
and the exploration of dream symbolism as a probative tool in
understanding the causation of dream mentation. Having dis-
pensed with the issue of symbolism via Freud's own downplay-
ing of the so-called manifest content, Grunbaum shows that free
association played no cogent role in Freud's own approach to the
interpretation of dreams.
4. The tour deforce of Griinbaum's argument is to show that
in interpreting his own "Irma dream," Freud failed to identify
any repressed motive, let alone an infantile one. Instead, the
putative motive was an aggressive impulse of which Freud had
been fully conscious only the day before. Activation-synthesis
would deal with the incorporation of this material (which even
by Freudian standards is defined as day residue and not as a
repressed unconscious impulse) by the simpler concepts of
recency and intensity of experience.
5. Grunbaum then goes on to show that in his dream theory
Freud was essentially repeating the argument that he used to
establish the repression of etiology of neuroses, and all the flaws
of that argument were likewise repeated. But if no new evidence
was actually adduced, then the dream theory adds nothing
substantial to the fabric of the work. It is in this way that the
unified structure of Freud's thought is at once a strength and a
weakness: If any part is fundamentally in error, all the parts are
in doubt. Grunbaum, for his philosophical reasons, and I, on
psychophysiological grounds, thus believe Freud's dream theo-
ry to be essentially groundless.
6. The reservations that accumulate additively now lead
Grunbaum to a genial proposal: Why not experimentally test the
242 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
theory by measuring REM sleep before, during, and after
psychoanalysis to see whether the purported derepression of
infantile wishes achieved in analysis - leads to decreased
pressure to dream. Here the philosophical and the physiological
critique unite in a scientific test of the theory.
Grunbaum supposes that this idea was overlooked because it
has not appeared explicitly in the published scientific literature.
But such an idea was current in the early days of the modern
sleep research era when several related assumptions were put to
the test and all gave negative results: The first was that REM
sleep deprivation would specifically and inevitably lead to
psychosis (Dement 1960). It did neither (Kales, Hoedemaker,
Jacobson & Lichtenstein 1964). The second was that patients
with schizophrenic psychoses would have more (or less) REM
sleep because of increased primary process drive. They had
neither (Wyatt, Termini & Davis 1970). The third was that
normal individuals with greater amounts of conflict would have a
greater need to dream (Snyder 1965). If anything, stress was
associated with decreased levels of REM sleep (Kales, Healey,
Monroe, Bixler, Chamberlain & Soldatos (1981). Although no
one systematically compared analyzed with unanalyzed sub-
jects, it can be assumed that at least one analysand was recorded;
had that subject been REM-sleep free, you can be sure you
would have heard about it!
It is not widely appreciated that one of the reasons that the
early enthusiasm for sleep science faded was because it failed to
substantiate psychoanalytically derived claims. So ubiquitous
and deep were the psychoanalytic assumptions that clearly
contrary evidence had virtually no impact upon even em-
pirically rigorous sleep researchers such as Vogel (1978), Fisher
(1978), and Foulkes (1966). Thus, although Grunbaum's experi-
Tnentum crucis has not been done, one can safely predict that if it
were, and the results showed no change in REM sleep percent,
the negative findings would be ignored or explained away by
psychoanalysis. If, as Grunbaum avers, psychoanalysis never
was a rigorous science, why should it now want to become one,
especially if preliminary but mounting evidence is all against it?
Some reflections on testing psychoanalytic
hypotheses
Robert R. Holt
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, N.Y. 10003
The power and subtlety of the analysis and arguments Adolf
Grunbaum presents in this book far surpass those of any pre-
vious philosophical evaluation of psychoanalysis. Moreover, it is
a real pleasure to encounter a critic who has Grunbaum's respect
for his target, an admiration for Freud's gifts and contributions
that does not blind him to defects but impels him to study his
subject's works as extensively and intensively as is necessary to
do the job. The result is a work of such substance that it must be
carefully studied by all serious students of psychoanalysis. It
contains so much that a review of the brevity needed here can
touch on only a few issues among many that cry out for extended
discussion. (See Holt, 1985, for some further discussion.)
Grunbaum's method is to concentrate on the clinical theory of
psychoanalysis as Freud formulated it, although his frequent
reference to the works of other, subsequent analysts leaves no
doubt that he has read widely and that his knowledge is not
confined to the Freudian canon. Nevertheless, his method does
have some perhaps unintended consequences. The book will be
read by many who are concerned with evaluative judgments; yet
those may be of two rather different kinds. First, a historical
judgment about Freud and his theorizing. Here there can be no
doubt: Grunbaum produces the most substantial indictment of
Freud as a scientist that we have yet seen. But the second kind of
judgment is probably of interest to far more readers; it pertains

to contemporaneous psychoanalysis as a whole. It will take a
particularly judicious reader not to jump to the conclusion that
Griinbaum has dealt psychoanalysis a body blow if he has not
fatally wounded it. Yet I don't believe that he set out to do a
hatchet job; it is quite evident that he is not driven by hostility or
spite.
True, Crunbaum punctures the complacency of many a psy-
choanalyst of today, who takes for granted a great many proposi-
tions that have been destroyed by this book - notably, the
beliefs that Freud's method of clinical research enabled him not
only to make important discoveries and to frame bold hypoth-
eses, but to verify them scientifically. I believe that Griinbaum
exaggerates the dearth of supportive evidence for Freud's theo-
ries, but it must be acknowledged and clearly understood that
the traditional method of clinical research - simply treating
patients by the standard psychoanalytic method, reflecting on
what one recalls of the process and what little a psychoanalyst
usually knows of the outcome, and writing papers about one's
conclusions - has one and only one scientific value: serving as a
source of hypotheses. Furthermore, I hope that this book drives
home to every psychoanalyst who reads it the absolute necessity
that psychoanalytic hypotheses be tested. Psychoanalysis will
not survive, let alone progress and prosper, unless the profes-
sion takes major responsibility to encourage and make possible
the controlled and rigorous forms of research that can provide
validating evidence for the clinical theory, the only testable part
of Freud's output.
Psychoanalytic theory and research are in serious trouble, but
the outlook is not as hopeless as Griinbaum at times seems to
believe. As to the theory, one of its defects is easily remediable.
Freud believed that one made a generalization into a scientific
law by stating it in the most universal and dogmatic terms.
Hence, he sought to produce a theory of all human behavior
regardless of time or place by generalizing from what he ob-
served within the four walls of one Viennese consulting room
during the first third of the twentieth century, and from what he
was told by a demographically very restricted sample of people.
But quite aside from errors traceable to his unrepresentative
sample, he sought to explain human behavior by postulating
universal rather than probabilistic laws. As Benjamin Rubin-
stein (1975) has demonstrated, the latter alone are appropriate
for the clinical theory, and he has set about the necessary task of
reformulating it accordingly. Trained as a physician, Freud
assumed that hysteria and obsessive-compulsive neurosis were
true diseases, which therefore must be caused in important part
by specific pathogens. Today, it seems doubtful that 'mental
illnesses' exist in the realm of neurosis with etiologies as specific
as that of tuberculosis, where the role of the specific bacillus is
crucial, important though other considerations may be in deter-
mining the seriousness of the illness. At the least, in the realm of
mental health the disease theory is controversial, and there
appear to be no serious problems in converting what Freud
thought to be specific etiologies into probabilistic form.
Hence, to take one of Griinbaum's favorite examples, the
presumed pathogenicity of repressed conflicts concerning ho-
mosexuality for paranoia needs to be reformulated something
like this: Persons who experience conflict about homosexual
wishes and/or cross-sexual identifications, and who repress such
thoughts from awareness, are more likely than others to develop
paranoid symptoms. And further: Persons who have paranoid
symptoms, particularly delusional thoughts of being per-
secuted, are more likely than others to have a history of re-
pressed conflicts concerning homosexual wishes and/or cross-
sexual identifications. Unfortunately, such propositions are
more difficult to test, for a single contrary case cannot refute
them as was true of Freud's universalistic formulation. They
require statistical research of a kind for which psychoanalysts
generally lack training, much less experience. Nevertheless,
they are clearly testable in a straightforward way, albeit not in
the analytic hour.
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
As to method, Griinbaum has done an undoubted service in
pointing out the danger that suggestion of various sorts may
seriously contaminate the data yielded by psychoanalytic pa-
tients in their misnamed "free associations." He would put it
much more strongly, however- too strongly, in my view. With
the collapse of the tally argument, Griinbaum seems to say, the
data of the clinical hour become hopelessly biased by sug-
gestion. He gives the impression that he overgeneralizes from
the weakness of the traditional clinical method to the
uselessness of the data generated in the psychoanalytic hour for
more rigorous research. As Luborsky, Dahl, Gill, Weiss &
Sampson, Silberschatz and others have shown, once the ses-
sions are tape-recorded and transcribed, their data can be
subjected to carefully controlled, hypothesis-testing research.
Griinbaum has not yet acknowledged this point in print, though
in conversation he generally concedes it. Moreover, one can
then set about examining the extent to which therapists do
demonstrably "lead " their patients or in effect shape their
productions by a kind of operant conditioning.
Griinbaum's argument about suggestion is based on the
demonstration that the psychoanalytic hour is logically faulty as
an investigative method - that contamination can take place.
Granted, it can; but how far are the productions of any particular
patient biased by the analyst's gross or subtle suggestions? That
is an empirical matter, one that very much needs to be studied.
It is quite possible for a patient to be much affected by sug-
gestion in one respect and for the analytic data to be adequately
"clean" in many other respects. As Cook and Campbell (1979)
show, in actual research on important human problems we can
rarely approximate the cleanliness and epistemic irre-
proachability of laboratory experiments; yet quasi experiments
are none the less useful ways to contribute to knowledge. Any
one of them has flaws, demonstrable vulnerabilities to a loss of
internal validity. Nevertheless, progress toward truth is possi-
ble if we use multiple routes, each of which is fallible, but in a
different way. Hence, if the results of nonclinical investigations
converge with the findings from clinicians especially from
therapists of rather different persuasions - we may end up with
an approximative conjoint method with some epistemic defen-
sibility. That would increase if the different methods' vul-
nerability to error were carefully explored and turned out to be
complementary. For it can happen that despite apparently
major differences in method, clinical and nonclinical investiga-
tions might share one or more of the same threats to internal
validity, in which case the replicated result would be moot.
Griinbaum is mainly concerned with what Cook and Camp-
bell (1979) call internal validity - the degree to which an
investigation yields unambiguously interpretable findings. Yet
it is worth stressing that laboratory experiments often show up
as short on external validity: They can be generalized safely only
to peculiar and limited populations of people and situations. As
Brunswik (1956) put it, they lack ecological validity, in that their
sampling of "objects" or behavior settings is nonrepresentative.
Griinbaum devotes most of his attention to etiological hypoth-
eses, but there are many other kinds in the clinical theory of
psychoanalysis. Thus, though I fully agree that retrospective
data are inadequate for the testing of etiologies, recorded
analyses can be used and are being used in the relatively
rigorous testing of a variety of other kinds of psychoanalytic
hypotheses.
In an important paper that usefully complements Griin-
baum's arguments, Rubinstein (1975) distinguishes several
kinds of propositions that make up the clinical theory: In de-
scending order of abstractness, they are general, special, and
particular clinical hypotheses. The first class includes, for exam-
ple, propositions concerning the existence and functioning of
unconscious motives and fantasies. Even propositions as broad
and basic as those on the pathogenicity of repressed conflicts,
cited by Griinbaum as making up Freud's theory of repression,
fall into the class of special clinical hypotheses.
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 243
Commentaryi'Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
It needs to be pointed out that most of the research so far
conducted on recorded and transcribed psychoanalyses tests
particular clinical hypotheses, which concern individual pa-
tients and are most amenable to testing. As Rubinstein argues,
at this level the higher-level hypotheses are treated as assump-
tions. To the extent that such particular hypotheses are con-
firmed, he points out, our faith in the credibility of the more
abstract clinical hypotheses tends to be supported. Unfortu-
nately, the linkage between the general and the special clinical
hypotheses is loose enough that the validity of the latter does not
necessarily entail the validity of the former. Indeed, Rubinstein
is at pains to demonstrate that the special hypotheses are
consistent with a variety of general theories; hence, it is ex-
tremely difficult - Rubinstein says, impossible - to test the
general clinical hypotheses with any psychological data what-
ever. Data from such disciplines as neurophysiology may, how-
ever, eventually prove adequate to the task.
Reverting to my above distinction between historical and
contemporary implications of Griinbaum's critique, I'd like to
argue that it is neither desirable nor important to put psycho-
analytic theory on an imaginary prisoner's block and try it in a
methodological court, seeking a verdict of innocent or guilty.
Obviously, it has serious shortcomings. The more interesting
question is what can be done about it. Can the theory be
salvaged? Can we not find ways of using the data yielded by
psychoanalytic treatment, which have impressed so many as
uncommonly rich and revealing? If Griinbaum could be per-
suaded to apply his formidable talents to these questions, all
who still hope for a scientific psychoanalysis would be even more
in his debt.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Preparation of this commentary was supported by a United States Public
Health Service Research Career Award, Grant 5-KO6:MH-12455, from
the National Institute of Mental Health.
Validating psychoanalysis: what methods for
what task?
Horst Kachele
Department of Psychotherapy, University of Ulm, D 7900 Ulm, Federal
Republic of Germany
To clarify the various issues involved in Griinbaum's critical
appraisal of psychoanalysis it is imperative to differentiate
among three methods used by psychoanalysts:
(a) The psychoanalytic method, a clinical technique for ob-
serving a patient by listening to him in a state of evenly
suspended attention and influencing him by giving him "an-
swers" to his "questions." This takes place within a dialogue; it
has been a self-misunderstanding of psychoanalysts to conceive
their interpretative activity, including the so-called preparatory
actions such as confrontations, clarifications, and even some-
times questions, to be similar to an independent variable intro-
duced by an experimenter in a laboratory setting. Research on
actual tape recordings of sessions has amply shown that psycho-
analytic dialogues are but a highly technical and rule-specified
variant of discourse. Discourse analysis has only to spell out
the specifics of the conversational rule system that underlies
the manifold clinical recommendations. The "questions" of the
patient are represented by the sections of his personality he
does not understand and are initially presented in the form of
symptoms, which are then transformed into relational patterns
(transference neurosis). These enable the analyst to elucidate for
the patient what he is asking for. The "answers" of the analyst
consist of metaeommunications about what the patient wants
(e.g. see Flader, Grodzicki & Schroter 1982).
We agree with Griinbaum's verdict that the causal role of any
agent in the etiology of neurosis cannot be definitely established
244 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
by the clinical knowledge accumulated within the frame of this
Socratic enterprise.
(b) The psychoanalytic collective thinking method: The expe-
riences gained by each psychoanalyst in the analytic setting are
pooled together in a highly unsystematic way, comparable to
ethnologists coming home from their field work and trying to
systematize their collected data. This process is heavily influ-
enced by the prevailing conceptions - theoretical and clinical -
of the group in which the individual psychoanalyst has been
trained and with which he works. This feature accounts for the
academic aspects of psychoanalytic groups, which have been an
object of criticism from prominent outsiders within the psycho-
analytic movement from very early on. However, if science
must also be regarded as a social enterprise, this kind of collec-
tive thinking can be found in all kinds of scientific endeavours. If
the concept of clinical science has any meaning at all, it refers to
this process of mutual stabilizing of intervention procedures and
interpretations. For psychoanalysis as a method to be more than
a mere observational technique, aiming to achieve change in
patients, it must share with many other respectable scientific
enterprises the epistemic problems of intervention paradigms.
One would wish that philosophers of science like Griinbaum
would devote more attention to the epistemological evaluation
of such processes of joint collaboration of many people over
many decades. To belittle clinical wisdom as Griinbaum does
when he quotes Luborsky and Spence (1978) on the present
state of quantitatively controlled knowledge versus the vast
body of clinical knowledge bypasses the fact that psychoanalytic
therapy, although probably built on epistemically weak founda-
tions, has proven to be as effective as other psychological
treatment modalities. Why does it work at all, and why has
behavior therapy, originally claimed to be rooted in experimen-
tal psychology, nowadays been reduced to a synonym for "meth-
odologically controlled psychotherapy," rejecting any simplistic
theoretical embedding in learning theory?
(c) The extraclinical method: A small number of psycho-
analysts have engaged in systematic research on therapeutic
processes based on careful documentation of the transactions of
the analytic session. Considering the complex issues involved in
building up a research methodology that can claim to capture
the decisive features of the therapeutic process, the results as
compiled by Luborsky and Spence (1978) or Masling (1983) are
highly encouraging; research begins to influence therapy, as
reflected in Luborsky's own reversal of his 1969 opinion that
"research cannot influence practice" (Luborsky 1984, p. 22).
Griinbaum's repeated plea for experimental studies may be
pertinent for selected parts of the clinical theory.
We have been able to show in a recently completed experi-
mental study on the relation between trait anxiety measured by
Spielberger's test and free association measured with Bordin's
scales that there is an inverse linear relationship which over-
rides the impact of analyst/patient physical positions (face to face
versus lying on a couch). The results will have therapeutic
relevance to the extent that the analogue character of such
experiments can be demonstrated by parallel investigations of
transference-resistance features (Kachele, Holzer, Heckmann
& Robben 1985).
We agree with Griinbaum that the final validation of the
causal hypothesis concerning neurogenesis would require large-
scale epidemiological studies like Schepanck (1984), twin-stud-
ies (Schepanck 1974) and developmental studies such as Emde's
work on the psychobiology of emotions in infancy (1980). There
is a vast amount of work before us, and it may turn out that
psychoanalysis as founded by Freud will undergo major changes
or even dissolve into a new frame of reference. This possibility is
echoed in Griinbaum's repeated observation that "It may per-
haps still turn out that Freud's brilliant intellectual imagination
was quite serendipitous for psychopathology and other facets of
human conduct." In this statement he comes very close to an
intuitive understanding of why psychoanalysts are not so dis-

turbed with the epistemic weakness of their enterprise as so
brilliantly exposed by Griinbaum.
The scientific tasks confronting
psychoanalysis
Gerald L. Klerman
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Stanley Cobb
Research Laboratories, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General
Hospital, Boston, Mass. 02114
Griinbaum's important book deals with a controversy of long
standing - the scientific status of psychoanalysis. This topic has
been the subject of controversy for almost 100 years, ever since
Freud's first psychoanalytic publication in the mid-1880s after
his return from studying with Charcot at the Salpetriere in
Paris. Psychoanalysis, particularly the Freudian form, has had
great acceptance in literary circles, among social theorists and
among mental health professionals, including psychiatrists,
clinical psychologists and social workers. However, its accep-
tance among scientists has been mixed, at best.
"Is psychoanalysis a science?' This question has reemerged in
the past few years, particularly because of the discord around
the secrecy surrounding the Freud archives and the biographi-
cal studies of Freud's changing position on the seduction theory
(Malcolm 1984a; Masson 1984). Furthermore, the major ad-
vances in neuroscience require a realignment of psychoanalytic
theory (Reiser 1984).
Freudians have claimed that psychoanalysis has three
aspects:
1. Psychoanalysis is a unique method for gaining access to
unconscious mental processes as manifested in free association,
dreams, slips of the tongue, and neurotic and psychotic symp-
tom formation;
2. Psychoanalytic theory is a corpus of multiple theories
about normal and abnormal mental functioning. Theories about
normal psychological functioning include the development of
mental processes, particularly during childhood, and the impact
of childhood experiences upon adult functioning. In addition,
there are a complex of psychoanalytic theories about different
mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive
neurosis, depression, melancholia, and hysteria.
3. Psychoanalysis is a form of psychotherapy. Its derivative,
psychodynamicaily oriented psychotherapy, has been the domi-
nant mode of treatment within American psychiatry and related
mental health fields.
The current scientific criticism is mainly focused on the
second aspect, the theories and hypotheses about normal and
psychopathological mental functioning. The criticism comes
from two sources. First, from within psychoanalysis, the her-
meneutics view has disclaimed any possible scientific value of
psychoanalysis and focuses instead on the special meanings that
experience and thought has for the individual. The her-
meneutics view denies the possibility that psychoanalysis can
contribute to a general psychology of human functioning.
Second, many philosophers and practitioners of science,
relying heavily on Popper's principle of falsification, have chal-
lenged the status of psychoanalysis as a science by questioning
whether psychoanalytic propositions are capable of verification
by empirical methods.
Griinbaum addresses both of these sources of criticism. He
refutes the hermeneutics view and argues convincingly that
psychoanalysis from the time of Freud claims to be a natural
science and is entitled to be judged on this basis. Having dealt
with the hermeneutics critique, Griinbaum examines the issue
of the potential verification of scientific propositions and dis-
agrees with Popper's assertion that psychoanalysis is intrin-
sically untestable.
Commentaryi'Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
Accepting Griinbaum's argument, as this commentator does,
one is then left with the question, "What types of experimental
evidence are appropriate for testing psychoanalytic proposi-
tions?" The conventional wisdom among psychoanalysts has
been that only data derived from the psychoanalytic treatment
situation, "from the couch," are suitable for testing these hy-
potheses. Here again Griinbaum tackles a difficult issue with
insight and persistence, and, in my opinion, convincingly dem-
onstrates that the psychoanalytic treatment situation cannot by
itself be an adequate arena for gathering data to test the scien-
tific validity of psychoanalytic hypotheses.
After finishing Griinbaum's book I was left with the distress-
ing conclusion that the scientific status of psychoanalysis re-
mains to be established and that its establishment will require
evidence from investigations outside the psychoanalytic treat-
ment situation. Important issues remain: the nature of appro-
priate control groups, sampling problems, use of quantitative
measures, development of reliable and valid measures of intra-
psychic functioning such as defenses, conflicts, self-representa-
tions.
There is one important topic related to the scientific status of
psychoanalysis that Grunbaum does not address - the evidence
for efficacy of psychoanalysis as a therapy. To the extent that
psychoanalysis makes claims for therapeutic value for patients
with conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, hys-
teria, borderline personality disorder, and narcissistic person-
ality disorder, it should be subject to the same requirements for
evidence as any other medical or psychiatric procedure, such as
pharmacologic agents, surgery, or other forms of psychotherapy
(Klerman 1983). In all fields of medicine, including psychiatry,
the randomized controlled trial has become the standard mode
of testing claims about the efficacy of interventions, most often
treatment interventions, but also preventive and rehabilitative
interventions. In the past two decades, the controlled trial
design has been applied to the evaluation of social interventions,
such as the negative income tax plans and types of health
insurance payments (Seidman 1984). On this issue, psycho-
analysis, along with the other psychotherapies, is the subject of
current scientific and public policy controversy, not only be-
cause of the absence of available evidence as to its efficacy for
specific conditions but, more important, because of disagree-
ment over the types of research designs and evidence that would
be considered valid. [See Prioleau et al: "An Analysis of Psycho-
therapy versus Placebo Studies" BBS 6(2) 1983.]
Grunbaum correctly titles his book The Foundations of Psy-
choanalysis. Having demonstrated that psychoanalysis is a natu-
ral science and potentially capable of verification, but in need of
evidence from sources other than the psychoanalytic treatment
setting, he has laid the foundation for a psychoanalytic research
program. It remains for the psychoanalysts and their colleagues
in the philosophy of science, psychology, neurobiology, and
epidemiology to construct upon this foundation a scientific
structure based on empirical evidence.
Griinbaum's philosophical critique of psycho-
analysis: Or what I don't know isn't knowledge
Paul Kline
Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, England
In this most carefully reasoned attack on psychoanalysis, Griin-
baum shows that Freud's clinical methods failed to support his
theorising, especially in the case of the theory of repression, the
cornerstone of psychoanalysis. In addition, he demonstrates
that modern hermeneutic interpretations are equally inconsis-
tent. He concludes that Freudian theory is essentially an unsup-
ported dogma that requires extraclinical evidence for its asser-
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 245
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
tions. This is a task for the future, and what experimental
evidence there is, Grunbaum argues, fails to support the theory.
In my view, however, these conclusions are flawed by omis-
sions and weaknesses in Griinbaum's arguments and these I
shall now examine. Grunbaum admits that he is relatively
inexperienced in the field of psychotherapeutic process and
treatment outcome and that he was assisted by Rachman and
Eysenck at the Maudsley. These unswerving opponents of
psychoanalytic theory have indubitably coloured his approach,
as shall be seen below.
First, these conclusions are not new. Farrell (1961), Kline
(1972; 1981), and Fisher and Greenberg (1977) have all made
these points - that the theory is not well supported per se but
requires objective experimental evidence.
Griinbaum's case, however, is not well made because he has
assumed that if the theory of repression can be invalidated
psychoanalytic theory will come tumbling down. However Far-
rell (1961), whose work, surprisingly, is not referred to (is this an
influence of the Maudsley?), has shown that Freudian theory is
not one coherent theory at all but rather a collection of theories
some of which may turn out to be true, others false. Thus an
attack even on a central tenet such as repression cannot make
Grunbaum's point.
But what about this attack itself? Has Grunbaum really shown
that there is nothing to the Freudian theory of repression? I
accept his point that Freudian observations per se cannot
support the theory. However, let us examine Grunbaum's
rejection of the experimental evidence.
First Grunbaum attacks my own arguments (Kline 1981) for
the existence of repression on the grounds that this is a far cry
from showing that repression is involved in the aetiology of
neuroses. However, I never claimed the latter. My point (as a
careful reading of my book would show) is that the theory of
repression requires (a) that there be a mechanism of repression
and (b) that this be involved in neurosis. My claim involved (a)
only - see p. 226 - "Perceptual defence studies have shown that
there is a mechanism of repression."
As to the claimed aetiology of repression in respect of neu-
rosis, I agree with Grunbaum that there is no definitive evi-
dence. However, the work of Silverman (1980) and Percept
genetics (Kragh & Smith 1970) cannot be discussed without
even a mention. There is something in the work that requires
refutation.
In his conclusions Grunbaum claims that the experimental
evidence is poor. Now Fisher and Greenberg (1977) and Kline
(1981) cite more than 1,000 objective studies of psychoanalytic
theories. Few of these are even referred to by Grunbaum.
Those he does cite are experimentally weak, using, for example,
the Mosher guilt scale, of unknown validity. To cite such work
reveals that Grunbaum has a poor grasp of experimental psy-
chology. This is indeed hardly surprising, for he is trained as a
philosopher not as a psychologist, and there are limits to the
knowledge even of philosophers as distinguished as Grunbaum.
This limitation is strongly brought home by Grunbaum's citing
as a good experimental study the work of Eysenck and Wilson
(1973). This work consists of a number of papers already cited in
Kline (1972), printed in full and interpreted anew by these
authors so that Freudian theory remains unsupported.
In his book Grunbaum shows himself to be a master of
philosophical disputation and detailed argument. It seems to me
that citing Eysenck and Wilson indicates either that he has not
read it carefully or that the rigorous standards of argument he
uses against Freudian theory, he fails to use on work with which
he agrees. For example, Eysenck and Wilson explain the finding
that paranoids look longer at pictures of men (as predicted in
Freudian theory) as follows: Paranoids are suspicious because
they are more suspicious of men who pose a greater threat. In
addition, they are alert to the "shrink's" attempt to label them
homosexual, and this explains their emotion in showing prefer-
246 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
ence for male pictures. I cannot believe that Grunbaum se-
riously supports these ad hoc arguments.
In summary, I accept the philosophical analyses of Grunbaum
concerning the lack of real evidence for Freud's theory in the
Freudian corpus and his attack on the hermeneutic interpreta-
tion. However, his conclusions, for reasons I have shown, do not
seem to survive careful scrutiny.
Psychoanalysis: Science or hermeneutics?
Valerii Leibin
Institute of Methodological Research and Academy of Sciences, Moscow,
U.S.S.R.
An understanding of the essence of Freud's psychoanalytic
teachings is always accompanied by a variety of interpretations,
which sometimes directly oppose one another. It is no accident
that a multicolored mosaic of diverse opinions about both the
theory and the practice of psychoanalysis can be observed in the
literature devoted to discovering the conceptual structures of
Freud. Grunbaum's book, which contains a critical analysis not
only of psychoanalysis but also of current ways of looking at
psychoanalysis, clearly demonstrates the extreme diversity of
interpretations in research on Freud's psychoanalytic teachings.
No matter what aspects of Freud's psychoanalytic teachings
are studied, discussions usually center on the question of
whether or not psychoanalysis is a science. The point of depar-
ture for these reflections is Freud's own assumption that psycho-
analysis is a part of psychology and as such could be nothing but a
natural science. As far as the status of psychoanalysis is con-
cerned, two points of view can be detected: Some researchers
believe that psychoanalysis really is a science; others think it
does not thus qualify and can be viewed rather as a kind of
hermeneutics having to do with the interpretation of psycholog-
ical phenomena.
Throughout his book, Grunbaum subjects the arguments of
the advocates of both points of view to critical scrutiny. He
comes out most sharply, however, against the methodological
errors in the hermeneutical interpretation of psychoanalysis
(reflected in the works of Habermas, Ricoeur, and Klein (1976),
as well as in Popper's (1974) treatment of the subject) as a
discipline which does not meet the criteria of a true science. At
any rate, his polemics with Habermas, Ricoeur, and Klein, on
the one hand, and with Popper on the other, gives specialists a
chance to weigh all the "pros" and "cons" in the consideration of
psychoanalysis as a natural science.
However, it seems to me that Grunbaum's polemic, which in
many ways he formulates clearly and carries to its logical conclu-
sion, is conducted within the framework of those "rules of the
game" set by the traditional view of psychoanalysis, in spite of
the new shifts in thinking which are certainly present in the
book. I have in mind particularly the initial thesis of this book as
well as the studies with whose authors Grunbaum is carrying on
his dispute. This thesis is clearly expressed in the very way the
question regarding the status of psychoanalysis as a science is
posed. After all, Griinbaum is disputing the arguments which
deny the status of a natural science to the clinical theory of
psychoanalysis. He also opposes the criteria for truly scientific
status advanced by Popper. And here is where we are con-
fronted with a kind of circular reasoning: No matter what
arguments are adduced, either in defense of or against the
evaluation of psychoanalysis as a science, in the final analysis,
each researcher is left with his own opinion. Habermas,
Ricoeur, or Popper can, of course, be criticized for their inade-
quate, one-sided conception of psychoanalysis, all the more so
since there are substantial reasons to feel this way. For their
part, in answering Grunbaum's criticism, these researchers

could probably have cited less substantial counterarguments in
defense of their own views. The detached, nonprofessional
observer is left simply to accept whichever point of view seems
to him best-founded and free of contradictions. But the spe-
cialist in psychoanalysis will most probably be impressed pre-
cisely by those arguments which confirm his own view, irrespec-
tive of whether or not he recognizes psychoanalysis as having
the status of a science.
Be that as it may, the question of whether or not psycho-
analysis is an authentic science is in most cases decided in
advance by the criteria applied. The focus of the question
remains Freud's own definition of psychoanalysis as a science.
In his philosophical critique of the foundations of psychoanalysis
and its various interpretations, Griinbaum rejects precisely this
definition. But is Freud's definition of psychoanalysis really the
only one? Even though in a number of his works Freud did
strive to emphasize the natural science status of psychoanalysis,
did he not give other definitions of it as well? Unfortunately, to
judge by the existing literature, scholars do not pose these
questions at all. Griinbaum's book is no exception in this
respect.
Nevertheless, Freud's works themselves offer extremely var-
ied definitions of psychoanalysis. His treatment of it as a natural
science is but one. One can distinguish at least ten other
definitions of psychoanalysis provided by Freud, which can be
reduced to the following. Psychoanalysis in Freud's own words
is: (1) a part of psychology as a science; (2) an indispensable tool
of scientific research; (3) an impartial instrument, such as, for
example, the calculation of infinitely small parameters; (4) a tool
that enables the ego to master the id; (5) any research that
recognizes "transference " and "resistance" as basic premises of
his work; (6) an auxiliary method of investigating the most
diverse areas of a person's mental life; (7) one of the ways to
attain self-cognition (8) the art of interpretation; (9) not a scien-
tific or tendentious investigation but a therapeutic device; (10) a
method of treating the mentally ill.
As can be seen, the range of Freud's own definitions of
psychoanalysis is rather extensive. It is absolutely clear that for
some researchers who accept definitions 1 and 2 psychoanalysis
emerges as a genuine science, whereas for others, who are
inclined toward definitions 7 and 8, it can be perceived as a
henneneutics which has nothing in common with the natural
science methods of cognition. For this reason, the numerous
and unceasing debates that have been going on for decades
about just what the psychoanalysis founded by Freud really is,
in what direction it should be developed, and what future awaits
it are far from irrelevant. And it isn't just that a polysemous
interpretation of psychoanalysis is a function of the natural
scientific and philosophical dispositions of the researchers who
"read" and interpret Freud in various ways. We must reckon
with the real fact of ambiguities in the definition of psycho-
analysis by its very founder.
Griinbaum's book, in my view, aids in clarifying certain
aspects of psychoanalysis which might help determine its scien-
tific status. In this sense it contributes to the critical interpreta-
tion of the foundations of psychoanalysis and, it must be sup-
posed, will stimulate further research, since specialists in this
field of theory and practice will hardly be able to develop their
own ideas fruitfully without having first thought through their
positive and negative stances on the arguments of the author.
However, other aspects of the psychoanalytic teachings of
Freud connected with other definitions of psychoanalysis re-
main underresearched. It seems that Grunbaum's thorough and
accurate philosophical critique must be supplemented by a
critical analysis which goes beyond the limits of traditional
problems of defining the scientific status of psychoanalysis with
the aim of discovering the philosophy of psychoanalytical teach-
ings. As I see it, a philosophical critique of the foundations of
psychoanalysis requires a thorough critique of its philosophy,
Commentary IGrunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
not in the sense of the traditionally understood philosophy of
science, but in the sense of whatever exactly it is that can be
called a psychoanalytical philosophy.
A critical understanding of psychoanalytical philosophy is, in
my opinion, one of the little-studied but promising directions of
research. The methodological difficulties of such research lie in
the fact that, in contradistinction to the clearly expressed pro-
nouncements on psychoanalysis as a science, Freud sought in
every way possible to dissociate himself from any kind of philos-
ophy which he identified with metaphysics. However, the
"psychoanalysis of psychoanalysis" allows us to speak of the fact
that psychoanalytical philosophy was always a hidden intention
and goal of Freud's teachings. Such research can become an
indispensable supplement to Grunbaum's philosophical cri-
tique, thereby contributing to a satisfactory discovery of the
foundations of psychoanalysis. In particular, it can prove useful
in clarifying Grunbaum's thoughts as to Freud's rejection of his
"ontologically reductive" concept of the scientific status of
psychoanalysis in favor of its "epistemological status" (see [3]
above), and his notion that Freud's criterion for being scientific
was "methodological and not ontologically reductive" (see [6]).
But this requires a thorough exposure of the essence of psycho-
analytical philosophy in its ontological, epistemological, and
axioiogical perspectives.
NOTE
Translated by Rebecca Park, Slavic Studies Department, Princeton
University.
Evidence to lessen Professor Grunbaum's
concern about Freud's clinical inference
method
Lester Luborsky
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
19104
Professor Griinbaum is a satisfying person to engage in discus-
sion because of the probity of his evaluations as well as a rare
responsiveness to cogent evidence. I offer evidence that bears
on the first two of his three "fundamental questions."
Grunbaum's first fundamental question. Is the retrospective
clinical method of psychoanalytic investigation in the treatment
setting critically crippled by an artifact - the patient's com-
pliance to the analyst's expectations? (I believe the question can
also be asked in this way: Is the apparent accuracy of the
therapist's inferences about the patient's past and present func-
tioning a product of the patient's compliance to the analyst's
expectations?)
The question is framed as though a yes or no answer were
possible. Actually, there are several answers, depending on the
several kinds of inferences from the session, and all of these
should be a matter of degree rather than all or none. I will
discuss three kinds of inferences from sessions corresponding to
three facets of the question.
Facet A: To what extent are the therapist's inferences accu-
rate about the parallel between the patient's current rela-
tionship patterns and past parental relationships?
This question is framed purely in terms of the degree of
parallel between current relationship patterns and past rela-
tionship patterns/rom material provided by the patient (i.e. not
from extrasession data). Even though such parallels have been
drawn by psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists for at
least 80 years, there has never been an objective study of the
evidence for this drawing-of-parallels in the sessions. But now
evidence is available from the method of core conflictual rela-
tionship theme as applied by independent judges for the delin-
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 247
Commentary7'Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
eation of the transference pattern (Luborsky 1977; 1984;
Luborsky, Crits-Christoph & Mellon, in press; Luborsky,
Mellon, Alexander, van Ravenswaay, Childress, Levine, Co-
hen, Hole & Ming, 1985). The pattern is extracted from ac-
counts of interactions of the patient with the therapist and of the
patient with others both in the present and in the past. From
this evidence (Luborsky, Crits-Christoph & Mellon, in press) of
a clear parallel between present and past patterns of rela-
tionships we are able to conclude that therapists are responding
to information provided in the session. However, we cannot say
from this evidence alone whether the therapist might have
induced some of the parallel.
Facet B: To what extent can it be shown that these central
patterns of relationship (of a kind that are involved in the
transference) are an intrinsic characteristic of the patient rather
than being engendered by the influence of the therapist (i.e. are
they just an artifact of patient compliance to therapist
expectations)?
A powerful method for discriminating the contribution- of
these two sources is now available. It shows that this central
pattern of relationship was evident before the therapy began
(van Ravenswaay, Luborsky & Childress 1983). Data were
gathered by a special interview method applied outside the
therapy - the Relationship Apperception Paradigms Test (RAP)
(Luborsky 1978). Because the core conflictual relationship
themes are evident apart from the treatment as well as within
the treatment, the parallel nature of the pattern provides evi-
dence that the pattern is characteristic of the patient rather than
generated by the expectations of the therapist.
More generally, if psychotherapy sessions are so contami-
nated by the therapist's expectations as to be useless pro-
batively, then predictions made on the basis of these sessions
should not be a substantial predictor of anything outside the
session. That is obviously not the case, however: Predictions
based on sessions have dozens of highly significant and substan-
tial correlations with measures outside the treatment. A large
class of such session-based inferences are those having to do
with positive relationship qualities such as the helping alliance
which correlates with outcome measures anywhere from .4 to .6
(Luborsky & Auerbach 1985).
Facet C: How accurate are the therapist's inferences about
the patient's past and present behavior when these behaviors
are understood in terms of the patient's response to actual early
parental behavior?
Freud, and many therapists since then, have made inferences
about the patient's past and present responses to past parental
behavior, e.g. "Your father did this to you and so you reacted in
this way then and now."
I agree with Grunbaum's view that such inferences by the
therapist have shaky evidence to support their accuracy. They
are usually limited in having only the patient as the primary
source of information, although often the parents and relatives
are interviewed. The views of others based on data collected
through concurrent early observation of the parent-child in-
teraction could provide evidence of the level of accuracy of such
inferences by the therapist. Of course, such information is rarely
available, except from longitudinal research studies such as
those in an ongoing study for the past 30 years on one patient
(Engel & Reichsman, in preparation) and in the long-term data
collection of the "Berkeley" studies (Block 1971).
Grunbaum's second fundamental question. Do psychotherapy
sessions provide data that permit verification of the causes of
symptoms, including "Freudian slips"?
One sort of evidence that disagrees with Grunbaum's nega-
tive answer to his question is provided by the symptom-context
method (Luborsky 1970). The recent book by Edelson (1984)
expresses the same view about the cogency of my method in
answering Grunbaum's challenge. By means of my method, the
"causes" of neurotic and psychosomatic symptoms can be dis-
cerned. I use the word "cause" in the sense of a factor that is
248 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
shown to have a high probability of being temporally associated
with the development of a symptom when that high degree of
association could be, and probably is, causal. The method
entails marshalling data from sessions by first locating recurrent
symptoms enacted, experienced, or reported in the sessions,
then demarcating the context in which the symptoms appear,
and finally having the context judged by blind independent
judges. To further increase the probability of accuracy of the
inferences, comparisons are also made with "control symptom"
contexts, i.e. arbitrarily selected points within sessions whose
contexts are evaluated by the same blind judges in a manner
similar to the one used in the real symptom context. Several
other characteristics of the symptom-context method add to its
value in establishing causes: (1) At times (e.g. for the momentary
forgetting symptom) the therapist has no hypothesis about any
causes related to the symptom or does not respond in-
terpretively to the symptom, and (2) the controlled evaluation of
the data is by blind independent judges who come from varied
theoretical backgrounds.
The results of the symptom-context research have shown that
for each type of symptom some high-frequency concomitants of
the symptom were discovered. For the momentary forgetting
symptom, for example, the forgetting is highly associated with
heightened involvement in the relationship with the analyst and
that involvement is in terms of the patient's transference pattern
(Luborsky, in press; Luborsky, Sackheim & Christoph 1979). In
a recent study (in press) I describe one patient in the sample who
happened to have had a change from a male analyst in the first
part of the analysis to a female analyst in the second. The same
contents were found to be associated with the momentary
forgetting in the treatments by each analyst, i. e. a change in the
analyst did not mean a change in the conditions for the
symptom.
It is further proof of Grunbaum's openness to evidence that
when the cogency of the symptom-context method for his
second fundamental question was pointed out (in a discussion in
the Rapaport-Klein Study Group, June 1983) he acknowledged
the relevance of the method and its results. However, he did
add a qualifying opinion that the symptom-context method
could not be applied to "Freud's grandest clinical hypotheses."
This open-handed acknowledgement on his part of course opens
the way for the method as being capable in principle of dealing
with some of the grandest of Freud's hypothetical constructs; if a
method is able to test a minor hypothesis it is only a matter of the
investigator's ingenuity to provide it with a major hypothesis to
test.
It should be pointed out that one of these major hypotheses
has in fact already been the subject of evaluation by the symp-
tom-context method, namely, the hypothesis about the causes
of neurotic symptoms in Freud's genera] theory of symptom
formation (Freud 1926) - that helplessness or the anticipation of
helplessness is the most central cause. The symptom-context
method has been applied to a variety of symptoms including
momentary forgetting (Luborsky et al. 1979), petit mal seizures
(Luborsky, Docherty, Todd, Knapp, Mirsky & Gottschalk
1975), precipitously emerging depressive states (Luborsky,
Singer, Hartke, Crits-Christoph & Cohen 1984), and migraine
headaches and stomach pain (Luborsky & Auerbach 1969). In
fact, the symptom-context results on all of the symptoms studied
so far show that helplessness is the most prevalent "cause" of the
psychological symptoms ("cause" being taken to mean, as stated
earlier, a factor associated with the development of a symptom
that recurrently appears in the material prior to the appearance
of the symptom).
Grunbaum might respond further in this way: "Yes, you have
a point, but some of the methods you apply to the session bring
in extrasession data and bring in procedures not ordinarily used
by the clinician and never by Freud himself." I would reply in
turn, "Yes, but the extrasession data and the procedures for
analysis of sessions (for example, in the symptom-context meth-

od) show that Freud's hypotheses can be shown to have high
probability of accuracy, i.e. that certain inferences based on
sessions have some validity. Just as with the validity procedures
for any validated test, one does not have to repeat the validity
study every time a test is applied. The session, too, when
evaluated in a particular way, is then considered to have shown
some potential for validity. Furthermore, many clinicians can
undoubtedly make judgments that are like those that the guided
clinical judgment methods (CCRT [core conflictual relationship
theme] and symptom context) can achieve.
The thrust of Grunbaum's subsequent conclusion is that
verification of inferences from psychotherapy sessions will have
to come from extraclinical studies because intrasession in-
ferences cannot soar to the level where they can prove anything.
He affirms this even though he says he must admit that some
powerful insights have, or probably have, been generated by
analyses of sessions. For applications to the analysis of intrases-
sion data I have pointed to two guided judgment methods which
demonstrate reasonable levels of accuracy of verification of
clinical inferences. Verification of hypotheses can come from
both intrasession and extrasession studies and in fact the two,
when taken together, strengthen each other's accuracy of
verification.
The question of causality
Judd Marmor
70889 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90024
Grunbaum's book is a tour deforce. The depth and breadth of
his knowledge of psychoanalytic literature in general, and of
Freud's works in particular, are most impressive. He propounds
his thesis with vigor and conviction, but one cannot help wishing
that his writing style were less turgid and had more of the
elegant simplicity that has made Freud's ideas so seductive.
Sentences such as "Freud claimed the status of a natural science
for his clinical theory by misextrapolation from its envisaged
reduction to the primordially scientific metapsychology," (p.7)
make reading Grunbaum unnecessarily arduous!
The essential point that Grunbaum makes is that the scientific
pretensions of classical psychoanalytic theory are seriously
flawed, although he does not deny the therapeutic potential of
psychoanalytic treatment. Freud and his classical followers have
long insisted that psychoanalysis is a "basic science" akin to
physics, but Grunbaum demonstrates convincingly that the
basic tenets upon which psychoanalytic theory rests - the
theory of repression, the validation of psychoanalytic hypoth-
eses by the presumptively privileged cognitive reactions of the
patient, and the method of free association - all fail to meet the
tests of scientific methodology. These criticisms have been
made by others, both within and outside of the psychoanalytic
profession, but never with as much detail and overwhelming
logic as Grunbaum displays in this volume.
As long ago as 1955, in a panel on the validation of psycho-
analytic technique, I argued that analytic theory must be subject
to consensual validation by findings extrinsic to the psycho-
analytic method itself. I was astonished (perhaps naively) to hear
other participants in that symposium argue that such external
verification was unnecessary and irrelevant and that so long as
psychoanalytic theory was internally consistent, it had scientific
validity. A large body of contradictory findings, ably docu-
mented by Grunbaum, have long since demolished that argu-
ment. No serious scientist today would assert that the success of
any therapeutic method constitutes proof of the correctness of
the theory on which that therapeutic technique was based. The
fact is that the existence of the "transference" phenomenon that
Freud was the first to describe renders the internal validation of
the psychoanalytic method highly questionable. The tendency
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
to idealize the analyst in the course of a positive transference
gives analysts' interpretations enormous persuasive power.
Thus, it is not surprising, as I have pointed out elsewhere, that
patients of each school (of psychoanalysis) seem to bring out precisely
the kind of phenomenological data which confirm the theories and
interpretations of their analysts. Thus, each theory tends to be self-
validating. Freudians elicit material about the Oedipus complex and
castration anxiety, Adlerians about masculine strivings and feelings of
inferiority, Horneyans about idealized images, Sullivanians about
disturbed interpersonal relationships, etc. The fact is that in so
complex a transaction as the psychoanalytic therapeutic process, the
impact of a patient and therapist upon each other, and particularly of
the latter upon the former, is an unusually profound one. What the
analyst shows interest in, the kinds of questions he asks, the kinds of
data he chooses to react to or to ignore, and the interpretations he
makes, all exert a subtle but significant suggestive impact upon the
patient to bring forth certain kinds of data in preference to others.
(Marmor 1974b)
It follows from this that even free association - that sacred
cornerstone of the psychoanalytic method - has serious limita-
tions. Both clinical and experimental evidence (Krasner 1958;
Mandler & Kaplan 1956; Marmor 1974a; Salzinger 1959) have
demonstrated that the "free associations" of the patient are
strongly influenced by the values, expectations, and verbal
comments of the therapist.
One wonders, however, whether the causal significance of
conflict in the genesis of at least some psychopathology - also
one of the basic elements in psychoanalytic theory - does not
still retain much of its validity. Grunbaum does not deal with
this issue, yet the fact that conflictual situations are relevant to
the development of neurotic disturbances has been experimen-
tally validated in a wide variety of approach-avoidance studies in
lower animals.
One final point that perhaps might have received additional
attention is the issue of causality as a multifactorial rather than a
unifactorial phenomenon. It seems to this commentator that one
of the major fallacies of classical psychoanalytic theory is the fact
that Freud, in keeping with the thinking of his time, kept
looking for a single cause for neurosis (akin to the tubercle
bacillus), such as an infantile sexual trauma or castration anxiety.
Causality in the genesis of neurosis is now understood to be
multifactorial and to have biological and sociological roots as
well as psychological ones. Even the tubercle bacillus is no
longer assumed to be the sole sufficient cause of tuberculosis
without also considering the contributory role of the host's
immune system as well as sociological factors such as poverty,
malnutrition, and overcrowding. Recognizing the complex sys-
temic context in which psychopathology originates eliminates
the tendency toward psychological reductionism that charac-
terizes both the theory and the treatment methodology of
classical psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis, case histories, and
experimental data
Joseph Masling
Psychology Department, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo,
N.Y. 14226
Psychoanalytic theory has influenced Western thought more
profoundly than almost any other idea, but the data on which the
theory rests have been limited to the voluntary disclosure by the
analyst of selected case histories. Any number of scholars have
criticized severely the lack of interest on the part of psycho-
analysts in providing adequate empirical evidence in support of
the theory. Sherwood's description of the self-contained world
of psychoanalysis puts it well: "The situation is almost unique: in
perhaps no other field has so great a body of theory been built
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 249
Commentary7'Grunbaurn: Foundations of psychoanalysis
upon such a small public record of raw data" (1969, p. 70). Even
25 years ago, Scriven was forced to conclude about psycho-
analytic theory: "As a set of hypotheses [it] was a great achieve-
ment 50 years ago; as no more than a set of hypotheses it is a
great disgrace today" (1959, p. 226).
Psychoanalysts claim that their case histories produce data
that not only are more than mere hypotheses but constitute
scientifically respectable evidence, a claim most objective ob-
servers reject: "Certainly the self-congratulatory clinical histo-
ries in the analytic literature cannot be accepted as evidence of
anything beyond the writer's self-regard" (Malcolm 1984b, p.
18). Griinbaum makes an invaluable contribution to this issue by
his careful, meticulous analysis of the logic of the case history
method, concluding that it is not an acceptable scientific method
and that it cannot serve as the sole source of data relevant to
psychoanalytic theory. Among its other flaws, the case history
method relies on highly fallible memories, accounts, and re-
cords by the analyst and may overlook the influence of the
analyst on the verbal productions of the patient:
The clinical use of free association features epistemic biases of selec-
tion and manipulative contamination asfollows:(1) the analyst selects
thematicaUy from the patient's productions, partly by interrupting
the associations either explicitly or in a myriad more subtle ways at
points of his or her own theoretically inspired choosing; and (2) when
the Freudian doctor harbors the suspicion that the associations are
faltering because of evasive censorship, he uses verbal and also subtle
nonverbal promptings to induce the continuation of the associations
until they yield theoretically appropriate results. (1984, pp. 210-11)
Freud, of course, was aware of the charge that the analyst
somehow suggests some of the content of the patient's speech
and memories, and he stoutly denied this possibility. Griin-
baum quotes Freud's denial (on p. 275) and then closely dissects
Freud's argument, concluding that "insofar as the evidence for
the psychoanalytic corpus is now held to derive from the pro-
ductions of patients in analysis, this warrant is remarkably weak"
(1984, p. 278). Psychoanalysts might not like Griinbaum's book,
but they will have a difficult time demonstrating that he is either
naive about psychoanalysis or unsympathetic to it. If psycho-
analysts are going to be at all responsive to serious intellectual
challenges from outside the system (they could continue to
stonewall as they have for so many years), they will have to face
Griinbaum's charges directly and explicitly.
Griinbaum's solution to the insubstantial scientific base for
psychoanalysis is essentially that it should join the rest of the
scientific community and encourage empirical data: "In view of
my account of the epistemic defects inherent in the psycho-
analytic method, it would seem that the validation of Freud's
cardinal hypotheses has to come, if at all, mainly from well-
designed extraclinical studies, either epidemiologic or even
experimental" (1984, p. 278). My only disappointment with
Griinbaum's book is its failure to make explicit how much
experimental evidence relevant to the merit of the theory is
already available. In passing, Griinbaum notes that some ex-
perimental work has been done, but his primary purpose evi-
dently was not to dwell at length on the several reviews of
empirical data on psychoanalytic theory (Fisher & Greenberg
1977; 1978; Kline 1972; Masling 1983; Masling & Schwartz 1979;
Silverman 1976). Psychoanalytic theory has proved, perhaps
unexpectedly, to be extraordinarily heuristic. The least interest-
ing of these studies are those that intend only to test the validity
of the theory. More interesting and more important are the
experiments that originate in the theory but go beyond it to help
clarify issues that the theory either never considered or viewed
incorrectly. Silverman's work on the process of unconscious
perception and unconscious arousal of motives falls into this
latter category (Silverman 1976; 1983), as do Blatt's studies of
thought disorder (Blatt & Ritzier 1974) and object relations
(Blatt & Lerner 1983), Beebe's research on early infant behavior
and object relations (Beebe & Stem 1977), and Mayman's
investigations of object relations (1967). A more serious omis-
250 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
sion in the book is the failure to discuss the several studies that
have directly examined the process of psychoanalytic therapy by
using verbatim typescripts of analytic sessions (Dahl 1972; 1983;
Luborsky 1973; Luborsky & Auerbach 1969; Spence 1969). It
would have been extremely instructive to have had Griinbaum's
comments on the importance of such quantitative investigations
of the transactions between analyst and patient. Finally, Griin-
baum makes no mention of a potentially important source of
evidence for psychoanalytic theory - the experiments by cog-
nitive psychologists on unconscious perception. An excellent
review article (Nisbett & Wilson 1977) summarizes much of this
work, and in addition other studies (Fowler, Wolford & Slade
1981; Marcel 1980) present data that bear directly on psycho-
analytic notions of levels of awareness. [See also Holender:
"Semantic Activation Without Conscious Identification" BBS
9(1) 1986.] In brief, considerable evidence, some from the
clinical situation itself, most from extraclinical sources, relevant
to the validity of the theory is already available. The evaluation
of psychoanalytic theory is well under way. Griinbaum's book,
which so clearly refutes the argument that the case history
method is a sufficient means of generating data, makes the
collection of appropriate experimental evidence all the more
important.
Is Freudian psychoanalytic theory really
falsifiable?
Mark A. Notturno and Paul R. McHugh
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md. 21205
In The Foundations of Psychoanalysis, Griinbaum argues that:
(1) psychoanalytic theory qualifies for scientific status; (2) the
clinical evidence claimed by psychoanalysis is "remarkably
weak" (p. 278); and (3) "the validation of Freud's cardinal
hypotheses has to come, if at all, mainly from well-designed
ertraclinical studies" (p. 278). He then concludes that "while
psychoanalysis may thus be said to be scientifically alive, it is
currently hardly well" (p. 278). WefindGriinbaum's arguments
for (2) and (3) to be rigorous and cogent. Their significance,
however, depends upon the truth of (1). Despite his vigorous
critique of Popper, Griinbaum has failed to convince us that
psychoanalysis is falsifiable.
Griinbaum sharply criticizes Popper's view (q. v.) that psy-
choanalysis is nonscience, only to censure it himself as bad
science, or science not yet shown good. But how sharp is the
distinction between bad science and nonscience? Explanatory
theories that falsely claim to be scientific are sometimes called
"pseudosciences." Pseudosciences should be carefully dis-
tinguished from false scientific theories (Popper 1962a; p. 33).
The latter are clearly false; the former might well be true.
According to Popper, the distinction is not even one of justifica-
tion or confirmation. For no theory is or can be justified or
confirmed. Popper's distinction is one of testability (1983, p.
159). Scientific theories admit of severe and sincere empirical
testing; pseudosciences, for one reason or another, do not.
This is the germ of Popper's demarcation between science
and nonscience: In order to be scientific a theory must be
falsifiable. One reason why a theory might not be falsifiable is
that it conflicts with no conceivable observations. Another and
more common reason is that the theory's proponents refuse to
acknowledge falsifications as such. For this reason, Popper
maintains that any theory can, through the assumption of ad hoc
hypotheses or other evasive tactics, immunize itself against
falsification (1974, p. 32). By the same token, any theory can be
regarded as scientific so long as its proponents are willing to
acknowledge conflicting observations as falsifications. In this
vein, Popper supposes that Freudian psychoanalysis is "a pro-

gramme for a psychological science" (1983, p. 172) and that
"much of what they [Freud and Adler] say is of considerable
importance, and may well play its part one day in a psychological
science which is testable" (1962a, p. 37). Moreover, Popper is
convinced that "Freud could have vastly improved his theory,
had his attitude towards criticism been different" (1983, p. 168).
Simply put, Popper regards his falsifiability criterion as "vague,
since it is a methodological rule, and since the demarcation
between science and nonscience is vague" (1974, p. 984).
Scientific theories like Marx's became pseudoscientific due to a
failure to acknowledge falsification. And nonscientific theories
like Freud's can become scientific simply by specifying what
would count as a falsification-and sticking to it.
According to Popper, the scientific nature of an empirical
theory depends in part upon its logical form. But it also depends
upon the attitude that the proponents of a theory assume toward
criticism. This is important. What Popper is criticizing in claim-
ing that psychoanalysis is unfalsifiable is primarily "Freud's way
of rejecting criticism" (1983, p. 168). Scientific inquiry is often
likened to a mystery story. And Freud is often more ingenious
than Sherlock Holmes. Holmes begins only with phenomena
and the mystery is in finding a theory that truly explains them.
Freud begins with both theory and phenomena. Beginning with
both theory and phenomena is not necessarily bad - not, for
example, if the phenomenon is used to test the theory in
question. But in Freud's case, it is not so much the theory as the
phenomenon that is in question. His mystery more often con-
sists infindinga way to fit the latter to the former, and this is not
always simple. In some cases it is necessary for Freud to
"deduce" what the phenomena really are, i.e. what they must
be if his theory is correct. Although such reasoning requires
ingenuity, Freud always proves adequate to the task. This,
however, is the point of Popper's critique.
Grunbaum claims that Freud's characterization of paranoia as
a defense against homosexual impulses is falsifiable vis-4-vis
epidemiological evidence, namely, paranoia in an avowed ho-
mosexual. This is interesting, but problematic. Freud's theory
of paranoia is hardly a central plank of psychoanalysis, and
Freud himself held that paranoia is "not usually amenable to
analytic investigation" (1922, p. 234). But if the existence of an
avowedly homosexual paranoid were to be considered a possible
falsification, then it would at least be necessary for Freud's
theory to claim that paranoia is always accompanied by homo-
sexual impulses. It is not, however, clear that this is what
Freud's theory in fact claims. In the Schreber case, for example,
homosexual impulses are said to be "so frequently (perhaps
invariably) to be found in paranoia" (1911, p. 464). And in "A
Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psycho-Analytic Theo-
ry of the Disease," Freud writes, "We had not, it is true,
asserted that paranoia is always without exception conditioned
by homosexuality" (1915, p. 153). So before raising the question
whether Freud's theory of paranoia is falsifiable, we should at
least determine exactly what the theory claims.
Now Grunbaum claims that paranoia in an avowed homosex-
ual would refute Freud's theory. How would Freud respond?
Freud would undoubtedly want to look at the homosexual in
question. But Freud would most probably say that behavior
alone is unrevealing about the nature of repression (Freud 1904)
and would thus insist upon using free association to seek the
hypothesized homosexual repressions. It would be difficult to
demonstrate the absence of some homosexual repressions by
free association. But even if we acknowledge the possibility of
avowedly homosexual paranoids as a potential falsifier of Freudi-
an theory, the point to be made is that Popper has acknowledged
it too (1983, p. 169). Although Popper is willing to accept the
existence of avowedly homosexual paranoids as falsifying Freud-
ian theory, he is still skeptical whether Freud would be so
willing. And this is the crux of our disagreement with
Grunbaum,
Grunbaum cites numerous passages that suggest that Freud
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
was open to the possibility of falsification. But the fact that
Freud makes certain comments about refutability should not, in
itself, convince us that Freud would actually be willing to
acknowledge refutation. Jung, Adler, and Rank learned that
lesson the hard way. Grunbaum, however, writes that "even a
casual perusal of the mere titles of Freud's papers and lectures in
the Standard Edition yields two examples of falsifiability. The
second is a case of acknowledged falsification, to boot. Thefirstis
the paper 'A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psycho-
analytic Theory of the Disease" (S.E. 1915, 14: 263-272); the
second is the lecture 'Revision of the Theory of Dreams' (S.E.
1933, 22:7-30, especially pp. 28-30)" (1984, p. 108). But you
can't judge an article by its title, and Griinbaum's "casual
perusal" fails to convince us.
The first case Grunbaum cites is one in which Freud thought
about revising his theory and entertained the possibility of
refutation, but neither actually acknowledged refutation nor
revised his theory. In this case, Freud is troubled by the
possibility of a paranoia not caused by repressed homosexual
desires for one psychoanalytic session, only to "discover" the
expected homosexual repressions in the next. But it is not so
much the fact that Freud here denies refutation that is bother-
some; it is the way in which he does so. Through an array of
questionable associations and ad hoc assumptions (including the
assumption that his patient's account of the events that led to her
suspicion is, on several points and for various reasons, false!),
Freud "deduces" the presence of homosexual desires in a way
that would make any scientist blush. Grunbaum considers this
paper to be indicative of Freud's openness to refutation. In our
view, it was this very style of reasoning that led Popper to claim
psychoanalysis is unfalsifiable.
But perhaps Griinbaum's second example is more to the point -
for this, after all, is a case of acknowledged falsification. More-
over, the issue pertains to Freud's theory of dreams, undoubt-
edly a central plank of psychoanalytic theory. Popper (1983, pp.
163-74) discusses this case, but here it might be more instruc-
tive to learn from Grunbaum. After deferring comment on this
example for 108 pages, Griinbaum's "acknowledged falsifica-
tion" is suddenly reduced to a "rather minor modification"
(Grunbaum 1984, p. 220). And upon returning to the subject
from yet a second deferral, Grunbaum concludes by quoting
from Freud:
We should not, I think, be afraid to admit that here the function of the
dream has failed. . . . But no doubt the exception does not overturn
the rule. You can say nevertheless that a dream is an attempt at the
fulfillment of a wish. In certain circumstances a dream is only able to
put its intention into effect very incompletely, or must abandon it
entirely. Unconsciousfixationto a trauma seems to be foremost
among these obstacles to the function of dreaming. (Grunbaum 1984,
p.238)
Nothing conflicts more sharply with Popper's attitude than
Freud's claim that the exception does not overturn the rule.
Nevertheless, this "rather minor modification" is minimized
further by Freud's retreat from wish fulfillments to attempts at
wish fulfillment. But does Freud really acknowledge this falsi-
fication as Grunbaum claims? Upon checking Freud's "Revision
of the Theory of Dreams" we found reason to believe that he
does not. For part of what Grunbaum deletes from this passage
reads as follows: "we say that a dream is the fulfillment of a wish;
but if you want to take these latter objections into account, you
can say nevertheless that a dream is an attempt at the fulfillment
of a wish. No one who can properly appreciate the dynamics of
the mind will suppose that you have said anything different by
this" (1933b, pp. 26-27; italics added).
Earlier we asked the question "How sharp is the distinction
between bad science and nonscience?" There we suggested
that, according to Popper, the distinction is not too sharp at all.
For good metaphysical theories, like Freud's, provide a pro-
gram for a psychological science. Grunbaum considers the
above passage to be an acknowledged falsification. But if Pop-
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 251
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
per's point is to criticize Freud's way of rejecting criticism, we
consider it grist for his mill. In any event, Freudians beware!
Falsifiability is a mixed blessing. False scientific theories are a
dime a dozen, but a genuine pseudoscience is rather hard to
find.
The persistence of the "exegetical myth"
Alessandro Pagnini
Department of Philosophy, University of Florence, 50139 Florence, Italy
In Griinbaum's critique of psychoanalysis there is a basic tenet
of historical character: Freud, who lived and molded his ideas in
the hectic years of the dispute of methods (Methodenstreit),
decided, with no hesitation, to attribute psychoanalysis to the
Naturwissenschaften or natural sciences rather than the
Geisteswissenschaften or "sciences of the spirit". My intention
is to integrate Griinbaum's already exhaustive documentation
on the subject (pp. 1-9) with some remarks (which I will only
sketch, for brevity's sake) drawn from a recent and interesting
survey on the genesis and cultural reference of Freudian "epis-
temology" (Assoun 1981).
According to Assoun, (and supporting Griinbaum's argu-
ment): (a) For Freud, Wissenschaft is identified with Natur-
wissenschaft, to which he attributes psychoanalysis prima facie,
(b) Freud, although not directly participating in the debate on
methods, is informed about it and refers to the Geistes-
wissenschaften only to point out a few crucial differences from
psychoanalysis (Freud 1924, German ed., G.W, XIV, p.84;
G.W., XIV, pp.294-95). (c) Freud's methodology is heavily
influenced by Haeckel's works (as Assoun writes, "all Freud's
claims on the subject [of the human sciences] are expressed with
an identical vocabulary as Haeckel's" [p. 45]), and influenced by
the antidualistic culture of German physicists, physiologists,
and psychologists, by the empiricism of Mill (whose works
Freud partially translated in his youth), and by the physicalistic
research program which, since the years 1830-1840, continued
to be a strong "paradigm" in the psychophysiological and psy-
chiatric sciences of the time, (d) In light of a close philological
and conceptual analysis, it can be argued that the very Freudian
"meaning," often tendentiously emphasized by the her-
meneutic contingent, never betrays an underlying causal and
deterministic pattern; thus Freudian interpretation always re-
sults in explanation. ("Far from transferring psychoanalysis into
the field of the hermeneutic sciences, the Traumdeutung does
not modify at all the identity of the Naturwissenschaft. It is in
any case grounded in erklaren as its strictly privileged pro-
cedure" [Assoun 1981, pp.42-43].)
Although he does consider the different phases and the
complex interaction of models and influences (Fechner, Mach,
Helmholtz, Mayer, Ostwald, Haeckel, etc.) present in Freud's
work, Assoun nevertheless concludes that Freud never re-
nounces a substantial reductivism and an epistemological
monism. Finally, Assoun comes to the conclusion that, contrary
to Wundt, who shifted toward a spiritualistic dualism, "Freud
appears therefore . . . as the founder of a scientific psychology
which has never abandoned such a monism" (p.49) (a meth-
odological monism, as Griinbaum points out).
Notwithstanding the wealth of historical and analytical data
that do not support the interpretation of the alleged Freudian
"scientistic self-misunderstanding," hermeneuticians and like-
minded thinkers are not willing to give up. For instance, Schafer
writes that "Freud established a tradition within which psycho-
analysis is understood as an essentialist and positivist natural
science. One need not be bound by this scientific commitment,
however; the individual and general accounts and interpreta-
tions Freud gave of his case material can be read in another way"
252 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
(Schafer 1980, p.29). Once again, this "way" is that of consider-
ing psychoanalysis an "interpretative discipline," using "nar-
ratives" that are not necessarily bound to objective existential
realities and to causal commitments of any sort. Its aim is to
induce change (both in the patient and in the analyst) within the
practice of a Sprachspiel (language game), the validation of
which is only internal and never ultimate, owing to the intrinsic
character of meanings.
In a recent work which reads like a summing up of the
epistemological status of psychoanalysis, the philosopher Hilary
Putnam likewise seems to share Shafer's opinion:
If Father Freud and his rebellious sons (Jung, Adler, Lacan, etc.)
wished to be viewed as the producers of scientific "theories," that is a
fact for cultural historians to note, I am suggesting, but not one to stop
us from considering that their "theory " is of value just to the extent
that what it becomes for us is not theory but observation. Indeed,
much of Freud's work has a curious double form; it is, or pretends to
be, at one and the same time, science and narrative. Freud tells us a
story, and then he proceeds to generalize, often in a dogmatic way.
The stories are of value, I am suggesting, just to the extent that they
suggest ways of constructing other narratives which help us to
understand individual people; the alleged "universal laws" are simply
the recurrent illusion I have been describing, the claim of "science."
(Putnam 1984, p. 6)
Putnam, as a matter of fact, sounds critical towards the
rhetoric of the "Copernican revolutions," even though he ac-
knowledges that psychoanalysis is an inescapable mode of deal-
ing with neurotic behavior ("We are not free to inhabit the pre-
Freudian world" [p. 1]). Besides, he doesn't seem to undervalue
those experimental studies that aim at verifying the effective-
ness of psychoanalytic therapy (but he stresses that, in order to
be "objective," they always forget the "ethical" dimension of
notions such as "cure" or "recovery"). So he finally concludes
that "it would be fine . . . to recognize that psychoanalytic
therapy cannot be 'objectively validated,' provided we also
recognize that this opens, rather than forecloses, discussing
what there is and what there is not of value in it" (p. 6).
I have quoted Putnam's words at length as they seem to me to
be emblematic of an attitude which would in a sense render
superfluous Griinbaum's critical efforts regarding psycho-
analysis. Such an attitude implies that: (a) Psychoanalysis is not
"a large and systematic theory" but "a new technique of obser-
vation" (and, by the same token, it is rather a "narrative" than a
"science"), (b) The problem of its validation is secondary and
jeopardizes the real value of Freudian findings, (c) This value
consists in the fact that "Freud discovered neurotic patterning."
Since then we have been, so to speak, compelled to understand
in a Freudian way the motives and behaviors, conscious and
unconscious, of other people. Yet the Freudian way of under-
standing does not provide us with "mechanical rules, ' and does
not force on us any sort of "guarantee," particularly of the kind to
be found in science ("The idea that a fact is either ascertainable
in the way the analysis of a compound in a chemical laboratory is
ascertainable or else a mere myth is not a form of scientism but
scientism itself' [Putnam 1984, p. 6]).
To come to my conclusion (with apologies for this "indirect"
approach to Griinbaum's book, to which I have devoted more
concern in Pagnini, in press): Waiting for Putnam to tell us on
what basis we can discuss the value of psychoanalysis (a theme
he considers "open"), and for what reasons (the fatalistic as-
sumption of its "irrevocability" doesn't seem to be a good one)
we must accept psychoanalysis, if only as a technique of observa-
tion (but how is it possible to "observe" - according to Putnam's
peculiar sense of the word - in the absence of a "theory"?), I
think that such contributions as Grunbaum's book, soberly
equipped only with logic and analytical austerity, do more to
stimulate and promote our "rational conversation" concerning
psychoanalysis than do thousands of promises or as many elusive
metaphors.

Is there a "two-cultures" model for
psychoanalysis?
George H. Pollock
Institute for Psychoanalysis, Chicago, III. 60601
I admire philosophy and find it challenges me to think in a way
that is different from my clinical experiences, which are more
direct, involve more imagery and feelings, are less tersely
organized, and do not focus primarily on finding flaws, contra-
dictions, and inconsistencies in theory. Keats has noted that one
can strain at seeing particles of light in the midst of great
darkness without knowing the bearing of any one assertion or
opinion until perhaps much later. Keats did not feel this to be a
disadvantage; rather, it appeared to him that this ability to
remain "in the midst of a great darkness without laboring in
search of ultimate explanations" was an essential aspect of his
character as a poet (Pack 1984, p. 179). What I am suggesting is
that the approach of the sensitive clinician is closer to that of the
poet than of the tightly organized philosopher who attempts to
use a "null hypothesis" in his approach to a field that is very
human and less abstract and propositional.
To return to Keats, who writes that the quality of achievement
in literature, for example Shakespeare, is "Negative Capability,
that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, myste-
ries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and rea-
son . . . with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every
other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration"
(quoted in Pack 1984, pp. 179-80). Keats believed that at the
heart of his conception of "Negative Capability" was the ideal of
"disinterestedness," the ability to empty oneself of one's own
identity, to immerse oneself through identification in the lives of
others and so to attain a greater purpose than the "irritable
reaching after fact and reason." It is true that I am addressing
one aspect of the work of the psychoanalyst - one of the ways
that one obtains information about the other as well as about
oneself- but this is not the entire psychoanalytic process; it is
only the beginning. As doors of understanding open up, there is
a sharpening of one's vision into the heart and nature of man
(Pack 1984, p. 181), and with this comes the attempt to under-
stand that which was felt. This is the origin of theory.
The work with patients is one aspect of psychoanalysis that
may be protoscientific, but it is a very essential ingredient of
what we call the psychoanalytic engagement, the precursor to
the formulation of more scientific explanations which can then
be examined in a tighter fashion in a variety of ways. The
examinations of higher level theory, though necessary for scien-
tific testing, are at a different level from the one I have been
emphasizing above. The logic of the metaphorical structure
requires a different mode of thinking than that which examines
higher level hypotheses. The latter can and should be stated in
such fashion as to allow for refutation or confirmation.
I am suggesting the possibility of two separate but parallel
paths, each existing in relative independence but eventually
converging. Subjective, intuitive, empathic psychological sen-
sitivity characterizes one; the careful, terse, abstract, tightly
organized and reasoned and controlled characterizes the other.
Each has merit, each has value, and if explanations that are
universal to some degree emerge from the former, these can be
subjected to scrutiny and testing by the latter.
Freud and psychoanalysis are not the same. Psychoanalysis as
a discipline is less than a century old. Freud, the discoverer of,
and not the inventor of, the dynamic unconscious, sought
explanatory meanings of what he observed in himself, his
patients, and in his study of man and his works. In some of these
he was exceedingly insightful, in others fanciful, in others
poetic, and in some, in error. To condemn him for his monu-
mental efforts when they appear to have been somewhat incon-
sistent is unrealistic; to idealize him beyond question is the
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
same. To appreciate him along with his foibles is more mature
and consistent with a scientific approach. Psychoanalysis was
and is the field of his discovery. It is constantly evolving,
changing, subject to tensions and struggles - new theories, new
approaches, new dimensions encounter resistances and reluc-
tances which become incorporated into the theoretical con-
structs of the field, and these can then be examined clinically as
well as by observation [e.g. through cross-cultural comparisons,
follow-up and outcome studies based on earlier written predic-
tions, child observations, longitudinal studies, cohort analyses,
etc). Change occurs, but it is slow and conservative. I am
suggesting a "two-cultures' model within the field itself. The
inspirational or intuitive and the experimental-logical testing -
both have their place, their use, their methods, and their
pitfalls.
In the last forty years, the clinical disciplines of medicine have
increasingly used quantitative methods in evaluating
therapeutic agents and in elucidating possible etiologic factors
in disease. These are now being utilized to a greater extent than
ever in psychiatry. However, statistical methods are only very
rarely used in studying the propositions of clinical psycho-
analysis. Psychoanalysis as a clinical discipline still relies mainly
on observation, experience, a collection of life history and
psychobiographical facts. The theoretical systems that have
been used are, like all theory, subject to revision, rejection, or
affirmation in varying degrees. Facts or confirmed realities may
remain unexplained and require theory change. As more experi-
mental and carefully controlled observational studies are under-
taken, it will be possible to examine some clinical psychoanalytic
explanations statistically. The applications of clinical psycho-
analytic observations to prevention and early intervention in
high risk individuals may allow predictions to be made before
outcome is known and may thus give us more precision in
checking our hypotheses. As psychoanalytic epidemiology de-
velops we may find newer ideas coming to the fore which relate
to psychopathology and efficacy of therapy.
I believe Griinbaum's scholarly examination should more
carefully differentiate between Freud's work and psycho-
analysis. The two are not the same. Furthermore, one must
differentiate between Freud's clinical observations and his ex-
planations for these clinical phenomena. The theories of psycho-
analysis are constantly being revised and these theories deal
with different phenomena, some clinical and some far removed
from illness. The use of clinical data is a time-honored method of
obtaining data that can be used to test hypotheses. Unless
"controlled," these data may be flawed, but this can challenge
the researcher to be more precise and more accurate. Freud
recognized that theory revisions would have to be made, and he
himself changed his own explanations when they did not fit his
own observational data or those of others. The major tenet of
Freud's discovery was that of the dynamic unconscious. Extra-
clinical studies (e.g. in anthropology, biography, neuroscience,
endocrinology, immunology, literature) are providing us with
newer perspectives and novel ways of testing hypotheses. Out-
come and follow-up studies are additional ways of testing clinical
predictions.
Griinbaum has previously written that "Freud's repeated
modifications of his theories were clearly motivated by evi-
dence" (1979, p. 135). As Marshall Edelson has recently noted
in a careful discussion of Griinbaum's work, "Griinbaum em-
phasizes that psychoanalytic hypotheses are confirmable and
falsifiable" (1984, p. 42). However, Grunbaum argues that
"while psychoanalytic hypotheses may be falsifiable, they have
not achieved scientific credibility from data obtained outside the
psychoanalytic situation and cannot achieve such credibility
from data obtained in the psychoanalytic situation" (Edelson
1984, p. 46). So how can psychoanalytic hypotheses be "confir-
mable and falsifiable"?
Marshall Edelson's new book, Hypothesis and Evidence in
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 253
CommentaryVGriinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis, answers some of Griinbaum's arguments in an
elegant fashion. It is healthy for a discipline to examine itself and
for others from outside to similarly scrutinize its methods,
theories, evidence, proofs, and refutations. Griinbaum, in his
latest writings, has performed such a service for psychoanalysis.
In his scholarly works he attempts to look at the entire field of
psychoanalysis from the viewpoint of the outsider - the philoso-
pher of science. His is a worthwhile effort, one that can, should,
and has already stimulated many to think and rethink the
questions he raises. However, his "analysis" does suffer from an
apparent lack of direct knowledge and experience with psycho-
analysis itself.
Many erudite and scholarly discussions of Griinbaum's work
have already appeared in the daily press and popular magazines.
More detailed critiques are sure to appear soon in professional
journals. Revolution is usually followed by a counterrevolution
and then a synthesis. Today Freud, Marx, Einstein, and Darwin
are challenged. These challenges are healthy and will lead to
more rigorous explanations. However, in an existential world,
the quest for scientific validity may be applauded and pursued
but as yet be unattained. Perhaps in some fields scientific
validity may never be obtained, but that need not diminish the
discipline's utility and service to man. Perhaps psychoanalysis is
not a science, just as there is no basic science of internal
medicine, or psychiatry, or surgery, although scientific methods
can still be used in testing ideas. Perhaps our attempts to prove
or disprove the proposition that psychoanalysis is or is not a
science address the wrong questions. What we need are careful
clinical studies; these are the bedrock of theory, and the applica-
tions of theory may be the area that can now be most fruitfully
addressed. Finally, the question has recently been raised about
"Just how objective is science?" (Hetherington 1983).
Hetherington suggests that we should question the supposed
objectivity of science. He points out that the use of double-blind
procedures is difficult in observational astronomy. "The most
interesting observations are often those at the very limits of the
instruments available. It is difficult to achieve repeatability of
observations, impossible to enjoy the luxury of double-blind
measurements" (1983, p. 729). Could this also apply to observa-
tions in psychoanalysis? Furthermore, observation in the psy-
choanalytic therapeutic situation involves the observations
made of the many dimensions of the analysand, but also involves
the observations, self-made, of the analyst in the interaction.
These phenomena are not as easily measured as are some in the
traditional natural sciences.
Predicting overt behavior versus predicting
hidden states
Karl Popper
Fallowfield, Manor Close, Manor Rd., Penn, Bucks. HP10 BHZ, England
Editorial Note: The following contribution from Professor Karl
Popper is not a review of Professor Griinbaum's book but a
critique of an argument from the book as conveyed to Popper by
Daniel Goleman of the New York Times/Science Times. The
Times has suggested, and Popper and Griinbaum have agreed,
that this exchange would be more appropriate in the context of
the present BBS multiple book review. Professor Popper in-
forms us that he has not seen the book.
For over sixty years, I have been an opponent of both behav-
iorism and psychoanalysis. Behaviorism is mistaken in its un-
willingness to attribute psychological states to people. Such
states as envy, jealousy, or the fear of poverty were excluded (as
unscientific) from behaviorist attempts to explain people's ac-
tions or behavior. But the behaviorists would have been right if
254 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
they had confined themselves to insisting that psychological
theory, if it claims scientific status, must be testable by predic-
tions of overt behavior.
This is what psychoanalysis fails to do: Its so-called predic-
tions are not predictions of overt behavior but of hidden psycho-
logical states. This is why they are untestable. The famous
psychoanalyst Siegfried Bernfeld (who was a friend of mine and
of Freud's) once wrote: "Psychoanalysis cannot predict whether
you will repress or sublimate. But whether you repress or
sublimate will make all the difference to your behavior."
In 1957 I wrote that "every conceivable case [of human
behavior] could be interpreted in the light of Freud's theory.
This can be illustrated by two very different examples of human
behavior: that of a man who throws a child into a river (with the
intention of drowning him); and that of a man who sacrifices his
life in an attempt to save a child. Each of these two cases can be
explained with equal ease in Freudian terms: According to
Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some
component of his Oedipus complex), while the second had
achieved sublimation." (I gather that it was this passage that first
provoked Griinbaum to examine the testability of psycho-
analytic theory.) Since a psychoanalyst cannot predict whether
anybody will repress or sublimate, he cannot predict overt
behavior. On the other hand, a psychological theory can be put
to the test only if it can predict overt behavior.
I have not read the work in which Grunbaum has attempted to
refute this argument; however, the New York Times asked me
by telemessage to answer an argument (allegedly Griinbaum's)
that in a simplified form can be put as follows: From the very first
paper on psychoanalysis that Freud wrote, together with Josef
Breuer, one can derive the following predictions: (A) If people
do not repress traumatic experiences, then they will not become
victims of neurosis. (B) If in childhood people are protected from
traumatic experiences, then they are not expected to become
neurotic. Grunbaum says (I am informed by the New York
Times) that a host of other scientifically testable hypotheses
likewise follows from the theories of Freud and Breuer. (Here
ends the information I received from the New York Times about
the content of Griinbaum's counterexamples to my theory that
psychoanalysis is not a testable field.)
I now turn to my reply to this criticism. I assert that neither
(A) nor (B) are testable predictions. For assume that a child has
been protected from trauma by every conceivable device (this
includes protection from physical injury) and therefore could
not have been in the situation of repressing any trauma. Howev-
er, suppose that at age 20 this individual feels frustrated and
visits a psychoanalyst. It is practically certain that the analyst
will find that his prospective patient is neurotic and has there-
fore repressed a trauma received in childhood, hence that the
attempts to protect him had been unsuccessful (for whatever
reason). Or, to put it more sharply, (A) and (B) are if-then
sentences, but it is impossible to test them, for this would
demand that we make sure that the "if" part (the antecedent) is
true (which is hardly possible) even if the "then" part is false
rather than true (which psychoanalysts are likely to assert
anyway).
So we have two problems: (1) Who decides whether or not the
prospective patient has suffered and "repressed" a "trauma"?
Clearly there is no overt behavioral way of doing so. The other
problem is of course: (2) Who decides whether the prospective
patient is or is not at present neurotic? Only if he is not neurotic
is the prediction testable. Now I admit that there may perhaps
be definite cases of so-called "neurosis." But who has ever met a
prospective patient who was told by his prospective psycho-
analyst that he was not neurotic? That he was suffering, say,
from bad teeth? (There is a terrible story of psychoanalytic
misdiagnosis that every interested person ought to read in an
important book entitled The Victim's Always the Same, written
by the great neurosurgeon I.S. Cooper [1974]).
 Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
I know very well indeed that diagnostic mistakes unfortunate-
ly occur in all branches of medicine. But psychoanalysis, includ-
ing Freud, has often asserted that everybody is neurotic (to a
greater or lesser degree). So how can (A) or (B), whose testability
depends on the prediction of nonneurosis, be clearly testable?
[Incidentally (1) and (2) could be greatly improved: See Popper,
1983, Section 18 especially p. 169. But I do not think that (1) and
(2) can be improved sufficiently for the prediction to become
testable.]
To judge from (A) and (B) it seems that people have not yet
grasped the fact that scientific testability is a question of overt
behavior. It cannot be achieved by speaking of alleged or hidden
states such as "repression" or "trauma" or "neurosis," states
whose hypothetical presence or absence cannot be tested (and of
which it even remains questionable whether they are ever
absent). For who has never been hurt, never suffered a trauma?
And who has not tried to get over it by forgetting about it
which means "trying to repress" it? But if so, (A) and (B) and all
similar so-called predictions are untestable.
Griinbaum's critique of clinical
psychoanalytic evidence: A sheep in wolfs
clothing?
Morton F. Reiser
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven,
Conn. 06519
As a serious psychoanalyst I must say (like the man in the
astringent shave lotion commercial) "Thanks! I needed that."
Professor Grunbaum minces no words in asserting that Freud
failed to vindicate his method of clinical investigation. In a series
of salvos he lays to rest the central "tally argument" upon which
Freud based his defense of the "cornerstone" theory of repres-
sion. Accordingly, this theory, along with the general body of
psychoanalytic hypotheses that rest upon it, can lay no claim to
scientific credibility. And, in the absence of a tenable "em-
pirically plausible" alternative to the crucial but "well nigh
empirically untenable" tally argument, Grunbaum convincingly
argues that the conclusions drawn from it by Freud (and by later
psychoanalytic theorists) are "devastatingly" undermined. He
further concludes that it is impossible to obtain probative data in
the intraclinical psychoanalytic situation. This is a challenge that
cannot fail to provoke responses - one hopes that many of them,
such as Edelson's (1983; 1984), will be pointed in plausible and
empirically tenable directions.
I feel impelled, however, to begin with the assertion of a
crucially important point: The epistemic issue - the truth or
falsity of Freud's ideas - is not what is under direct critical attack
in Griinbaum's book; rather, it is the methodological issue - the
probative value of the psychoanalytic method. Grunbaum is not
saying that Freud's theory is untrue in an absolute sense, but
that it is not (and cannot be) supported by the clinical data
gathered in the psychoanalytic context; the clinical data do not
provide valid empirical evidence for it and hence do not furnish
a warrant for believing it. But those who may be impatient to
bury psychoanalysis itself willfindno warrant for doing so in this
book, at least not just yet. On page 189 Professor Grunbaum
states:
I am concerned to forestall a potential misunderstanding of a central from thoughts that developed in the minds of clinicians accord-
thesis of this book. I do claim to substantiate herein the poverty of the ing to usual patterns of clinical reasoning and inference. A major
clinical credentials of the foundations on which Freud's edifice problem in this "distillation" process would be to retain enough
avowedly rests. Yet I emphatically allow for a weighty possibility: of the clinical essence to render the hypotheses relevant, and at
Future extroclinical evidence (e.g., epidemiologic or experimental
findings) may turn out to reveal after all that Freud's brilliant intellec- amenable to experimental testing by methods of the related
tual imagination was quite serendipitous for psychopathology and
other facets of human conduct, despite the clear-cut failure of his
clinical arguments. . . . I maintain that psychoanalysis is thus alive,
but at least currently hardly well, as it were.
Clearly he declares himself to be a friendly critic.
Whereas I do not consider it warranted to conclude that there
is no possibility of obtaining probative intraclinical data (indeed
Edelson, 1984, has already issued a vigorous and formidable
challenge to that conclusion), I do find myself in accord with a
major thrust of Griinbaum's argument. It does seem to me that
ultimate validation will have to comefromextraclinical findings.
But does such a view disenfranchise psychoanalytic process
from participating in the search for the truth or falsity of Freud's
theory? I think not, and want now to say why, and also to
indicate how I think it may participate, indeed may be indispen-
sible, in a good part of the search. In the limited space available
here I can only touch the surface of the cogent issues raised by
this question. I have discussed them intensively and in depth
elsewhere (Reiser 1984).
First, the "why." The process of psychoanalysis provides a
method of immense power for the study of human mental
function, a method that is unique in its capacity to provide
access to quintessential aspects of the human's inner life -
aspects currently inaccessible to any other method. But what
about its methodological defects? In addition to the problem of
suggestion discussed so extensively by Grunbaum, there are
other methodological troubles: The method as traditionally used
yields subjective data acquired by introspection and communi-
cated in the context of private dyadic relationships; hence the
data cannot be consensually validated or pass criteria of reliabili-
ty. Still, if we want to know about the important aspects of
mental life that it can access, it is the best and only way to start,
despite its serious flaws. Here then is a challenge! Those who
believe that unique valuable information is contained in the
"crude ore" of clinical psychoanalytic data must develop meth-
ods to extract and refine it. (Grunbaum might in a similar vein
ask for methods that can "sift" probative bits of data from a
surfeit of flawed material.)
Next, the question of "how." There are several promising
approaches, some already tried with some (limited) success (see
references cited above). One, a "dual track approach" that I
favor as most promising, is to start by studying the psycho-
analytic process itself, recording, describing, arranging, and
studying the "crude ore" data it yields in naturalistic clinical
rather than metapsychological terms. Metapsychological ab-
stractions are distant from the observed phenomena themselves
and, being hypothetical constructs, have no potential for artic-
ulating directly with measurable phenomena studied by the
natural sciences. From such clinical work it should be possible
progressively to refine psychologically framed questions and
hypotheses, for example, about memory, anxiety, and percep-
tion - mental functions about which psychoanalytic process can
have much to say and in which biological disciplines have shared
interest. Progressively and deliberately refined psychological
hypotheses developed step by step in the clinical situation, and
stemming from questions that originate there, should then be
amenable to extraclinical experimental testing by methods of
natural science - neuroscience on one hand and cognitive
psychology on the other (psychoanalysis as an intellectual disci-
pline lies between these two). These should not and need not be
trivial hypotheses, since the ideas behind them would have
originated in immediate observations of the core processes
under investigation. And the ideas they carry would have issued
the same time to frame them in paradigms that would be
disciplines with which psychoanalysis can articulate.
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 255
CommentaryI'Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
One further caution needs to be sounded here. Since psychol-
ogy and biology represent different domains (i.e. the mental and
the physical), composite units within each can only be studied
independently and can only be described in different terms and
different languages. Descriptions and concepts are not inter-
changeable between the two realms (see also Rose 1978). Be-
cause of this it would be important to track data from the two
domains independently and in parallel (the "dual track ap-
proach") when approaching phenomena of common interest to
both domains. This would be in order to avoid the pitfalls of
inappropriately psychologizing physiology or physiologizing
psychology while at the same time allowing for generating
intermediate concepts that could serve as "transducers" be-
tween the two domains.
Admittedly we are far from realizing a well-developed pro-
gram of this sort, but some beginnings have been effected, the
direction to go seems reasonable and clear, and the aims are
certainly worthwhile. As Grunbaum says in his discussion of
Edelson - "it remains to be seen" (p.94). Fair enough. One
hopes that his book will stimulate serious analysts to respond
constructively. In any event, it's good to know that we have at
least one friendly critic - to paraphrase the familiar saying, we
won't then need an enemy.
Griinbaum on psychoanalysis: Where do we
go from here?
Michael Ruse
Departments of History and Philosophy, University of Guelph, Guelph,
Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada
Like many professional philosophers of science, I have long felt
extremely uneasy about Freud and his work (Ruse 1981). On the
one hand, we seem not to have done him full justice. On the
other hand, one wonders if there is something really there
which merits full justice. Now, in his brilliantly insightful
critique Grunbaum shows fully that the sense of unease has a
solid foundation.
I see Griinbaum as having done two things. First, he has
shown beyond all doubt that the philosophical critics of Freud
and of psychoanalytic theory simply have not done their home-
work. For instance, Popper's (1962; 1974a) pretend-stories and
contemptuous back-of-the-hand dismissals are grotesquely un-
fair to all students of the human mind and behaviour. It is hard
enough to make progress in this field without the savage mis-
representations of those who should know better.
Indeed, one would be tempted to say that Popper's "refuta-
tion" of Freud, not to mention the enthusiastic endorsement of
Popper's sycophants, is self-refuting - evidence in itself for the
worth of Freud's work - were it not for Griinbaum's second
point. Ill-founded criticisms aside, there really are severe con-
ceptual problems with Freud's ideas. Furthermore, the quality
of testing to date has been pitifully inadequate. You simply
cannot encourage someone on the couch to talk about mother
and expect to get control and evidence of the kind demanded by
science, let alone demanded by good science.
But, of course, as Grunbaum himself fully recognizes, what
he has offered us thus far is a critique. What he has shown us is
what is wrong. The all-important question which Grunbaum
inspires, but which he does not (yet) answer is: Where do we go
from here? What is to be done next? Take (to put some substance
in our discussion) the question of homosexuality, or (to put it in
the form favoured by sex researchers) the question of homosex-
ual orientation. As Griinbaum's constant references acknowl-
edge, this is a phenomenon much discussed by Freud, and lies
at the heart of his thinking about our psychosexual constitution
(see, especially, Freud 1905). Briefly, Freud thought that a
homosexual orientation was (usually) due to an inadequate
256 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
passage through the years of Oedipal strife and that those so
inclined lie fixed back in an immature stage of development.
Since normal sexual growth involves a kind of switching back
and forth between the ends of the male-female gender scale,
the homosexual is one who has inclinations more appropriate to
the members of the opposite sex.
Now, with Grunbaum we can agree that this seems to be a
genuine scientific hypothesis (as regards the possibility of falsi-
fiability). Yet, also with Grunbaum, we must agree that there is
much that is very suspect about the testing that has been done of
this hypothesis. Freud argues that (in the case of males) failure
to mature, or regression to an earlier stage, is often caused by an
overwhelming mother and hostile father - with the sissy, soon-
to-be homosexual son sitting at the third point of the "classic
triangle." But since much of the so-called testing involves only a
few people, and reports are frequently obtained through ana-
lysts (who are hardly disinterested observers), there is more
than a small element of faith which enters into much that has
been claimed positively for the hypothesis (most particularly in
the well-known study by Bieber, Dain, Dince, Drellich, Grand,
Gundlach, Kremer, Rifkin, Wilbur & Bieber 1962). Moreover,
Freud's own theory is most suspect; he was crippled by some
very odd ideas about the biology of our species (as Frank
Sulloway, 1979, has shown definitively), believing that much
that we do and experience today represents Lamarckian kinds of
inherited traces of actual actions of our ancestors.
I ask (not concealing unspoken criticism but in a genuine
sense of inquiry) whether Grunbaum would have us turn our
backs on Freud at this point? For surely, despite what certain
gay activists would argue, it is legitimate to inquire into the
causes of the sexual orientation of 10% of the population. Does
Grunbaum (even as he defends Freud against Popper and
cohorts) really want us to leave psychoanalytic theory back at the
beginning of this century? Would he have us search for alter-
native explanations, for example, imprinting (Money 1961), or
hormones (Dorner 1976), or perhaps even something outrightly
biological as suggested by the sociobiologists (Wilson 1978)?
(Actually, in defense of Freud against some of his followers, I
note that he always thought that some people are simply in-
nately what they are.)
Hoping to stir response from Grunbaum, let me say flatly that
I should be sorry if he were to take this anti-Freudian line or if
his critique were to point him in this direction. Perhaps we
should fall back on a distinction that was popular in the last
century (e.g. Whewell 1840) and for much of this one. (e.g.
Nagel 1961), although it has come under attack in recent years:
The distinction is one between the phenomenal or formal part of
a science and its causal underlying theory. Can we not save
Freud - continuing to illustrate our discussion with the specific
instance of sexual orientation - by agreeing that he pointed to
some of the broad principles or generalities governing human
behaviour? At the same time, however, we can concede that
Freud gave no true explanation of why things are as they are.
Recently, there have been extensive empirical studies di-
rected toward uncovering possible links between human sexual
attitudes and the environmental influences on development.
Furthermore, these have striven - I believe successfully - to
avoid many of the earlier fallacies and flaws. One thinks, for
instance, of the latest Kinsey study (Bell & Weinberg 1978; Bell,
Weinberg & Hammersmith 1981). Moreover, significantly,
these surveys do pick out Freudian kinds of correlations be-
tween familial situations and adult sexual orientation, backing
thefindingswith evidence of expected cross-gender attributes.
If these studies are well-founded - unlike so much of the
earlier work, regrettably of the kind that Grunbaum discusses -
then perhaps we can now truly give Freud full credit, at least, at
the level of the phenomena. What we must therefore set to
doing next is finding full causal backing, relying on far-more-
sophisticated biological and social scientific theories than were
available to Freud himself. We must turn to biochemistry, brain

science, evolutionary biology and much more. Then, we can
hope to uncover the full causal reasons for those empirical
patterns which Freud first spotted.
In short, I suggest that Grunbaum has undoubtedly shown
that Freud was no Newton of the mind. I invite Griinbaum to
respond to the suggestion that Freud may nevertheless have
been its Kepler.
Some gaps in Grunbaum's critique of
psychoanalysis
Irwin Savodnik
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif.
90024; Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute, Los Angeles, Calif.
In The Foundations of Psychoanalysis Adolf Grunbaum offers foundations permeate his entire corpus, as Richard Wollheim
the most exhaustive and powerful critique of psychoanalysis to
date. He attacks both the hermeneutic accounts of psycho-
analysis and those accounts that treat psychoanalysis as a sci-
ence. His strategy is clear. If he destroys both sets of defenders
then psychoanalysis has no place to go and must of necessity lose
all or most of its legitimacy. He dismisses the hermeneutic
school in a scathing opening chapter and then settles down to a
long critique of the scientific status that psychoanalysis claims it
deserves.
Grunbaum, while vituperatively critical of psychoanalysis, is
not out to destroy the field. Rather, his target is that group of
analysts and their followers who promulgate the scientific ac-
count of psychoanalysis because the reward for such scientific
status is increased prestige within the wider intellectual com-
munity, not to mention increased fees. Thus, he does not have
much regard for psychoanalysis as a branch of medicine and
attacks the analysts for not launching longitudinal, controlled
studies in their field as the other branches of medicine do.
His critique centers upon what he calls Freud's necessary
condition thesis:
(1) Only the psychoanalytic method of interpretation and treatment represent something of a special case. It is not enough to assure
can yield or mediate to the patient correct insight into the uncon-
scious pathogens of his psychoneurosis, and (2) the analysand's correct more creative and countenance other ways of seeking the truth.
insight into the etiology of his affliction and into the unconscious
dynamics of his character is, in turn, causally necessary for the warns us. He has held up his concept of scientific method (and
therapeutic conquest of his neurosis (pp. 139-40).
Grunbaum draws a number of conclusions from this construal
of Freud's theory. His central goal, though, is to deny to
psychoanalysis epistemic legitimacy for what he sees as a highly
dubious and idiosyncratic methodology. He argues that Freud's
attempt to make psychoanalytic method the only way to arrive at
the truth or falsity of psychoanalytic hypotheses fails. He does
not believe that psychoanalysis enjoys some sort of privileged
status that frees it from being held to the same rigorous criteria
of scientific research as the rest of science. He doesn't like
Freud's approach for just that reason and also because it rules
out the very possibility that other ways of achieving therapeutic
success (e.g. placebo, behavior therapy, suggestion) are even
possible. Therefore, for Grunbaum, psychoanalysis secures its
position by seeming to justify its own peculiar method and at the
same time eliminating the opposition almost by fiat. If Griin-
baum is right then psychoanalysts have a lot of explaining to do.
In spite of the power of his attack, Grunbaum's critique has
not demolished the psychoanalytic edifice. He certainly has
encouraged a good deal of rebuilding, perhaps, but that is all to
the good. Consider his claim that psychoanalysis should not be
exempt from longitudinal controlled studies of human develop-
ment and conflict. As a matter of fact, a substantial body of
literature on just this set of issues goes a long way toward
establishing the sort of legitimacy that Grunbaum feels psycho-
analysis lacks. The work of cultural anthropologists has, for a
long time, used psychoanalysis as a framework for understand-
Commentary I Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
ing primitive societies. Consider Child Training and Person-
ality Q. Whiting 1953) and Six Cultures (B. Whiting 1963), in
which psychoanalytic theory is the organizing viewpoint.
In these works, the approach is not, as some would hold
against the late Margaret Mahler, dogmatic and self-confirmato-
ry; both explicitly anthropological and psychoanalytic hypoth-
eses are rather thoroughly tested. In a more recent work, The
Oedipus Complex, William N. Stephens (1962) breaks down the
specific components of the Oedipal hypothesis and tests each
one individually. If the results of these investigators (not to
mention Malinowski (1927a; 1927b) and others) hold up - and I
think they do - then they would go a long way toward establish-
ing an epistemological groundwork for psychoanalysis.
A second area of difference has to do with Freud's relevance to
the contemporary neurosciences. It is clearly impossible to
establish this relevance in a short review, but I would like to
suggest it and indicate its significance. Freud's neurological
(1971) and Karl Pribram and Merton Gill (1976) have indicated
in their writings. Of particular importance is the new work on
hemispheric laterality by Geschwind (1974) and others es-
pecially when it deals with such things as propositional speech
and intentional action. I would suggest that Freud's analysis of
dreams, his distinction between the primary and secondary
modes of mental functioning, and his theory of affects bear
extraordinary similarity to the neurological findings concerning
the differences between the cerebral hemispheres. If psycho-
analysis fits in, even points the way at times - and I think it does
- to the greater structure of science, then it will have enhanced
its stature and legitimacy a great deal. Human behavior being
what it is, psychoanalysis is a poor predictor of what people will
do in the future. Like evolutionary theory, which has a similar
problem, it indicates fertile areas for further investigation and
gives us a broader three-dimensional perspective of human life.
Finally, it is well to keep in mind James's (1967) distinction
between those who seek truth and those who avoid error. As
James points out, the two groups are not the same. It strikes me
that the sphere of human action and conflict is so complex as to
ourselves that we have made no mistakes. We may have to be
Perhaps Grunbaum has fallen into that group about which James
far from a narrow-minded one, as some would hold) and given
the impression that it is the only way to reach the truth. Even if
he is entirely right about the failure of psychoanalysis to meet
the criteria for correct scientific procedure there is still the
Jamesian imperative to seek the truth even at the expense of
some caution. I think psychoanalysis, for all its foibles and
mistakes (which Grunbaum clearly identifies), does reach the
truth and contributes a great deal to our culture.
An argument for the evidential standing of
psychoanalytic data
Howard Shevrin
Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48105
As a psychoanalyst and researcher I am grateful to Professor
Grunbaum for his searching critique of the psychoanalytic
clinical method. I have learned much in the course of following
his tightly reasoned arguments. But I am greatly concerned that
his critique will be grievously misconstrued in some quarters as
a coup de grace to psychoanalysis rather than as a sympathetic
effort to point the way to creating a solid empirical foundation for
the science. In more than one passage Grunbaum pays homage
to the powerful heuristic value of psychoanalytic hypotheses,
both within and beyond the treatment situation. He is not
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 257
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
attacking the theory as such, but the status of its current
probative standing. Unfortunately, Gardner, as quoted on the
book jacket, overlooks this repeated demurrer, proclaiming that
the study is "a major contribution to the growing groundswell of
attacks, by informed thinkers, on one of the most persistent
dogmatic establishments of recent times." And Hobson, on the
same book jacket, compliments Grunbaum on his "inexorable
and compelling critique of the science of Freud," which in effect
will undermine the beliefs of those who "looked to psycho-
analysis for a general scientific theory of the human mind."
Grunbaum has undertaken no such task, and his conclusion
should strengthen and not weaken psychoanalysis.
Why should Grunbaum's critique strengthen and not weaken
psychoanalysis? Because he demonstrates that if psychoanalytic
theory, of admitted substantial heuristic value, is to survive and
flourish, its probative value must be pursued on the basis of a
variety of extraclinical methods. Issue can be taken with Grun-
baum in his wholesale rejection of the clinical method as a
proving ground and in his apparent overestimation of the pro-
bative value of other methods. Here Grunbaum takes aim at the
psychoanalytic clinical method but may have inadvertently hit
reason itself.
Let us suppose I conduct an experiment in color perception
and present my subjects with various color discs; after each disc
I ask them to tell me what they saw. They respond with
statements such as, "I saw red" or "It was blue this time." I note
that there is a systematic relationship between discs that reflect
different frequencies and the verbal responses elicited. I have
established a relationship between a physical parameter and
perception. Or have I? Yes, if you will grant me that (1) subjects
report their experience accurately and (2) there is a regular and
invariant relationship between the meaning of words and their
referents. Suppose that when blue light frequencies activate the
brain a red experience occurs but that the word "blue" refers for
that particular person to a red experience. His report "I see
blue" will be entirely misleading. (Some color-blind people
have a comparable experience because they use the words "red"
and "blue" to refer to qualities of experience other than color.)
But let us suppose further that the disjunction between report
and experience was universal, in which case the verbal state-
ments would be meaningless for conveying the actual nature of
the experience.
This kind of "inverted-spectrum" argument is a reductio ad
absurdum of the radical behaviorist position. What it calls
attention to is the implicit assumption in all science that there
are assured regularities: The universe is not totally random and
chaotic, although, as Prigogine (1984) has pointed out, random
processes may play a significant role. Furthermore, it is cer-
tainly the case that organisms have evolved in order to adapt to
the regularities in their environment (e.g. light, heat, food,
conspecifics, etc.). Indeed, various organs and internal pro-
cesses have evolved in order to ensure this fit between the
organism and its surroundings.
In the case of human beings, psychoanalysts refer to this
capacity as the analysand's reality testing; without it, as with any
organism, he could not survive. Reality testing may be compro-
mised by neurosis, but it can never be entirely vitiated by it. In
fact, only patients with intact capacity for reality testing are
considered suitable for psychoanalysis and they are carefully
screened - much more carefully than most experimental sub-
jects, who are usually recruits from student subject pools put-
ting in obligatory time with that consideration in mind. In
other words, the neurotic patient is capable of reality testing
within the special environment of relevance, the analysis, as is
any organism, from the ameoba on up, within its relevant
environment.
The neurotic patient is as concerned with and finds it as
necessary to test the reality of the analysis as any organism in any
environment, and he is to a greater or lesser extent capable of it.
If we grant that my subject in the color perception experiment
258 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
states the truth when he says, "I see blue," that is, if we grant
the truth of his experience, then why doubt the truth of the
following statement, which is more complex but, in principle,
no different: "I was not conscious of X before I made that slip
but now I am (because of free associations) and furthermore, I
recall that I once thought X (days, weeks, years before) and was
made uncomfortable by it and stopped thinking about it from
that time on until a moment ago"? Grunbaum tells us that the
statement can be doubted because it could have been influ-
enced by the patient's knowledge of psychoanalytic theory,
direct suggestion on the part of the analyst, or by the force of the
positive transference.
All this is possibly true, but it is based on the supposition that
the patient's reality testing is altogether in abeyance, unlike that
of any living organism in its traffic with its surroundings. Grun-
baum might in fact grant that some patients' statements are true;
however, there is no way of knowing which statements are true
and which are false and one can only be sure if their truth value is
tested in an extraclinical setting. But is there such a final or
crucial test for the truth? No method is perfect, and all must
assume that subjects make true statements about their experi-
ences (e.g. "I see blue").
It may also be that with the addition of various controls one
can increase the certainty with which one believes the rela-
tionship found in an experiment, but, as Grunbaum points out,
this belief remains contingent on the overall status of the theory
being tested in the experiment and - I would add - on certain
presumed regularities and reality testing, true for all subjects.
Thus it would seem that the matter comes down to one of degree
rather than one of kind.
It is inescapable that experimental subjects and analytic
patients, like scientists, possess the capacity to know truth from
falsity and that their statements are acceptable as truths of
experience at face value. This is not the same as ascribing to the
patient the ability to explain what lies behind the truths of his
experience. Thus, the patient can report, as did Elizabeth von
R. to Freud, that at her sister's deathbed, with her attractive
brother-in-law standing nearby, the thought, "Now he is free
again and I can be his wife," shot through her mind and was
immediately banished (Breuer & Freud 1895). This is an ac-
count of motivated forgetting or repression. Why should this
account not have evidential status as much as the statement, "I
see blue," once we take into account that the capacity for reality
testing in and out of the transference is not limited to experi-
mental subjects? Moreover, if you deny reality testing to neu-
rotic patients, you cannot maintain it for experimental subjects.
If Grunbaum is altogether right about the analytic clinical
method, then there is no relying on reasonableness in any
context.
In short, the clinical method gives us access to certain phe-
nomena as no other method can. Freud's admirable heuristic
hypotheses did not come out of thin air or simply out of his
imagination. Rather, these hypotheses were created in order to
account for statements of the kind made by Elizabeth von R.
These phenomena are no more compromised than any self-
reports of an experience once it is assumed that regularities
exist, that words can convey them, and that patients have the
capacity to test reality. However, to establish the existence of
repression or its role in pathogenesis is not the same as knowing
how repression works or exactly how it produces neurosis or
what factors contribute to certain kinds of early experiences.
Grunbaum is right in asserting that patients (like the rest of us,
including the subject in the color experiment) do not have
privileged access to the causes of their experience. As an
analysis progresses, patient and analyst fashion an increasingly
complete and likely explanation for the neurosis on the basis of
much mutual sifting of the evidence, from past and present,
some of the evidence becoming available because of the pro-
gress of the analysis itself in diminishing resistances. It often
happens that with increased understanding the patient experi-

ences a wider array of life choices than before, when crippled by
the neurosis: that is, he is "cured. " But this process is in
principle no different from what happens in an experiment
which we consider successful to the extent that a certain hypoth-
esis is not refuted by the evidence; it is not proven by the
results, although with more such favorable results we begin to
believe the hypothesis to be true, belief remaining a personal
matter and not subject to final proof.
Elizabeth von R. knew she had banished a painful thought;
she did not know how she did it or what the consequences would
be (Breuer & Freud 1895). It was at this juncture that Freud
introduced his pathetically misconstrued metapsychology to
account for these mechanisms in a language that obviously had
to be different from the language of experience.
Certainly other extraclinical methods must, as Grunbaum
advocates, be brought to bear on helping us reach a fuller
understanding of these clinically adduced phenomena brought
to light but not invented by the psychoanalytic clinical method.
However, these extraclinical methods must be drawn upon in
addition to the clinical method because the clinical method is
the only way we can be in touch with certain phenomena. The
probative value of the clinical method can be enhanced by
appplying various systematic techniques to the clinical data,
such as random and representative sampling, matched pairs,
prediction, postdiction, and so on. But the value of these
systematic procedures is based on the supposition that clinical
statements have evidential standing, a position Grunbaum de-
nies but which one can defend.
Are free associations necessarily
contaminated?
Donald P. Spence
Department of Psychiatry, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New
Jersey Rutgers Medical School, Piscataway, N.J. 08854
Griinbaum argues that free associations are neither free nor
independent because they may be influenced by suggestion
from the analyst, contaminated by a knowledge of theory, or
otherwise epistemically impaired. "For example," he writes, "a
'confirming' early memory may be compliantly produced by the
patient on the heels of giving docile assent to an interpretation"
(p. 277). If the clinical data are thoroughly confounded by
suggestion and expectation then one can only agree with Griin-
baum's conclusion: "The validation of Freud's cardinal hypoth-
eses has to come, if at all, mainly from well-designed extra-
clinical studies . . ." (p. 278, author's italics).
What is the evidence for possible contamination? Only one
clinical interchange is cited - which greatly weakens Griin-
baum's case. He provides us with an excerpt from a case study
by Blanck and Blanck which clearly suggests that the analyst was
leading the patient and providing the motivation which should
have been present, according to theory, but was not necessarily
what the patient had in mind (pp. 212-14). But if the danger of
suggestion is as great as Grunbaum claims, it is a little surprising
that more evidence is not provided. Is there more smoke here
than fire?
As it turns out, the paucity of evidence may be a clue to a more
basic problem. At issue is (a) evidence that the analyst makes
leading suggestions to the patient; (b) evidence that these
suggestions influence the patient's response; and (c) evidence
that compliance is accepted at face value. But it should be kept
in mind that this evidence is largely unavailable because of
established conventions of case reporting in the psychoanalytic
literature. Beginning with Freud, who saw no need to provide
all the data, the history of case reporting has been anecdotal
rather than archival, selective rather than complete. Each case
tends to rely more on argument by authority than on appeals to
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
the evidence. Examples of overt suggestion or too-docile com-
pliance would be the first kind of data to be excluded and thus
the tradition of narrative smoothing may account for the small
amount of evidence cited by Grunbaum.
But the argument cuts both ways. Because we have almost no
information about what really goes on in the consulting room,
Grunbaum's charge must be held in abeyance until more data
are in. We simply do not know (a) the amount of contamination;
(b) the spread of infection within the session; and (c) the extent to
which suggested responses (which appear to support the theory
but which are evidentially worthless) are balanced by unex-
pected confirmations which support the theory and take the
analyst by surprise. Until we have more adequate methods for
"unpacking " the clinical interchange and canfinda new genre to
take the place of the traditional case report, Grunbaum's charge
may remain moot - but it is certainly not proven.
In the second place, it should be noted that psychoanalysts
are particularly sensitized (in the course of their training) to the
dangers of suggestion, and schooled in a tradition which places
an emphasis on minimal comment and redundant examples.
Edelson makes the same point: "Many features of the psycho-
analytic situation, in contrast to those of other psychotherapies,
are in fact designed to control extraneous external influences on
the analysand's productions" (1984, p. 129). Of course, these
observations do not settle the question; answers will only come
from close examination of the clinical dialogue, and for that we
need verbatim transcripts which have been supplemented by
the analyst's private thoughts and feelings (see in this regard Gill
and Hoffman, 1982, Edelson, 1984, and Spence, 1982).
Just because we are not always aware of the original texture of
the clinical dialogue and just because it is perfectly possible for
certain kinds of suggestion to appear does not mean that they
present us with an impossible methodological obstacle, or that
the effects of suggestion cannot be isolated, when and where
they occur, and their influence kept separatefromother aspects
of the psychoanalytic process. As more verbatim transcripts are
made available, it should become increasingly possible to iden-
tify instances of suggestion and to study, in turn, their effect on
other parts of the treatment. As of early 1985, plans are under
way to formulate new standards for case reporting in the major
psychoanalytic journals which would address themselves to
issues of documentation and find ways to minimize inadvertent
narrative smoothing. Significant progress on these issues could
easily change the face of the clinical literature and make possible
a more considered response to Grunbaum's challenge.
It will also make possible another kind of discovery. More
transparent reporting will bring to light specimens of clinical
work in which an interpretation produced a significant piece of
insight or change in behavior. These effects may or may not
correspond to what was predicted from theory, but at least we
will have moved beyond the anecdote. This kind of conscien-
tious unpacking should provide an estimate of how much cre-
ative, insightful, and uncontaminated clinical work is buried
behind the usual kinds of narrative smoothing that appear in the
literature. Only when that day arrives can the standing of
Grunbaum's challenge be adequately assessed.
Human understanding and scientific
validation
Anthony Storr
45 Chalfont Road, Oxford, 0X2 6TJ, England
Freud was trained in the laboratories of Ernst Briicke, a hard-
headed experimental scientist who was dedicated to the propo-
sition that only physicochemical forces were active within the
organism. For fifteen years, Freud conducted research into the
anatomy and physiology of the nervous systems,firstoffish, and
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 259
Commentary)Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
then of human beings. Even after he had begun to formulate
psychoanalytical ideas, he looked back with regret to his neu-
roanatomical days, published a monograph on aphasia in 1891,
and a major work on childhood cerebral palsy in 1897. It was
only because he wished to get married, and therefore needed
more money than pure research could furnish, that Freud took
his medical degree and engaged in medical practice.
It is entirely understandable that Freud at first approached
the study of neurosis in exactly the same way as he approached
the study of organic disease, and that he treated neurotic
symptoms with the physical methods of treatment then avail-
able. However, his period of study with Charcot convinced him
that ideas could be causal agents in neurosis, and that hypnosis
could be effective in counteracting such ideas. Later, Freud's
collaboration with Breuer led him to use hypnosis as a means of
helping the patient to recall forgotten (repressed) origins. For
Breuer had discovered that if a hysterical patient could be
persuaded to recall the very first moment of the appearance of a
given symptom and to relive the emotions connected with it, the
symptom could be made to disappear. Thus, it became estab-
lished that hysterical symptoms could be caused by unpleasant
ideas or memories of which the patient had become uncon-
scious. Freud formulated the theory of repression, and on this
cornerstone the whole edifice of psychoanalytic theory was
subsequently erected. Although traumatic memories are not
physical entities, like bacteria, it is still possible to think of them
as causal agents of hysteria, and thus to put neurosis into the
same category as physical disease. This, clearly, was what Freud
thought he had done, and partly accounts for the fact that,
throughout the rest of his life, he continued to affirm that
psychoanalysis was, or would become, a science.
Adolf Griinbaum, over the past few years, has produced a
number of papers criticizing psychoanalysis from the philosoph-
ical point of view. The learned book under review represents
the culmination of his endeavor. He begins by criticizing the
work of his fellow philosophers, Jurgen Habermas and Paul
Ricoeur, and goes on to examine the work of the late George S.
Klein. In the chapter titled "Is Freud's Theory Empirically
Testable?" Griinbaum cogently exposes the inadequacy of
clinical observation as proof of psychoanalytic theory. He rightly
criticizes Karl Popper for possessing an inadequate knowledge
of Freud's actual writings, which are both less dogmatic and
more aware of potential objections to psychoanalytic theory than
most people suppose. It is even the case that, in his "Auto-
biographical Study" of 1925, Freud admitted that "the personal
emotional relation between doctor and patient was after all
stronger than the whole cathartic process," thus raising the
possibility that psychoanalytic "cure" has nothing to do with
psychoanalytic interpretation.
Griinbaum forcefully argues that "free association" is neither
free nor validating evidence for psychoanalytic theory, as is
generally claimed by psychoanalysts. He affirms, with good
reason, that future attempts to validate psychoanalytic hypoth-
eses must come from extraclinical testing rather than from data
obtained in clinical psychoanalytic sessions. He makes pertinent
criticism of Freud's theory of dreams, which, in spite of Freud's
belief that this represented his greatest insight, has failed to
stand the test of time.
From this brief account, it might be concluded that Griin-
baum is merely destructive. This is not the case. He recognizes
that Freud was a man of genius, and he is far better informed
about what Freud actually wrote than most of Freud's critics.
My difficulty in wholeheartedly recommending what I recog-
nize to be a work of considerable scholarship is twofold. First,
Griinbaum's style of writing is densely turgid. One's difficulty in
disinterring what he actually has to say is compounded by his
use of words like "scientificity," "retrodictability," "rejec-
tionism," "misextrapolation," and "diphthography," none of
which are to be found either in Chambers Twentieth Century
Dictionary or in the Oxford English Dictionary of 1971. Second,
260 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
I think he isflogginga dead horse. Only a few fundamentalist
psychoanalysts of an old-fashioned kind think that Freud was a
scientist or that psychoanalysis ever was or could be a scientific
enterprise. Philosophers like Dennett, Strawson, and Berlin
have demonstrated that, although it may still be possible to
regard some isolated, neurotic symptoms from a detached,
deterministic point of view, to understand persons cannot be a
strictly scientific enterprise. Isaiah Berlin puts it with his cus-
tomary clarity when he writes: "Understanding other men's
motives or acts, however imperfect or corrigible, is a state of
mind or activity in principle different from learning about, or
knowledge of, the external world." Freud was a man of genius
whose expertise lay in semantics. That is, he was able to take the
apparently inexplicable problems with which his patients con-
fronted him and make both sense of their symptoms and co-
herent narratives out of their lives. Others, like Jung and Adler,
tell different stories which are equally convincing. Making sense
of a person's life is no mean achievement, but, like history, it is
an enterprise which can be approached from different points of
view, and which can never be either completed or scientifically
validated.
Transference: One of Freud's basic
discoveries
Hans H. Strupp
Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. 37240
In this commentary I shall be primarily concerned with psycho-
analysis as a particular form of psychotherapy and with the data
generated within the psychotherapeutic framework. Indeed,
clinical observations are the context in which Breuer and Freud
made their revolutionary discoveries, and they remain the
fundament on which the psychoanalytic theory of psycho-
therapy rests. There would be less confusion about psycho-
analytic theory today if Freud had confined himself to the
therapeutic enterprise; his fame would surely be secure if he
had. Regrettably, his ambition drove him to develop a universal
theory to account for all aspects of human behavior. In this effort
he often engaged in speculation and, as Griinbaum and earlier
writers have shown, many of his formulations are questionable,
if not untenable.
Let me concentrate on what I consider one of Freud's most
important and empirically grounded discoveries - transference.
If one creates a clinical situation in which one person, the
therapist, assumes a benign and expectant attitude and attends
closely to the verbalizations and the behavior of a person who
has come for help, it soon becomes apparent that the patient will
enact with the therapist scenarios that are not in keeping with
the professional relationship between two adults in the present.
The patient will unwittingly assign particular roles to and endow
the therapist with qualities not actually present; other qualities
will be distorted. That is, the patient will transfer to the
therapist wishes, fantasies, fears, frustrations, and so on, that
are not grounded in "reality" but derive their meaning from the
patient's life experience, notably early childhood. Further-
more, it is a common observation that when the anachronistic
character of these misattributions is systematically explored and
clarified ("interpreted"), a therapeutic benefit results.
For reasons to be elaborated below, Freud attached undue
weight to the mutative effect of interpretations. However, he
also recognized that, in the course of therapy, the therapist
becomes an important role model ("mentor") for the patient;
that therapy requires the formation of a viable working rela-
tionship ("therapeutic alliance"); and that the patient must
reexperience ("work through") old conflicts, traumas, and mal-
adaptive patterns of behavior that still interfere with present-
day adaptation.

The foregoing is the substance of all forms of psychotherapy
based on psychoanalytic principles. To be sure, the therapist
becomes part of the two-person system of psychotherapy, and it
is undeniable that one cannot participate in interpersonal trans-
actions without influencing them. Thus, although the
therapeutic enterprise may, in a strict sense, be "epistemically
flawed," as Grunbaum insists, it is possible to keep it reasonably
close to empirical observations. Furthermore, it is possible to
conduct psychotherapy without many of Freud's metapsycho-
logical speculations. Indeed, I consider this the direction of
future work in this area (Strupp & Binder 1984). By the same
token, I question whether one can "validate" clinical observa-
tions in the laboratory, and, in contrast to Grunbaum, I do not
see this as a necessary requirement. However, it is essential for
therapists to deal continually with their own emotional reactions
to the patient's productions (formerly, but somewhat mis-
leadingly, called countertransference).
Freud elevated interpretations to a position of preeminence
because he was intent upon demonstrating the uniqueness of
psychoanalytic therapy, particularly vis-4-vis hypnosis. Thus he
attempted, but basically failed, to show that "suggestion" plays
no part in his system of therapy. From there it is but a short step
to the "Necessary Condition Thesis" (NCT) (Foundations, pp.
139-140). If for no other reasons, NCT is untenable because
psychoanalysis is not a unique form of psychotherapy. In this
respect I fully agree with Grunbaum.
By this I mean that in all forms of psychotherapy the therapist
exerts a psychological influence. As my friend the analyst
Hartvig Dahl (personal communication) points out, psycho-
therapy can do only two things: (1) persuade the patient to give
up unrealizable wishes and (2) promote cognitive changes in
how the patient views himself and the world. The trained
psychoanalytic therapist can approximate these objectives in
skillful ways, but these operations are by no means unique.
Freud felt compelled to denigrate this influence by calling it
"suggestion." Grunbaum commits a comparable error when he
labels the therapist's influence a "placebo effect" (pp.178 ff.),
thereby implying that there must be "special" psychological
mechanisms in formal psychotherapy. Other contemporary
writers have sought to differentiate between specific (tech-
nique) and nonspecific or common (interpersonal) factors in
psychotherapy. That, too, is a pseudodistinction (Butler &
Strupp, in press).
Nor can therapeutic successes (or failures) be invoked to
adjudicate the correctness of any theory of psychotherapy,
including psychoanalysis. Partly this is so because any
therapeutic outcome is a multifaceted and complex phe-
nomenon (Lambert, Shapiro, Bergin & Berman, in press). It is
also true that researchers have not been able to link particular
outcomes to particular therapeutic interventions. In other
words, therapeutic change can be achieved in a variety of ways,
and one cannot precisely ascertain the transactions to which
change is attributed (not to mention extratherapy influences,
measurement errors, etc.). For the most part, however, the
"true" therapeutic influence of psychotherapy is, by definition,
a psychological influence whose nature must be explained
(Strupp 1977). On the other hand, we learn little about the
character of therapeutic change when we attribute it to "sug-
gestions" or "placebos," which are merely synonyms for lack of
scientific knowledge.
In my view, Freud also undertook an essentially fruitless task
when he attempted to explain why a patient "chose" a particular
neurosis and when he sought to identify specific "pathogens" for
a person's difficulties in living. The latter are always multideter-
mined and almost inextricably woven into a person's "character"
as it has evolved over many years. The term "neurosis" itself is
of questionable scientific value. This problem is not resolved by
replacing "neurosis" with "disorder," as is attempted by DSM-
III (American Psychiatric Assn. 1980).
There is no doubt that therapists may indoctrinate patients
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
who then unwittingly confirm the therapist's privately held
theories. On the other hand, transference phenomena, which I
consider the fulcrum of modern psychoanalytic theory, are so
well documented and require so few theoretical assumptions
that, realistically, they meet the criteria for basic observational
data. In addition, any therapist worthy of the name attempts to
collect convergent evidence before presenting a patient with an
interpretation. Such evidence comes from the patient's observ-
able behavior in therapy, the reported interactions with signifi-
cant others in the present and the past, verbalizations of various
kinds in which may be embedded particular themes, and - yes -
also dreams, fantasies, and the like.
In conclusion, Freud's seminal discoveries originated in the
clinical situation, and he related many of his constructs to the
therapeutic setting. In his expectations of what psychoanalytic
therapy could accomplish (particularly in comparison with other
modalities) he wavered between unbridled enthusiasm and
disillusionment. The farther he strayed from clinical data and
the more he engaged in abstract theorizing, the more he became
vulnerable to the charges Griinbaum levels against his theories.
In my judgment, the future of psychoanalytic psychotherapy
lies with the transactions between patient and therapist in the
here-and-now. Thanks to videotaping and other modern record-
ing techniques, these transactions can be observed and studied
by external judges. It may turn out that Freud's insights gained
from psychotherapy are greater and more lasting than his work
in other areas. However, even with respect to psychotherapy,
Freud's theories, like all scientific theories, must be regarded as
provisional and subject to reformulation as knowledge
advances.
Grunbaum, homosexuality, and
contemporary psychoanalysis
Frederick Suppe
Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science, University of
Maryland, College Park, Md. 20742
Grunbaum is a hermeneutical tour deforce. I know of no better
job of rendering Freud's reasoning patterns plausible while
displaying their fundamental defects. Challenging Griinbaum's
exegesis is left to those more expert on Freud than myself.
Rather, I will explore some of the implications of Grunbaum's
account for contemporary psychoanalysis, using its treatment of
homosexuality as a case in point.
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association eliminated the
classification of homosexuality as a disorder. A group of neo-
Freudian psychoanalysts headed by Irving Bieber and Charles
Socarides challenged this and forced a referendum vote of the
APA membership. Although a majority supported removal,
today nearly all psychoanalysts still believe that homosexuality
per se is a mental disorder rooted in faulty identifications,
infantile fixations, or defenses against unconscious impulses
such as castration anxiety exacerbated by the Oedipal conflict.
With very few exceptions analysts agree that homosexuality can
be treated successfully by psychoanalytic means.
Against this we have Freud's own position on homosexuality:
Although he did offer accounts of its etiology he denied homo-
sexuality per se was an indication of degeneracy, opposed
automatically barring homosexuals from psychoanalytic work,
and believed there were many types of homosexuals and that
most were not amenable to psychoanalytic treatment (Bayer
1981, pp. 21-27):
Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be
ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an
illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function produced
by a certain arrest of sexual development. . . .
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 261
Commentary/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
By asking me if I can help, you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish
homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The
answer is, in a general way, we cannot promise to achieve it. In a
certain number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs
of heterosexual tendencies which are present in every homosexual, in
the majority of cases it is no more possible . . . . The result of
treatment cannot be predicted.
What analysis can do for your son runs in a different line. If he is
unhappy, neurotic, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his social life,
analysis may bring him harmony, peace of mind, full efficiency
whether he remains a homosexual or gets changed. (Freud 1951)
Despite efforts of psychoanalytic societies to enforce Freudian
doctrinal purity (e.g. they forbid teaching Jungian analysis), on
homosexuality psychoanalysis largely ignores or repudiates
Freud's own teachings.
This raises my first question. Griinbaum does a meticulous
job showing the epistemic inadequacy of Freud's own epis-
temological position, with the obvious belief that his objections
tell against contemporary "Freudian" analysis as well. Yet if
contemporary analysis plays so freely and selectively with
Freud's positions as it does in the case of homosexuality, can it
not blunt Griinbaum's attack by simply disavowing those epis-
temological views of Freud's that Grunbaum so effectively
challenges? Against such a move Grunbaum maintains that "no
empirically warranted alternative premise that could take its
place and yield the desired sanguine conclusions seems to be in
sight. Hence, currently no viable surrogate for the defunct Tally
Argument appears on the horizon" (p. 166; cf. also p. 250) and
that "the attribution of therapeutic success to the removal of
repressions . . . remains to this day, the sole epistemic under-
writer of the purported ability of the patient's free associations to
certify causes" (p. 185, italics deleted). Grunbaum understands
this response to apply to both the Freudians I am concerned
with and the post-Freudians he discusses in Chapter 7.
Grunbaum further argues that "lacking a viable alternative to
the aborted Tally Argument with comparable scope and ambi-
tion, the future validation of Freudian theory, if any, will have to
come very largely from extraclinical findings" (p. 129; ch. 8). For
homosexuality such extraanalytic evidence has been over-
whelmingly disconfirmatory of the orthodox "Freudian" psy-
choanalytic position (which Freud did not share), and some of it
provided the very basis for removing homosexuality per se as a
disorder. Virtually all psychoanalysts regard such evidence as
irrelevant. As leading spokesman Charles Socarides (1970) puts
it:
Only in the consultation room does the homosexual reveal himself and
his world. No other data, statistics, or statements can be accepted as
setting forth the true nature of homosexuality. All other sources may
be heavily weighted by face-saving devices or rationalizations or, if
they issue from lay [i.e. nonpsychoanalytic?] bodies, lack the scien-
tific and medical background to support their views. The best that can
be said for the well-intentioned but unqualified observer is that he is
misguided because he does not have and cannot apply those tech-
niques which would make it possible to discern the deep underlying
clinical disorder or to evaluate the emotional patterns and interper-
sonal events in the life of a homosexual, (p. 1199)
These epistemic claims are not defended. Freud's tally argu-
ment provides the needed justification; no alternative has been
advanced. Griinbaum's refutation of that argument undercuts
contemporary psychoanalytic grounds for resisting extraclinical
test. But his arguments against the tally argument invoke
precisely the sorts of extraclinical evidence that Socarides re-
jects (pp. 162ff.). Does not reliance on Griinbaum's critique thus
beg the question against Socarides? No. For Griinbaum's other
arguments succeed in refuting the tally argument without re-
course to such extraclinical evidence. Furthermore, ap-
plicability of the tally argument depends essentially on docu-
mented cures (p. 140; ch. 2 passim). Despite claims of such
cures of homosexuality (e.g. Bieber, Dain, Dince, Drellich,
Grand, Grundlach, Kremer, Rifkin, Wilbur & Bieber 1962;
262 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
Hatterer 1970; Socarides 1968), these claims are so conceptually
confused and questionable (Suppe 1984) as to be worthless in
legitimizing the invocation of the tally argument. On p. 258
Grunbaum displays a flaw in addition to client suggestibility that
pervades the design of psychoanalytic research such as Bieber et
al. (1962).
I have tried to show the applicability and crucial relevance of
Griinbaum's epistemological arguments to contemporary
"Freudian" psychoanalysis even under circumstances in which
there is gross infidelity to Freud's own views by showing the
devastating relevance of Griinbaum's work to psychoanalytic
treatments of homosexuality. What is unclear is whether such
critiques will have any impact on psychoanalytic theory or
practice - hence on whether psychoanalysis has substantive
respect for evidence and intellectual rigor.
Grunbaum's challenge to Freud's logic of
argumentation: A reconstruction and an
addendum
Barbara Von Eckardt
Department of Philosophy, Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y. 13346
Grunbaum deserves nothing but praise for his masterly and
extensive treatment of the question of the scientific status of
Freudian psychoanalysis. If there is a weakness in Griinbaum's
work, it lies in the area of style. The prose is so dense and the
arguments so complex that I fear the forest will often be lost for
the trees. In the interests of elucidation, then, I would like to
propose the following "map" (Figure 1) of Grunbaum's discus-
sion of the epistemological problems inherent in Freud's use of
clinical data to validate his theories. (For a much more extensive
review of Grunbaum's arguments, see Von Eckardt 1985.) By
emphasizing that there are four critical epistemic levels in the
evidence-hypothesis hierarchy rather than simply two (clinical
"data," on the one hand, and theories, on the other), the "map"
allows us to see not only how thorough Grunbaum's treatment of
this problem is but also where there may be minor gaps or
omissions.
The four epistemic levels are the following: At the lowest
level, we have what can be called the patient's productions.
These include his dream reports, slips of the tongue, memory
reports, free associations, and assent or dissent to interpreta-
tions made by the analyst. At the second level, we have the
interpretations provided either by the analyst or by the patient
himself of individual productions as expressions of unconscious
wishes, resistance, and so on. Third, we have what Freud
(1937b) called a construction, a whole psychoanalytic story
about the patient's psyche from his early infantile history to his
present state, including, of course, an etiological account of the
patient's symptoms. Finally, there are the universal generaliza-
tions of psychoanalytic theory, including, again, claims about
the etiology of the neuroses, dreams, slips, and so on. The
arrows on the map represent the relation "is considered evi-
dence for"; numbers next to an arrow stand for epistemological
liabilities pertaining to that step discussed in Grunbaum's text.
Such a diagram is useful not only for elucidation but also as a
tool for detecting points in Freud's logic of argumentation where
Grunbaum's discussion could be elaborated. I see two such
points. The first is so obvious that there is perhaps nothing much
to be said; nevertheless, it pertains to a crucial link in Freud's
inferential process. I have in mind the jump from individual
constructions to universal generalizations. Suppose that none of
the epistemic difficulties pertaining to patient productions,
interpretations, or constructions existed. Suppose, in other
words, that we accepted Freud's individual constructions as
true. There would still be a question concerning the truth of the
universal generalizations of psychoanalytic theory, for we are

universal generalizations
construction
interpretations
slips of the tongue
dream reports
symptoms
associations
reports of conscious
feelings toward
analyst 81 others
introspection
once analyzed
Figure 1 (Von Eckardt). Epistemological problems in Freud's
use of clinical data as discussed by Griinbaum. Problems: (1)
suggestibility (pp. 130-35); (2) failure of tally argument (pp.
135-72); (3) weakness of consilience argument (pp. 273-78); (4)
Nisbett & Wilson findings (pp. 147-48); (5) problems with
Breuer-Freud argument (pp. 177-89); (6) problems with ex-
trapolation to slips and dreams (pp. 190-239); and (7) problems
with establishing causal claims by retrospective testing (pp.
177-89).
dealing here with an inference from a relatively small sample to
the entire human population. And it is far from clear that the
sample has the appropriate properties to permit such a gener-
alization. Theorists who have argued that Freudian theory is
culturally biased have had precisely this sort of point in mind.
A second elaboration of Griinbaum's challenge concerns the
inferential step from patient productions to interpretations of
those productions. Because of his focus on Freudian exegesis,
Griinbaum stresses the epistemological liability posed by the
presence of suggestion. But there is another difficulty as well, a
difficulty that would arise even if suggestion were not an ever-
present threat. I have in mind the theoretical bias that Freud
introduces in his "method of interpretation."
If we study what Freud had to say about his method of
interpretation through the years, the picture that emerges in
Freud (1937b) is this: Individual interpretations are arrived at
by insight, usually on the part of the analyst. To be correct,
however, such interpretations must satisfy two sets of con-
straints, one internal and the other external. The internal
constraints are what we might call "gestalt constraints." Rough-
ly, individual interpretations are correct only if they fit together
into a meaningful whole, that is, a construction, which makes
sense of all the clinical material. But this is not sufficient, for
Freud now admits that such an internally coherent construction
might be false. Thus, as a further guarantee of its correctness, it
must satisfy an external constraint: It must be a construction
that, roughly speaking, plays a central role in a successful
analysis.
The difficulty is this. If we look carefully at the interpretations
that Freud offers us in the course of his various case studies, it
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
becomes readily apparent that his theoretical commitments
strongly influence the kind of interpretations and constructions
he comes up with. In particular, in arriving at interpretations
that satisfy the gestalt constraints, the fundamental guiding
principle that Freud seems to use is "closeness of fit" with his
theory. That is, what makes the separate interpretative pieces fit
together is nothing other than that they all fit the theory. (See
Cioffi 1970, Timpanaro 1975, and Wolpe and Rachman 1963 for
examples.) Thus, Freud's method clearly seems theoretically
biased in a scientifically unacceptable way.
However, it is open to Freud at this point to argue that,
although his theory plays a significant role in the generation of
interpretative claims, this alone is not sufficient to undercut the
objectivity of his interpretations. For it is perfectly legitimate to
generate candidate interpretations in the light of one's favorite
theory so long as they will be subject to procedures capable of
ruling out the incorrect interpretations on independent
grounds. Thus, insofar as Freud supplements his internal con-
straints with some theory-independent check, he can save
himselffromthe charge that the interpretative claims arrived at
by the method of interpretation fail the scientific requirement of
objectivity. It is at this point that the tally argument could again
be invoked; for it is precisely therapeutic success that is sup-
posed to function as the called-for theory-independent check.
But, of course, because (as Griinbaum has argued) the tally
argument is unsound, it will be no more successful at undermin-
ing the charge of theoretical bias than it is at eliminating concern
over nongenuine productions. Hence, the problem of the-
oretical bias at the second level of Freud's inferential hierarchy
remains.
Early Freud, late Freud, conflict and
intentionality
Paul L. Wachtel
Department of Psychology, City College of the City University of New York,
New York, N.Y. 10031
Griinbaum's book is an impressive, closely reasoned contribu-
tion of lasting value. I will concentrate here, however, on some
points of demurral for him to respond to.
Griinbaum devotes a large proportion of his argument to the
logic of Freud's earliest formulations, in particular, those from
the period when Freud believed that repressed traumatic
events were the cause of neurosis. To be sure, the early theory
did have a fateful effect on the development of even those of
Freud's formulations that seem to contradict it (Wachtel 1977).
But there are also significant differences, which Griinbaum does
not always address. When he says, for example, that "even"
during its formative years psychoanalytic methodology defies
Popper's criticisms (p. 124), this is misleading. It was especially
in the early years that Freud stuck close to empirical observa-
tions and framed his hypotheses in ways that were readily
disconfirmable. Later his formulations became much more
complex and ambiguous. Griinbaum does address Popper's
criticisms in terms of some later Freudian formulations (e.g. the
relation between unacceptable homosexual impulses and para-
noia), but greater attention to the differing epistemological
problems presented by the earlier (trauma) theory and the later
(fantasy and conflict) theory would be useful.
Grunbaum tends to evaluate psychoanalytic conceptions in
terms of whether "etiology" and "pathogenicity" are demon-
strated. This again, in a different way with differing implica-
tions, seems to reflect his blurring of the distinctions between
the early and later versions of psychoanalytic thought. Although
the later theory too builds upon conceptions of psycho-
pathology, it differs significantly from the earlier theory in that it
is no longer just a theory of neurosis but more generally a theory
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 263
Commentary/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
of personality and character development. It is not clear if
Griinbaum regards all causal propositions in psychology as
appropriately described as "etiological" or whether his use of
this term reflects something specific about Freud's theory and
its origins in a theory of psychopathology. To be sure, there
were affinities between Freud's causal explanations of everyday
behavior and character on the one hand and of psychopathology
on the other, but it would be instructive for Griinbaum to
describe the limits of the term "etiology" as he uses it.
At times Griinbaum pays insufficient attention to the cen-
trality of conflict in Freudian theory. Thus, in contesting the
view that maladaptive behavior fulfills unconscious intentions,
he argues that it implies that were the person to be made
conscious of his previously repressed wish he would have to see
his maladaptive behavior as a means to its fulfillment and
therefore to continue the behavior; the paranoid, if made aware
of his homosexual wishes, should continue his paranoia as a
perceived way of gratifying them. That this is not the psycho-
analytic expectation seems to Griinbaum to gainsay the notion
that the symptom has a wish-fulfilling function. But Griinbaum
overlooks the psychoanalytic position that the repressed wish is
but one of the wishes that are (partially) gratified by the symp-
tom, which is a compromise gratification of several wishes. The
paranoia, according to Freud, is a way of partially gratifying both
the homosexual wish and the wish not to know about it. As a
means of gratifying the homosexual wish alone it would be an
unlikely choice. But it can be seen as a plausible means of
achieving partial gratification of the homosexual wish - looking
at and thinking about the other a great deal is, after all, one of the
things that one likes to do when one is in love - while at the same
time providing oneself with "proof that one does not like the
other (indeed that one hates him). Of course the paranoid
solution would not be chosen if the repressed wish were con-
scious, because it would no longer have the possibility of
simultaneously fulfilling the wish for the homosexual wish not to
be conscious; a more direct and complete gratification of the
remaining fulfillable wish (the homosexual wish) would be
chosen instead. I concur with most of Grunbaum's arguments
for the necessity of causal propositions in psychoanalysis
(Wachtel 1969), but I believe this particular one is flawed.
Grunbaum's respectful treatment of the logic of what he calls
Freud's "tally argument" and his disagreement with Suther-
land's claim that it begs the question is puzzling. Freud had
argued, disputing claims of suggestive compliance by patients,
that "[the patient's] conflicts will only be successfully solved and
his resistances be overcome if the anticipatory ideas he is given
tally with what is real in him" (Freud 1917). But here Freud
counters the critics of his theory by assuming the theory to begin
with. On what grounds are we to assume that cure will come
only if what the analyst suggests "tallies with what is real?" If one
does not begin from psychoanalytic premises, there is no reason
to give this assertion credence. Grunbaum argues that "if
psychoanalytic treatment does have the therapeutic monopoly
entailed by the Tally Argument, then it can warrantedly take
credit for the recoveries of its patient without statistical com-
parisons with the results from untreated control groups, or from
controls treated by rival modalities" (p. 142, italics in Griin-
baum). But how can one know if it has such a monopoly unless
one does the comparisons? Elsewhere Grunbaum himself crit-
icizes a similar "viciously circular bootstrap operation" by Freud
(p. 144).
To be sure, as Grunbaum demonstrates, Freud often showed
keen methodological sophistication. Nonetheless, the tally ar-
gument appears to be an instance, not uncommon in Freud's
writings, in which overreaching assertion gets the best of
Freud's methodological superego.
Grunbaum's discussions of how much Freud did implicitly
rely on the tally argument are provocative and illuminating;
they cast an interesting light on the problems posed for psycho-
analytic theory by the failure to show that psychoanalysis is in
264 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
fact therapeutically superior to other modalities. But why Griin-
baum couples this line of argument with a virtual ode to the tally
argument (albeit one that includes a depiction of a tragicflaw)is
incomprehensible to this reviewer.
Psychoanalysis: Conventional wisdom, self
knowledge, or inexact science
Murray L. Wax
Department of Sociology, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. 63130
Counterpoint to Grunbaum's work is provided by such essays as
those of Bruno Bettelheim, published under the title Freud and
Man's Soul (1982). Where the one evaluates the work of Freud
under the strict canons of a (positivistic) philosophy of science,
the other attacks those responsible for the English language
translations on the ground that they violate the humanism of
these writings. Such are the riches of the Freudian legacy that
the most knowledgeable and competent scholars give plausibly
different interpretations: With scrupulous objectivity, Griin-
baum judges it according to the norms of clinical and biomedical
research; with abundant clinical experience initiated in the
Vienna where Freud practiced and taught, Bettelheim reminds
us that this stylist of German prose wrote oiSeele (soul), rather
than of "mind " or other behavioristic euphemisms.
Grunbaum, Bettelheim, and other critics and interpreters
(Habermas, Ricoeur, Sulloway, Popper) focus our attention on
Freud rather than on how psychoanalysis has evolved and how it
has been influencing psychiatry, psychology, and kindred disci-
plines. Theirs is a valuable endeavor, but the punctilious analy-
sis by Grunbaum is so overdue that we may forget the context.
Sociologically viewed, science is not the set of definitive state-
ments of the immutable truths of nature discovered by an
aggregate of isolated and intrepid investigators; it is instead a
special kind of interplay and conversation: intrinsically social
and critical, yet ultimately progressive; spiritually cooperative,
yet marked by the harshest of mutual criticism and rivalry.
Thus, to evaluate any particular body of work, we must view it in
its context. We cannot fairly judge the achievement of Newton
by regarding his work - including his errors and his (religious)
fantasies - against modern criteria, even though this might be
an interesting exercise for a historian of science. Likewise, it
becomes difficult for us today to evaluate fairly the work of
Freud, because so many of the ideas which then were consid-
ered revolutionary have today become conventional wisdom for
both scholars and the educated public. With these caveats, I
salute this wonderfully rich critique of Freud's lifetime work;
Grunbaum exhibits a magisterial combination of sympathetic
exposition and impartially severe critique.
A generation ago, and in accord with the Popperian principle
of falsification, philosophers challenged analysts to describe the
(male human) child who had not experienced the Oedipus
complex. At the turn of the century that challenge would have
had a different significance than it does today. At that time, the
basic notions of the complex - infantile sexuality, castration
anxiety, love for the mother, hostility toward the father; that
whole set of phenomena encompassed by the notion of "the
family romance" - were novel. Today, many of those who think
of themselves as opponents of psychoanalysis nevertheless ac-
cept the significant elements of the romance; it has become
conventional wisdom. I do not mean that all students of child
development would reach a consensus on the Oedipus complex,
but rather that they and we have been highly sensitized to the
emotional drama of infancy and early childhood and accepting of
its psychosexual dimensions: A boy who had not experienced
that drama could only be autistic or fatally handicapped or the
victim of gross neglect.
In his evaluation of Freud's theories, Grunbaum asks repeat-

edly and severely, what kind of confirmation is provided "from
the couch"? How subject to the influences of the analyst are the
"free associations" of the analysand? The question and its chal-
lenge seem so reasonable that we overlook their limitations.
When the world's only analyst was Sigmund Freud, that chal-
lenge differed from the one today, when we may instead be
asking questions such as what is the nature of debate among
psychoanalysts concerning differences in the validity of clinical
interpretations? Does such debate lead to consensus of the
informed? Does it at least lead toward clarification of issues?
Alternatively, we might ask whether in the decades since the
original formulation of Freud's theories there has been change,
progress, evolution, of the sort that is distinctive to a scientific
enterprise? And also, we might ask about the auxiliary types of
evidence that have been generated by psychoanalysis, e.g.
those from anthropology, child development, folklore, and
literary studies.
An alternate mode of responding to Griinbaum's critique is to
take the humanist position to its logical and spiritual extreme.
When (and to the extent that) analyst and analysand labor
together, the latter can achieve a radical self-knowledge that
conduces toward a more integrated, harmonious, and produc-
tive psyche (Seek). Being the fallible, limited and diverse
creatures that human beings are, not every analytic dyad will
achieve its goal, but, to the extent that it does, the analysand will
gain increased control over the self and thus be better able to
deal with what are termed "symptoms." This mode of present-
ing psychoanalysis is not clinically tidy, and not faithful to Freud
in his persona as scientist. Yet it is faithful to the more pessi-
mistic and limited vision of his later writings. Because so much
of Freud's work has been accepted by scholars, an implicit but
major issue is occupational. Clinical and scientific orientations
do not easily meld, and the psychoanalytic movement has found
it difficult to deal with the kinds of innovation customary in a
purely scientific discipline. The requirements of clinical probity
and competence lead to a form of training and a mode of
professional organization (especially in the United States) that
are not hospitable to the challenge of radical paradigm shift that
has become normal to the pure sciences. This is not the kind of
issue faced by Griinbaum, but the skill and knowledge of his
critique force those sympathetic to psychoanalysis to reexamine
its status as science.
Hermeneutics and psychoanalysis
Robert L. Woolfolk
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903
Adolf Grunbaum has proved himself an inspired and meticulous
critic of the recent trend in psychoanalysis to abandon preten-
sions to scientific testability and effect reconstitution as a hu-
manistic discipline analogous to literary criticism. According to
this "psychoanalytic hermeneutics" position, the objective ac-
curacy of the psychoanalytic reconstruction of the past and the
interpretations thereof cannot be supported. Nor is their corre-
spondence with past occurrences deemed necessary to produce
therapeutic impact. The task of the analyst is simply to decipher
the realm of subjectivity by fashioning meaningful and coherent
narratives that are consistent with psychoanalytic theory.
Armed with precise arguments and a Freudian scholarship
superior to that of most analysts, Grunbaum uncovers a number
of problems with this position. He fails to develop some other
criticisms, however:
1. The hermeneutic model derives, in large part, from
Ricoeur (1981), who views action as a text analogue, and Haber-
mas (1971), who sees psychoanalysis as a model for critical social
science. These philosophers assume the validity of psycho-
CommentarylGriinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
analytic theory, although they are less than clear about how the
validity of the theory is determined. Habermas and Ricoeur
assume that psychoanalysis presents an accurate account (in the
scientific sense) of the workings of the mind; they explicitly
acknowledge that it contains causal, explanatory elements.
These philosophers assume that much of psychoanalysis (e.g.
repression theory) has already passed the scientific test and
many of their formulations are predicated on this assumption.
Appropriation of their positions to argue against the need for
psychoanalysis to pass such tests is thus a self-defeating logical
move. For Ricoeur and Habermas, psychoanalysis is a viable
interpretive framework partly because it possesses independent
epistemic authority, and not solely because its self-described
aim is to make manifest through interpretation what is hidden or
distorted.
2. Even if one is prepared to grant that psychoanalysis is a
retrospective, historical science, it is also a set of social prac-
tices, a technology of healing, and, as such, must be held
accountable to some pragmatic predictive criteria. At the very
least, its efficacy can and should be evaluated. Such evaluations
would generate actuarial predictions concerning the likelihood
of benefit or harm for someone entering treatment. [See Pri-
oleau et al.: "An Analysis of Psychotherapy Versus Placebo
Studies" BBS 6(2) 1983.]
3. The hermeneutic turn of psychoanalysis is a move toward a
kind of relativism. If the historical truth of interpretations can be
ignored, yet interpretations are still of the form of propositions
that have truth value, what kind of odd cynicism is required of
the analyst? (Presumably shamans perform their curative rituals
with more conviction in the particulars of their crafts, if not with
greater scientific support for their theories.) What if the patients
get wind of all this? How efficacious will an interpretation be if it
is regarded as a somewhat arbitrary personal myth rather than
something true? Will distressed individuals still come to ana-
lysts for treatment given that psychoanalysis may declare itself
qualitatively different from surgery for appendicitis or behavior
therapy for phobias? Will insurance companies still pay? What
about the quasimedical pretentions of the analytic community?
Why then do we need psychoanalytic theory anyway? Psycho-
analysis has never demonstrated superiority over other forms of
therapy in empirical studies, far from it. Why use the analytic
system to generate our stories? If a good narrative is all it takes,
why not turn to other departments of Western culture or turn
the job of constructing such narratives over to the many dis-
placed holders of doctorates in the humanities who desire work
within their fields?
One might have wished for greater comprehensiveness in
Grunbaum's discussion of whether one should apply to psycho-
analysis standards by which the natural sciences are evaluated.
Addressing one aspect of this question, in his discussion of the
reason-versus-cause debate, Grunbaum effectively exposes the
misconceptions and spurious logic of various opponents of causal
formulations in psychoanalysis. He could have called upon the
further support offered in the works of Davidson (1980) and
Searle (1983), who suggest that intentional phenomena can
function as a species of cause. Grunbaum is not concerned here
with cultural analysis, the sociology of knowledge, or with the
critique of the ideological foundations of psychoanalysis. Yet
some elucidation of the moral dimensions of psychoanalysis
seems pertinent to a determination of the extent to which a
natural science framework fits it.
Psychoanalysis is clearly a form of mixed discourse, both
describing the workings of the psyche and adumbrating a moral
vision. Theories of personality and psychopathology are inevita-
bly prescriptive and normative. Such theories not only reflect
and influence standards of conduct but seem to provide the
contemporary cultural equivalent of descriptions of virtue and
peccability. Viewed through this lens, psychoanalysis has much
in common with Marxism, in that each not only provides an
ambitious philosophical anthropology but also a theory of libera-
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 265
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
tion. It is perhaps this aspect of psychoanalysis that makes it one
of our most intriguing and influential cultural products.
Editorial commentary
There is still a point of inductive strategy in the face of Grun-
baum's critique that no commentator appears to have raised.
Even if one grants that, in principle, some of Freud's claims can
be reformulated in such a way as to be testable ("extraclinically,"
let us say), is there not still a question as to whether or not it
would be worthwhile to do so? As a scientific and therapeutic
project, psychoanalysis has had enormous attention and influ-
ence for well over a century now, despite the fact that its
scientific and therapeutic validity remain, if not entirely un-
testable, then largely untested. By way of analogy, one might
ask whether we ought to assign a high priority to testing for
possible "serendipitous" truths in some still more venerable
theories, such as astrology or creationism, even if they can be
tortured into testability, rather than allowing our research to
continue to be guided by their more plausible rivals. Finally,
there is the question of prima facie plausibility itself. It is not just
that psychoanalytic ideas have always seemed farfetched.
(There are many scientific precedents for not underestimating
farfetched ideas.) It has more to do with the relation between
the nature of the ideas and the means of testing them; with the
fact that they remain today as farfetched as they ever were. All
scientific theories can resort to ad hoc strategies to protect them
from negative evidence, but few of them can claim such "immu-
nizing" strategies as took of their trade. Symbolization, in-
terpretation, and reinterpretation in terms of (rather than in test
of) a given symbolic system is a psychodynamic process: The
"unconscious" does it, the patient does it, the analyst does it. In
the end, the problem seems to be not so much the suggestibility
of the patient as that of the theorist. (Is this Grunbaum's
"thematic affinity fallacy"?) Whether or not the hermeneuticists
are right in their explicit appropriation of the project, does a
theory that has such an essential hermeneutic dimension built in
still deserve the benefit of the inductive doubt so late in the day?
Is that sound inductive strategy?
Author's Response
Is Freud's theory well-founded?
Adolf Griinbaum
Departments of Philosophy, Psychiatry, and History and Philosophy of
Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260
Logically and historically, clinical1 evidence from the
couch has been considered the principal foundation of the
psychoanalytic enterprise, serving both as its heuristic
guide and its empirical support (Jones 1959, p. 3). The
order of inquiry in Foundations was accordingly dictated
by two questions: (1) Are the analyst's observations in the
treatment setting reliable as "data" and (2) if so, do they
actually support the theory of repression, "the cor-
nerstone on which the whole structure of psychoanalysis
rests" (S.E. 1914, 14:16)?
In Foundations I gave negative answers to both ques-
tions, stressing, however (p. 172), that even if the answer
266 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
to (1) had been positive, my unfavorable overall conclu-
sion would be adequately supported by my treatment of
(2). Some of the commentators, however, seem to have
mistaken my critical account of the tally argument in Part
I to be the gist of the book (Erdelyi; Farrell; Savodnik;
and Eysenck - although elsewhere Eysenck [1985b, p.
90] does recognize the autonomy of my arguments in Part
II).
The falsifiability of psychoanalytic theory. Freud's hy-
pothesis that strongly repressed homosexuality is a neces-
sary causal condition for the occurrence of paranoid
delusions (S.E. 1915, 14:265) has figured prominently in
the literature on the testability and falsifiability of psycho-
analysis. The causal factor is supposed to be a conflict
between homosexual desires and the need to banish them
from consciousness to avoid anxiety. According to Freud,
paranoia can be present in one or more delusional forms:
delusions of persecution, of jealousy, of grandeur, and of
heterosexual erotomania. Holt wants to make the connec-
tion between the cause and the syndrome probabilistic in
both directions. But even according to the received
psychoanalytic view, it is only probable, rather than
certain, that latent homosexuality will produce paranoia,
although every paranoiac is assumed to be a latent homo-
sexual. (Kline's account of Zamansky's 1958 experimental
test of Freud's etiologic hypothesis will be discussed in
the next section of this Response).
At a 1980 conference in honor of Popper (and in
Foundations, pp. 38-39, 110-11), I pointed out that
Freud's paranoia hypothesis yields a quasi-statistical epi-
demiologic prediction, one that qualifies as "risky" in
Popper's sense (with respect to any rival "background"
theory denying a causal connection between latent homo-
sexuality and paranoia). Hence, by Popper's standards, I
claimed, failure of the prediction would tell against
Freud's hypothesis, and success would corroborate it.
What was my psychoanalytic rationale for the relevant
prediction? A significant decline in the social taboo on
homosexuality (as in San Francisco) should reduce the
anxiety generated by homosexual desires as well as the
need to repress them, which should result in a decrease in
the incidence of paranoia.
As I have noted, "the first impetus for my inquiry into
the intellectual merits of the psychoanalytic enterprise
came from my doubts concerning Karl Popper's philoso-
phy of science" (p. xii). Asked by Daniel Goleman of the
New York Times for a brief statement of my disagreement
with Popper on psychoanalysis, I claimed that the Breuer
- Freud hypothesis (that hysteria is caused by a specific
kind of repression) was indeed testable. (In Foundations
[pp. 179-84]) I recount how Freud abandoned this hy-
pothesis because its therapeutic prediction had failed.)
This prediction is quoted from the interview with me in
Goleman's article (1985, p. 15). For journalistic sim-
plicity, however, I also agreed to let him quote, as an
example of a testable Freudian statement, the briefer
general claim: "Repression of traumatic experiences is
essential for neurosis to develop." This vaguer version
took the place of Freud's so-called specific etiologic hy-
potheses (S.E. 1895, 3:135-38) - such as the paranoia
hypothesis - for which I had actually claimed falsifiability
(Foundations, pp. 109-10).
Each of these specific hypotheses concerns the particu-

lar sort of repression - e.g. of a thematically connected
trauma, experienced just before the onset of a particular
hysterical symptom (S.E. 1896, 3:193-96) - that is
needed to cause a particular syndrome. Thus, in the
example of the paranoia hypothesis, latent homosexual
desires would take the place of the "repressed traumatic
experiences" in the vaguer formulation transmitted to
Popper by the New York Times, and the "neurosis" would
be paranoia.
Fisher and Greenberg (1977) have pointed out that
"the appearance of overt homosexual . . . acting out in
the paranoid would represent a contradiction . . . of
Freud's theory of paranoia" (p. 259). Popper (1983), who
reports that W. W. Bartley made him aware of this
consequence in 1980, tells us, "But this [paranoia hypoth-
esis] is not part of the basic theory I was criticizing.
Besides, Freud could say of any apparently paranoid
active homosexual that he is not really paranoid, or not
fully active" (p. 169). The latter of these two sentences is
the one to which Popper now refers in his commentary,
when he writes that even in a "greatly improved" version,
the predictions (A) and (B) discussed in his commentary
do not become testable. Before 1983, however, Popper
had always claimed, without any qualification, that
Freud's theory was simply nontestable, irrefutable (e.g.
1962, p. 37; 1974, p. 1004). In dealing with the example
given by Bartley, Popper (1983, p. 169) oddly says noth-
ing about just what is part of the "basic" theory of
psychoanalysis. Nor does he provide grounds for exclud-
ing the paranoia hypothesis from it.
In defense of such an exclusion, Notturno & McHugh
misleadingly cite Freud's assertion that "cases of paranoia
are for well-known reasons not usually amenable to ana-
lytic investigation" (S.E. 1922, 18:225). But, as I noted in
Foundations (p. 141), the "well-known reasons" which
Freud had given elsewhere (S.E. 1917, 16:438-39, 445-
47; also 16:255) make this disavowal by Freud unhelpful
to Popper. Freud had said that paranoia was refractory to
analytic therapy, but he insisted that this in no way
invalidated his inferences about its causes. The un-
treatability of paranoia was attributed to the inability of
paranoiacs (among others) to develop a libidinal attach-
ment to the analyst, a positive "transference" that Freud
considered essential for resolving the patient's conflicts
(S.E. 1914, 12:154). Moreover, the paranoia hypothesis is
part of Freud's theory of psychopathology, which is the
most "basic" part of his theory of repression. Popper's
elusive 1983 use of the notion of "basic theory" is not
clarified by his contrast elsewhere (1962, p. 38, n. 3)
between "psychoanalysis itself" and "a particular analytic
diagnosis."
Notturno & McHugh are quibbling when they point
out that in Freud's initial 1911 paper on the Schreber case
he had spoken of repressed homosexuality as "perhaps" a
universal cause of paranoia. As noted in Foundations (p.
Ill), Freud subsequently made it clear that he was
committed to universality (S.E. 1915, 14:265).
In its universal form, Freud's hypothesis predicts, as in
Popper's conditional statement (A): If a person does not
repress homosexual impulses, then he will not be para-
noid. I have maintained (pp. 40; 109-10) that the behav-
ior of an avowed, active homosexual paranoiac refutes (A)
because the behaviorally overt homosexual activity satis-
Response! Qrunhaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
fies the "if"part ("antecedent") of (A), and delusions of
(say) persecution contradict the "then"part ("conse-
quent") of (A). Popper, however, claims that it is "hardly
possible" to establish the truth of the antecedent, because
"Freud could say of any apparently paranoid active homo-
sexual" that he is harboring some repressed homosexual
impulses after all (Popper 1983, p. 169). Notturno &
McHugh even speculate, in support of Popper, that
Freud would "insist upon using free association to seek
the hypothesized homosexual repressions."
I suggest that Freud's theory precludes the use of
Popper's strategy. As Freud tells us explicitly (S.E. 1922,
18:228), in paranoia (as well as in hysteria, the example I
used for the New York Times), quantitatively intense
("hypercathected") repressions, rather than just repres-
sions per se, are the necessary conditions for developing
the syndrome. Thus, statement A must be understood as
applying to a person who does not strongly repress
homosexual impulses, a quantitative refinement I had
explicitly built into my statement (pp. 38, 40). Even an
ordinarily active (paranoid) homosexual would satisfy this
condition, not to mention a highly active, flamboyant
one.
Popper's claim that nobody could satisfy the anteced-
ent is hence incorrect, and his rhetorical questions "Who
has never . . . suffered a trauma? And who has not tried
to get over it by forgetting about it - which means 'trying
to repress' it?" are wide of the mark. As I said relatedly
(Grunbaum 1983): "Surely the mere traumaticity of an
event does not itself attest to its etiologic relevance. The
human condition would be much worse than it already is,
if every psychic blow became the specific pathogen of a
neurosis" (p. 20).
As to Notturno & McHugh's conjecture that in order to
dodge refutation by the existence of homosexually active
paranoiacs Freud would "insist" on finding homosexual
repressions in such persons' free associations: Surely
Freud would not resort to this, because everybody's free
associations could be interpreted as indicating some la-
tent homosexual feeling or other; hence such feelings
would not affect the probability of becoming paranoid.
Could Freud still say, as Popper (1983, p. 169) sug-
gests, that the active homosexual is "not really paranoid,"
no matter how delusional his behavior? True, even patent
delusions and intense feelings of persecution are only
probabilistic evidence of paranoia. But Popper's appeal to
the fallibility of differential diagnosis, and to the pos-
sibility of rediagnosis is misleading: As he well knows, in
physics no less than in somatic medicine or psychology,
empirical data are not deductively sufficient conditions
for the presence of hypothesized states, though they are
taken as indicators of such states. Even in physics, em-
pirical evidence underdetermines theoretical states, in-
dicating their presence only more or less proba-
bilistically. Thus, as Hempel has remarked, even a
circular array of iron filings does not deductively guaran-
tee the presence of a magnet. And as Popper (1974, p.
1004) has acknowledged, immunizing maneuvers are
always possible in physics as well. Besides, as I have
illustrated (pp. 121-23), when Freud did retract a differ-
ential diagnosis to preserve a specific causal hypothesis,
he was sensitive to the need for independent evidence in
favor of the alternative diagnosis.
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 267
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
Popper considers it to be very likely that a practicing
analyst, faced with an obviously frustrated person, would
beg the causal question by inferring from having judged
the patient "neurotic" that there had to have been a prior
trauma. The falsifiability of Freud's theory, however, is
logically independent of such practices on the part of
clinical or even research analysts. Moreover, as shown by
the case of paranoia, it is a straw man argument against
the falsifiability of the prediction stated in Popper's (A) to
cite the difficulty of ruling out the presence of any and
every sort of neurosis, rather than confirm just paranoia.
Thus, Popper was quite mistaken to claim that "Only if he
[the patient] is [altogether] not neurotic is the prediction
testable." Finally, Popper asks rhetorically: "But who has
ever met a prospective patient who was told by his
prospective psychoanalyst that he was not neurotic?" Yet
people who actually expect to incur the pain, expense,
and duration of an analysis are presumably troubled, are
they not? So on what evidence would a scientifically
sensitive analyst make an initial judgment of good mental
health?
Far from supporting his nonfalsifiability thesis, Pop-
per's (1983) account of the case of the homosexual para-
noiac unfortunately relies on just the kinds of immunizing
maneuvers he is quick to reject when others engage in
them. In any case, his account seems incoherent: Only a
few pages after discussing the paranoia example, he deals
with Freud's dream theory and declares it to be a "simple
fact . . . that anxiety dreams constitute a refutation of the
general formula of wish-fulfillment" (Popper 1983, p.
173; italics in original). Thus, by Popper's own appraisal,
the dream theory is not only falsifiable but had already
been falsified by anxiety dreams, when Freud first pro-
posed it! This apparent inconsistency is not remedied by
the fact that Popper offers this falsification as evidence of
Freud's improper methodological conduct.
After all, throughout his career, Popper has repeatedly
published two relevant claims: (1) Logically, psycho-
analytic theory is irrefutable by any human behavior, and
(2) in the face of seemingly adverse evidence, Freud and
his followers always dodged refutation by resorting to
immunizing maneuvers. Clearly, (1) is logically indepen-
dent of (2). My principal objection to Popper pertains to
his thesis (1), although I argue in Foundations that he also
used gross oversimplification to make the case for (2).
Notturno & McHugh insist on conflating Popper's (1)
with (2), incorrectly believing that they have upheld (1) in
the face of my critique, if they succeed in showing that I
somehow mishandled (2). Foundations actually includes
many detailed objections to Freud's methodological con-
duct, although I defend him against some of the crude,
simplistic strictures in the literature.
As evidence of my mishandling of Popper's (2), Nottur-
no & McHugh point to my use of Freud's 1933 "Revision
of the Theory of Dreams," which I offered as an example
of Freud's acknowledging an actual falsification (pp. 112,
220, 238). The revision was prompted by the dreams of
war neurotics, who regularly relive their traumas in their
dreams. Referring to these dreams, Freud issued a re-
traction: "According to our hypotheses about the function
of dreams this should not occur" (S.E. 1933, 22:28).
After quoting this concession of Freud's at the end of
Chapter 5,1 wrote: "This important, if limited, modifica-
tion is only to be welcomed' (p. 238) as an acknowledg-
268 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
ment of a falsification, though it did not go nearly far
enough. Earlier (p. 220) I had called his revision "rather
minor" when I meant to convey that the modification
pertained to the dreams of only a small subclass of people
- the war neurotics - whereas Freud's hypothesis of
wish-fulfillment had referred to the whole human race.
Notturno & McHugh mention only my phrase "rather
minor." Oddly, they see as somehow unfair to Popper the
purely expository deferral of my appraisal of Freud's
revision to the end of the pertinent chapter.
Finally, Notturno & McHugh equivocate on the term
"science," when they object that I criticize Popper's
account of psychoanalysis as nonscience, only to censure
it myself as "bad science." When Popper declared it to be
nonscience, he meant that it was empirically unfalsifiable
by any conceivable behavioral evidence. When I argued
that, at least with respect to the available clinical evi-
dence, psychoanalytic theory is bad science, I explicitly
said that it is empirically ill-supported by that evidence.
Given that his claim is quite distinct from mine, there is
nothing odd in my contention that, in Popper's falsi-
fiability sense of "science," psychoanalysis does qualify as
science, whereas in my sense of the term it does not.
Wax contrasts my empirical assessment of psychoanal-
ysis with Bettelheim's complaint that Strachey's English
translation of Freud's writings from German had scien-
tistically obscured the "humanism" they contain. One
need only read Freud's thirty-fifth 1933 Lecture "Uber
eine Weltanschauung" in the German original to appreci-
ate that Bettelheim's case is a hermeneutic red herring.
For example, whether one refers to Freudian slips in
German familiarly as "Fehlleistungen," as Freud himself
did, or as "parapraxes," using Strachey's English neolo-
gism, the fact remains that Freud claimed scientific status
for his theory of slips. Ditto for "Seele" and "psyche."
Edelson, who comments on my proposed epi-
demiologic test of the paranoia hypothesis, is under the
impression that I regard it as prototypic for the extra-
clinical testing I advocate. I did not claim that this test
could be readily generalized; but surely my empirical
critique of purely clinical testing does not place the
burden of coming up with additional extraclinical tests on
me. That responsibility, I should think, belongs to psy-
choanalysts, unless they can show that Edelson's hopes
for the testing potential of the treatment setting can be
realized.
It is likewise not my problem that the epidemiologic
design I proposed would lose its relevance, if - as
Edelson suggests - psychoanalytic theory were to claim
that the repression of homosexual desires was caused by
internal developmental factors independent of social ta-
boos. As is, however, Freud's account of ego-function in
repression does not seem to rest on such internal pro-
cesses (S.E. 1911, 12:65-68). Thus, Freud speaks of a
"multiplicity of mechanisms of repression proper." The
ego is presumably also responsive to the demands of
external reality, such as strong social prohibitions, rather
than merely to internal developmental influences.
Wachtel sees my discussion of the paranoia hypothesis
as an indication of my "insufficient attention to the cen-
trality of conflict in Freudian theory." He refers to how I
used this hypothesis when I tried to show that the
"practical syllogism" (see Precis) cannot be applied to
psychoanalytic explanations. Also, he thinks that this

contention on pp. 78-79 "seems to Griinbaum to gainsay
the notion that the [delusional] symptom has a wish-
fulfilling function." Wachtel claims that I draw this im-
plication. Furthermore, he suggests, I overlook the fact
that, according to psychoanalytic doctrine, the delusional
symptoms represent compromise gratifications of two
conflicting wishes: the wish for homosexual fulfillment
and the desire to banish this wish from conscious
awareness.
Yet I neither drew the implication that prompted
Wachtel's correction, nor is it a logical consequence of
what I did say. As for recognizing that Freud took the
delusional symptoms to result from two conflicting wish-
es, my account of the causal role of anxiety (p. 76) does
just that: The anxiety aroused by the homosexual feelings
generates the desire to banish the thought of them. My
point in the passage disputed by Wachtel was rather the
following: Though each of the conflicting wishes may be
said to be an unconscious "intention," the ensuing para-
noid symptoms do not qualify as "intentional actions" in
the sense of the "practical syllogism," because the syllo-
gism calls further for a belief in a means-ends connection.
No such belief is assumed by the paranoia hypothesis.
Experimental and "quantitative" studies of psycho-
analysis. Freud wrote: "In analysis, however, we have to
do without the assistance afforded to [other] research by
experiment" (S.E. 1933, 22:174). Kline, Masling, and
Greenberg, however, point to a wealth of what they
regard as important experimental, "objective" or "quan-
titative" studies. Why, then, though I did cite Kline's
(1981), Eysenck and Wilson's (1973), Fisher and Green-
berg's (1977), Marmor's (1970), and Masling's (1983)
work, did I not include any systematic discussion of this
material in Foundations? And why did I claim that the
extraclinical appraisal of Freud's "cardinal hypoth-
eses . . . is largely a task for the future" (p. 278)?
An evaluation on the basis of available studies would
not have altered my conclusion about the empirical sup-
port for psychoanalysis, because the extraclinical data
gathered so far, even when favorable, fail to support any
of the major Freudian hypotheses whose clinical evi-
dence I criticized as inadequate. Kline offers stereotypes
about academic disciplines by way of explanation for my
omission of nonclinical studies, but he inadvertently
acknowledges that I cited his (1981) work - as well as the
writings of others - to justify my selectivity when I spoke
of "alleged experimental support for 'the theory of re-
pression' " (pp. 188-89).
Freud characterized "the theory of repression" as "the
cornerstone on which the whole structure of psycho-
analysis rests" (S.E. 1917, 14:16). He did so immediately
after having made it clear (p. 15), by reference to
Schopenhauer's "explanation of insanity," that this cor-
nerstone comprises at least the hypothesis that repres-
sions cause psychopathology, rather than just the far
weaker claim that there exists a mechanism of repression.
Hence in Foundations I was concerned with evidence for
the causal role of repression in the formation of neuroses,
dreams, and Freudian slips (p. 277).
Thus, speaking critically of Kline's (1981) book, I wrote:
"When giving the definition of'repression proper,' Kline
includes in it the claim that 'repression [is] a pathogenic
or unsuccessful mechanism of defense' (Kline 1981, p.
Response!Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
196). But this definitional inclusion of an etiologic role in
Kline's definition begs the causal question as to whether
mental acts of repression are, in fact, neurosogenic"
(Foundations, p. 188) because his experimental evidence
(Kline 1981, pp. 226, 436) "relates to the existence of the
mechanism of repression, but does not bespeak any
etiologic role at all" (Foundations, p. 188). Kline now
indicates that, on his p. 226, he was claiming only experi-
mental support for the mechanism of repression. Yet it is
perhaps understandable that I read his definition of
"repression proper" as implying that if there is "irrefuta-
ble [experimental] evidence for the Freudian concept of
repression" - as he told us there was (1981, p. 208) - then
there is support for its causal role as well. In any case, I
stand corrected by Kline's current disclaimer concerning
what he actually meant by "the Freudian concept of
repression."
I cannot agree with Kline's suggestion that because
prior authors, including himself, have criticized Freud's
theory as clinically ill-supported, my "conclusions are not
new." If police were to indict a defendant and then a
district attorney strengthened the case enough to secure a
conviction, Kline would evidently pooh-pooh the at-
torney's contribution on the grounds that the charge had
already been made by others! Marmor knows better.
I will now provide some further reasons why the
extraclinical evidence for psychoanalytic theory reported
by Kline (1981), Fisher and Greenberg (1977), and Mas-
ling (1983) fails to uphold Freud's major hypotheses. Note
first that Kline (1981, p. vii) himself downgrades the
valuable and exhaustive labors of Fisher and Greenberg:
"In our view, Fisher and Greenberg are quite uncritical:
they accept results at their face value with almost no
consideration of methodological adequacy. Their book
reads like a bibliographic listing of results." However,
both Kline (1981, pp. 334-35) and Fisher and Greenberg
(1977, pp. 260-61) think that Zamansky's (1958) experi-
mental test of the paranoia hypothesis yielded favorable
results, whereas Eysenck and Wilson (1973, p. 314) deny
this on the ground that Zamansky's experiment lacked a
"vital control" to rule out a plausible rival explanation.
Just what were Zamansky's findings, and how should we
interpret them?
Freud's hypothesis that latent homosexuality is
causally necessary for paranoia entails the much weaker
generalization: All paranoiacs are latent homosexuals.
Zamansky states what he takes to be the upshot of his test
of Freud's hypothesis as follows: "Though the present
experiment has demonstrated a greater degree of homo-
sexuality in men with paranoid delusions than in non-
paranoid individuals, those results tell us nothing about
the role which homosexuality plays in the development of
these delusions" (quoted from Zamansky's study, as re-
printed in Eysenck and Wilson, 1973, p. 308). In Fisher
and Greenberg's account of the experiment (1977, pp.
261, 269), they endorse Zamansky's causal disclaimer,
along with his view of what he did demonstrate. Here are
the main details of Zamansky's investigation:
With a tachistoscope-like viewing apparatus,
Zamansky presented his paranoid male subjects with
pairs of pictures (e.g. of males, females, inanimate ob-
jects, or male-male homosexual encounters, such as men
kissing). He asked subjects to rank each pair of pictures
according to size. This task was just for distraction,
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 269
Response/Grunhaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
however, since his actual objective was to determine
whether the experimental group (male paranoiacs) gazed
relatively longer than control groups (nonparanoid males)
at pictures of males compared to females. Finding that
the paranoiacs did look at males longer, he interpreted
this time difference as evidence of stronger latent homo-
sexuality. Eysenck and Wilson (1973, p. 314), however,
point out the need to test the rival hypothesis that
paranoiacs gazed longer at males because it is part of their
syndrome to be generally suspicious and to feel more
threatened by males than by females. Hence Eysenck &
Wilson predict that if such people were presented with
"other forms of threat not involving homosexuality,
e.g., . . . flying saucers carrying sexless space mon-
sters," the subjects would take more time looking at such
nonhuman pictures as well.
Kline (1985, p. 231) makes no mention of this proposed
further test, dismissing the rival hypothesis as "arbi-
trary . . . idle speculation." He asks rhetorically: "Why
the connection between suspicion and length of looking,
between men and threat?" Erwin (1985, p. 198) and I
both reply, in effect: It is not obvious to us that Eysenck
and Wilson's rival hypothesis is less justified on the
evidence than Zamansky's view that repressed homosex-
uality accounts for the longer duration of looking. I do not
belittle Zamansky's imaginative investigation, however.
In fact, suppose for argument's sake that the prediction
made by Eysenck and Wilson's alternative explanation
were to fail. Thus, assume for now that Zamansky did find
evidence of more latent homosexuality in paranoiacs than
in nonparanoiacs. Even then, his own explicit causal
disclaimer agrees precisely with my thesis in Founda-
tions. Indeed, so does one of Kline's own helpful admis-
sions (1981, p. 437): "Many of the Freudian claims con-
cerning the neuroses have simply never been put to the
objective test. . . . Thus, the hypotheses which have
been put to the test are usually those where convenient
measures are at hand rather than those most crucial to the
theory."
Both Kline and Farrell note that, though central, the
theory of repression is not all of psychoanalysis. Howev-
er, when I examined the evidence for Freud's theory of
psychosexual development, for example, I found (as did
Erwin, 1985, that it called at best for a conclusion similar
to the one about Zamansky's findings. Greenberg and
Fisher (1983) discuss the evidence for (1) the existence of
penis envy in women (p. 257), and (2) the existence of a
causal link between preoccupation with penis envy
themes and "the predicted feelings of inadequacy, de-
pression, hostility, and the need to achieve" (p, 274).
They do present some perhaps plausible evidence for (1),
but they offer no good grounds for (2). Again, the result
does not alter the conclusion I had drawn from the clinical
evidence for Freud's causal hypotheses (pp. 55-56, 212-
14).
Kline does have a point in mentioning Silverman's
experiments, (e.g., 1976), but it seems too early to assign
positive significance to these. As Erwin (1985, pp. 193-
94) has indicated, there have been repeated failures to
replicate Silverman's results. In any case, even if they are
replicated, the problem remains that Silverman has given
no independent evidence to justify the crucial assump-
tion that his subliminal stimuli stir up unconscious fan-
270 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
tasies (a criticism offered by Eagle as well; private
communication).
In light of Greenberg's commentary, note Fisher and
Greenberg's (1977) conclusions about the evidence for
one version of Freud's dream theory. On the construal
they consider most reasonable, its central thesis is that
dreams express (vent) not only wishes, but various drives
or impulses that originate in the unconscious (pp. 46-47).
However, besides opting for some revisions, Fisher and
Greenberg make two sobering points: (1) Even if one can
show that a dream does express a certain impulse, there is
still no scientifically reliable way to confirm that the
impulse originated in the unconscious part of the psyche
(p. 47), and (2) the available "findings are congruent with
Freud's venting model. But . . . they do not specifically
document the model" (p. 63; italics in original). More-
over, "the data . . . are encouraging but not definitively
validating with respect to Freud's venting model" (p. 63).
Yet, despite issuing these important qualifications,
Fisher and Greenberg permitted themselves to begin
their summary by declaring that Freud's model "seems to
be supported by the scientific evidence that can be
mustered" (p. 63). By thus sliding from compatibility
("congruence") with the theory into "support" for it,
these friends of psychoanalysis have lent further sub-
stance to Popper's criticism of the methodology of
Freud's sympathizers.
Masling regrets my failure to comment on such works
as his anthology (1983), which includes the Greenberg
and Fisher chapter I have already discussed. Let me note
accordingly that Eagle's (1983b) contribution to it tells
against Freud, and that in the same volume, Sackheim
(1983) argues that people deceive themselves for reasons
other than those given by Freud. Nor do I see that any
other studies Masling cites call for a change in my conclu-
sion. For example, the "quantitative investigations of the
transactions between analyst and patient" of which Masl-
ing speaks have not, so far, strengthened Freud's clinical
arguments; rather, they merit a "wait-and-see" attitude.
Finally, far from overlooking the results from cognitive
psychology presented by Nisbett and Wilson (1977), I
referred to them several times in assessing the evidence
from introspection (pp. 29-30, 147-48, 208).
Marmor mentions experimental approach-avoidance
studies in lower animals as evidence that conflict can
cause pathology. Although I am unfamiliar with this
work, I wonder about his claim that its results can simply
be extrapolated to humans.
All in all, those who point to the volume of extraclinical
work already available have given me no reason to change
my assessment, a conclusion apparently shared by
Erwin.
The significance of Freud's tally argument. The "Analytic
Therapy" Lecture in which Freud developed his tally
argument (S.E. 1917, 16:448-63) is the last of his 28
Introductory Lectures. Published when he was 60 years
old, they contain his mature account of each major facet of
his clinical theory. The final lecture addresses the most
fundamental challenge to his entire enterprise, namely,
that suggestion is the only effective ingredient of psycho-
analytic therapy and it irremediably contaminates the
free-association method. Speaking of Freud's rejoinder to

this, Ernest Jones (1955, p. 224) says: "There exists no
more complete answer to this criticism than that which
Freud gave at length in his concluding lecture." To
evaluate this reply formally, I teased out the tally argu-
ment from this very lecture.
In Foundations, starting with the title of Chapter 2, I
was repeatedly at pains (e.g. on pp. 135, 167) to charac-
terize the tally argument as Freud's proposed "vindica-
tion," that is, his attempt to re-establish the validity of his
data and method in the face of the suggestion/contamina-
tion critique (as distinct from his attempts to validate the
clinical theory directly, by providing supporting evi-
dence). Several commentators misunderstood or over-
looked this key distinction.
Farrell seriously misrepresents my reasoning. He sees
me as begging the question with respect to Freud's
rebuttal of the charge of contamination by suggestion. In
fact, my answer to Freud's tally argument was not to
repeat the contamination critique but to show that there
was no empirical support for the Necessary Condition
Thesis (NCT), a premise on which Freud's tally rebuttal
relied. Only then did I cite the empirical evidence from
Marmor (1970) and others to claim that the contamination
challenge still haunts the psychoanalytic enterprise.
Farrell proceeds to predict that present-day post-
Freudian analysts will dismiss my critique as outdated.
This prediction is not borne out by the recent editorial in
the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
(Shapiro 1985). Furthermore, Farrell ignores Chapter 7
of Foundations, where I point out, largely on the basis of
Eagle's important work (1984b), just why the charge of
anachronism would be invalid, if analysts were to level it
(see also Eagle 1983a, especially pp. 32 and 49-50). Will
Farrell tell us, for example, how the late Heinz Kohut
(1959) could possibly claim stronger clinical support for
his pre-Oedipal version of unconscious causes of neurosis
than Freud could for his sexual ones? Or how Hanna
Segal's (1983) writings, which Farrell cites, improve on
the clinical arguments I criticized in Freud? Farrell
seems instead to beg the question in a credulous ipse
dixit: Analysts "are guided by criteria to help them
identify interpretations which are correct."
Farrell goes on to erect a straw man in declaring that
my conclusion about Freud's method does not entail
"that the clinical data . . . can tell us nothing about the
patient's disorder." I had explicitly disclaimed such a
wholesale rejection (pp. 245, 265-66). Nor did I write
that psychoanalytic theory was "worthless." On the con-
trary, I bent over backwards more than once to suggest
that it was still possible that Freud had discovered some
truths serendipitously (pp. 189, 278). Erwin has justly
criticized this expectation as unduly optimistic in the face
of the current evidence, as did the late Ernest Nagel
(private communication).
Farrell concludes by shifting to me a burden of proof
that rightfully belongs to those who are as sanguine about
psychoanalysis as he is. It is a pity, he says, that I looked at
what analysts have said, instead of undertaking the "con-
structive job" of going out to study what they actually do.
This failure (to do the work of a whole phalanx of investi-
gators), he complains, makes Foundations "negative and
lopsided." As an apologist for psychoanalysis, he expects
that the findings from such a mammoth investigation
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
would instead have been positive. One wonders about
the basis for this expectation, as Farrell himself seems to
have abstained for decades from the very kind of research
that he criticizes me for having neglected since starting to
study Freudian theory less than one decade ago. For my
part, I shall be glad if Foundations does serve as a catalyst
for well-conceived investigations (whose outcome I
would not presume to anticipate).
Cioffi concludes that "Griinbaum's emphasis on the
tally argument is not only mistaken [in its interpreta-
tion] . . . but is a great strategic error." This complaint
ignores Parts II and III of Foundations, as if my case
against Freud rested only on Chapter 2. In addition, in
questioning my reading of Freud, Cioffi seriously distorts
my claims, countering my painstaking textual documen-
tation with what appear to be peremptory speculations.
Some of his exegetical attributions to Freud are demon-
strably of his own manufacture, and when he does at-
tempt to substantiate his point by giving a reference, it
seems to be with a serious disregard of the context.
To avoid my "strategic error," he counsels, "the right
procedure" would have been to concentrate on case
histories such as that of the Wolf Man, and to show that
not only are they no better than rival accounts, but that
they are not even adequate narratives. Cioffi's criticism of
my strategy, however, is based on his objection to my use
of the tally argument. My Chapter 8 happens to have
been devoted largely to Freud's case of the Rat Man;
nevertheless, I prefer to recommend to Cioffi that he
himself pursue the strategy he urges on me, leaving only
the role of the tally argument to be considered.
Cioffi raises two distinct, though related questions: (1)
Did I misstate (or overstate) in Part I (Chapter 2) the
significance that Freud himself assigned to his tally argu-
ment (with respect to validating his clinical method and
data)? (2) Did I misrepresent in Part II the evidential role
that Freud assigned to primary therapeutic outcome, as
support for his theory of psychopathology?
Cioffi suggests that Freud himself could not have taken
the tally argument seriously, because he knew better
than to believe in its NCT premise that truthful psycho-
analytic insight is indispensable to a cure. I was careful (p.
149) to say that I did not accept the reasoning that seems
to have led Freud to espouse this crucial premise of the
argument. But, in addition to the insight requirement of
his "tally" statement (p. 138), I quoted (p. 142) most of the
following from his "Analytic Therapy" lecture: "We
achieve successes which are second to none of the finest
in the field of internal medicine; and I can now add
something further - namely that they could not have
been achieved by any other procedure" (S.E. 1917,
16:458). This assertion of unique therapeutic potency, I
pointed out (p. 142), is a 1917 reiteration of his much
earlier claim: "I . . . have accomplished some things
which no other therapeutic procedure would have
achieved" (S.E. 1895, 2:266;cf. also S.E. 1933, 22:153).
Is Cioffi suggesting that Freud knew his Analytic
Therapy lecture to be at best mere pious cant? Did his
abandonment of the original seduction theory of hysteria
show that he knew better? I cited (p. 159) Freud's famous
private 1897 letter (#69) to Fliess in order to point out
that the unsatisfactory therapeutic outcome he had
achieved while still using the seduction theory did not
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 271
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
contradict his NCT, which claims that cures depend on
truthful insight: Using the pseudo-insights of the (subse-
quently) rejected theory, there was, as Freud wrote to
Fliess, a "lack of the complete success on which I had
counted, and the possibility of explaining my partial
successes in other, familiar ways" - that is, by suggestion.
To challenge my interpretation and its documentation,
Cioffi asks: "Would not Freud's therapeutic successes
while holding the mistaken seduction theory undermine
the tally argument?" He further suggests that one is
entitled to "suspect that he [Freud] might not have found
the state of these patients so unsatisfactory had he not
already decided that the assumptions on which he had
treated them were mistaken." Such speculation hardly
seems sufficient to outweigh my textual documentation.
Moreover, Cioffi seems to be rather free with the text in
the service of his own interpretations. Here are two
examples:
1. Giving no references, Cioffi asks: "Isn't it strange
that Freud should think his most irrefragable proof came
from just those conditions, for example, dementia
praecox, which are resistant to psychoanalytic treat-
ment?" On the contrary, the 1980 computer-researched
Concordance to the Standard Edition (ed. Guttman,
Jones & Parrish) shows that the only context in which
Freud ever spoke of "irrefragable proof," in any of the 24
volumes, turns out to be a therapeutic one that is grist for
my mill. The relevant passage reads: "The fact of the
emergence of transference in its crudely sexual form, in
every treatment of a neurosis . . . has always seemed to
me the most irrefragable proof that the source of the
driving forces of neurosis lies in sexual life" (S.E. 1914,
14:12; italics added; cf. also S.E. 1923, 18:247; 1926,
20:268 re "transference"). Ironically, it is precisely the
formation of the artificial transference neurosis - whose
resolution is regarded as a major ingredient of successful
therapy! - that Freud cites as his "irrefragable proof."
Cioffi seems to be confusing this with Freud's (compati-
ble) claim that the so-called narcissistic neuroses (includ-
ing paranoia) are untreatable, just because they do not
tend to allow the transference. Moreover, I had pointed
out (p. 141) that in the case of the latter neuroses, "the
tally argument is, of course, unavailable to authenticate
[validate] his clinically inferred etiologies by means of
therapeutic success."
2. Cioffi says: "Nor does Grtinbaum's thesis square
well with Freud's remark 'it is often just in those cases
where treatment fails that most discoveries are made."'
But Cioffi has misleadingly truncated Freud's innocuous
point here. In the full context of his quotation (S.E. 1909,
10:207-8), we find that Freud says nothing at all damag-
ing to my thesis. There he reports that the successful
termination of the Rat Man's analysis, and the latter's
need to turn to other pursuits, prevented the collection of
further data that would have served to "unravel this tissue
of phantasy thread by thread" (p. 207n.). When the
analysis is not going well therapeutically, continuing it
allows one to collect more (potentially heuristic) data. In
short, therapeutic failure enhances the data base. But
such a connection between therapeutic failure and "dis-
covery" - as distinct from validation or proof - is hardly
tantamount to a dissociation of therapeutic success from
the validation of specific etiologic hypotheses.
272 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
Why, Cioffi asks, if Freud actually believed in his tally
argument, did he repeatedly go out of his way to deny that
he indoctrinates his patients? Cioffi replies that I took no
notice of these denials. I did so explicitly, at least twice
(pp. 158, 275). As to the question itself, I complained
several times that Freud was not above engaging in pure
salesmanship, in addition to giving arguments (pp. 141,
145-46).
Cioffi misreads my text, apparently unaware that I
depicted the tally argument as primarily an attempt to
support the scientific validity of psychoanalytic methods
and evidence in general, not as the support for specific
hypotheses. Without any page reference to Foundations,
Cioffi writes: "Grvinbaum is also mistaken to say that if
challenged as to the grounds for his theory of infantile
sexuality, Freud 'would' have appealed to his tally argu-
ment." I did not say that. On the relevant page (p. 170), I
was not discussing Freud's validation of the specific
infantile sexual hypotheses; instead, I was concerned
with how he would defend the use of the retrospective
psychoanalytic method itself - as distinct from using
prospective causal inquiries - as a means of validating the
specific causal inferences. Thus, I said: "In the case of the
psychoneuroses, the Tally Argument is the epistemic
underwriter of clinical validation by means of the psycho-
analytic method of etiologic investigation, whereas no
such underwriter is available to permit dispensing with
the prospective methods of controlled causal inquiry in
the case of the actual neuroses" (p. 170; italics in original).
Although it is irrelevant to my thesis, Cioffi remarks
that Freud appealed to direct observation of children as
confirmation of his theory of infantile sexuality. This is
true, but it matters that Freud's ultimate court of appeal
remained the psychoanalytic study of adults. As Freud
tells us, "Such a certain conviction of the existence and
importance of infantile sexuality can, however, only be
obtained by the method of analysis, by pursuing the
symptoms and peculiarities of neurotics back to their
ultimate sources" (S.E. 1914, 14:18).
In Part II (Chapters 3-6), which Cioffi neglects, I had
emphasized that Freud did not and could not directly
adduce any therapeutic evidence for his theories of
dreams and slips. These theories, I noted (pp. 187-88,
224, 231), were based on an incorrect extrapolation of the
method of free association from its role in making in-
ferences about etiology for use in therapy, to a similar role
in inferring the causes of dreams and slips. Freud did use
interpretations of the patient's dreams and slips obtained
by this method, however, as a way to determine what
insights the patient would need for the therapy to be
successful (e.g. S.E. 1900, 4:100-1; 1937, 23:264). Fur-
thermore, speaking of psychoanalytic theory as a whole,
he used the tally argument to provide indirect support for
"all that it tells us about what influences our lives, the
dynamics of the mind or the unconscious" (S.E. 1917,
16:452). Clearly, the ambitious purview of this statement
includes not only the theories of dreams and slips, but
also the theory of psychosexual development, all three of
which are mentioned by Cioffi.
Cioffi reasons that since "favourable therapeutic out-
come" could not have given Freud grounds for all this,
the tally argument could not have done so either. But he
overlooks the fact that whereas one premise of the argu-

ment asserts the existence of cures, the other (NCT)
predicates the achievement of a cure on the patient's
correct insight into "the unconscious dynamics of his
character" (pp. 139-40), which includes not only the
repressions that cause his neurosis but also those that
instigate his dreams and slips. Moreover Cioffi's claim
that the tally argument does not apply to Freud's theory
of psychosexual development boomerangs. The basis for
this claim is that the developmental theory also "per-
tained to normal character structure." But in this theory,
the account of the "normal" developmental process is of a
piece with the explanation of how it goes awry! And
Freud had inferred virtually all of his hypotheses from the
(long-term) clinical responses or other behavior of neurot-
ic - rather than "normal" - patients to begin with. Why
then would he have hesitated to believe that this part of
his system too could be justified by the cures of these
"abnormal" people? Needless to say, in view of my
massive doubts about the psychoanalytic method as a
means of validating causal hypotheses, I have no confi-
dence in the clinical support for Freud's developmental
theory.
Statements by Freud, made at widely separated stages
of his career, illustrate his own view of the central
evidential role played in his theoretical system by the
dynamics and outcome of his therapy. These statements
are quoted, as least partly, in Foundations (pp. 146, 167).
Cioffi pays no heed to them. At age 70, Freud declared:
In psychoanalysis there has existed from the very first
an inseparable bond between cure and research.
Knowledge brought therapeutic success. It was impos-
sible to treat a patient without learning something new;
it was impossible to gain fresh insight without perceiv-
ing its beneficent results. Our analytic procedure is the
only one in which this precious conjunction is assured.
(S.E. 1926, 20:256)
At the very start of his psychoanalytic career, Freud said:
"Breuer learnt from his first patient that the attempt at
discovering the determining cause of a symptom was at
the same time a therapeutic manoeuvre" (S.E. 1893,
3:35). And in a 1909 case history, he wrote: "We are
enabled to discover the structure of the pathogenic mate-
rial and simultaneously to dissipate it" (S.E. 1909,
10:104-5).
It is undeniable, I suggest, that Breuer and Freud
offered a therapeutic justification for the cathartic method
of finding and confirming the causes of neurosis (S.E.
1893, 2:6-7). By the same token, there is every reason to
think that when, soon thereafter, Freud substituted free
association for hypnosis, his rationale for regarding the
data yielded by the new method as valid evidence for the
causes of psychopathology remained therapeutic (Chap-
ter 3, esp. p. 185). Then, of course, free association was
gradually assumed to be an autonomous source of causal
information, without reference to its initial therapeutic
basis - or appeals to treatment gains in individual case
histories - providing the etiologic pieces of the jigsaw
puzzle model referred to by Cioffi.
Aware of this fact, I did note (p. 237) that Freud likened
the interpretative task in psychoanalysis to solving a
jigsaw puzzle that has a unique solution. For the same
reason, my argument that cross-corroboration ("con-
silience") through converging clinical findings fails to
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
yield any such solution (Chapter 10) was not concerned
with reliance on therapeutic results. Cioffi misrepresents
what I said when I mentioned the tally argument. My
pertinent passage reads as follows:
In view of the demise of the Tally Argument, the
purported consilience of clinical inductions has the
presumption of being spurious, and this strong pre-
sumption derives from the fact that the independence
of the inferentially concurring pieces of evidence is
grievously jeopardized by- a shared contaminant: the
analyst's influence . . . . it is precisely in the context of
the claimed consilience that the epistemic defects of
free association that I have discussed come home to
roost; for these liabilities ingress alike into each of the
three major areas of clinical inquiry in which free
association serves to uncover purported repressions:
etiologic clinical investigation of the pathogens of the
patient's neurotic symptoms, and the interpretation of
his dreams as well as of his parapraxes. By depending
alike on free association, the clinical data from these
three areas forfeit the independence they require, if
their prima facie consilience is to be probatively
cogent, (p. 277; italics in original)
Plainly, I do not "explain," as Cioffi would have it, that
"because Freud no longer felt he could fall back on the
tally argument, he now had to resort to considerations of
consilience." I merely point out that since the tally
argument had failed, Freud could no longer use it to
defend his jigsaw puzzle reasoning against the criticism
that only pseudoconsilience caused by suggestion was
involved.
All in all, Cioffi has provided no convincing support for
his critique of my reading of Freud. It is Von Eckardt who
puts into proper perspective what I view as the useful
aspect of Cioffi's (1970) appeal to case history material.
However, as she makes clear, thus rendered, it is a valid
supplement rather than a difficulty for my theses.
I appreciate the very positive things that Caplan says
about my reconstruction of the central role played by
therapeutic evidence in Freud's enterprise. I must dis-
sociate myself, however, from his considerable overstate-
ment of what I claimed. Thus, I certainly did not assign a
central role to therapeutic success in every assessment of
psychoanalysis, only in those assessments that depend
crucially on using evidence from free association to estab-
lish causation. The reason is that the validity of the
method of free association ultimately rests on demon-
strating therapeutic success. My conclusion was that this
validity had not been demonstrated and that extraclinical
tests are called for (p. 278, item (2); see Precis, summary
of Chapter 3). I must also distance myself from those of
Caplan's other attributions that he derives from this
overstatement.
Caplan gives three reasons for hoping to salvage some-
thing from the Freudian clinical research strategy. As to
the first, I did not write that "there is no difference" in
treatment outcome between long-term psychoanalysis
and its rivals, nor that there is ubiquitous spontaneous
remission for all types of neurotic disorder. I claimed only
that the available evidence has "failed to reveal any sort of
superiority of psychoanalysis" (p. 161). (Kachele in-
terprets this result as a demonstration' of equal
therapeutic effectiveness, and then regrets that I "by-
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 273
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
passed" it.) I would remind Caplan in regard to all three of
his reasons that the burden of proof remains on those who
entertain the hopes he outlines.
Caws suggests that in the context of the insights re-
quired for analytic therapy, Freud's requirement that the
interpretations "tally with what is real" in the patient
(S.E. 1917, 16:452) should not be taken to mean "what
was true about" the patient. Sometimes, Caws writes, I
make the former mean the latter. But, I submit, Caws's
suggestion is appropriate only if Freud himself - rather
than Caws allowed that it may be therapeutically
irrelevant whether the interpretations given to the pa-
tient also tally with "what was true about him." Freud
actually insisted on the opposite: "What we are in search
of is a picture of the patient's forgotten years that shall be
alike trustworthy and in all essential respects complete"
(S.E. 1937, 23:258).
Caws complicates the issue he raises by going on to
interpret the phrase "what was true about him" as refer-
ring to the patient's past "external" history and the phrase
"what is real in him" as referring to the patient's current
"internal" psychic structure. I am puzzled by Caws's
mistaken impression that I ever took Freud's phrase
"what is real in him" to require that the patient's insight
into his past conform to the external facts of his history, at
the expense of recognizing the psychological role of
pseudomemories and repressed infantile fantasies. Had I
done so, I would obviously have misinterpreted Freud's
revised seduction theory, according to which hysteria
could be caused not only by actual seductions during
childhood but also by imagined ones. The fact remains
that real childhood events, either external or internal, are
presumed to play a vital causal role, and insight into them
is considered therapeutically crucial.
Erdelyi, whose own research is on the mechanism of
repression itself, finds it odd that I focus on the multiple
causal role Freud assigned to this mechanism. Thus, he
considers it "idiosyncratic" to treat the theories of neu-
rosis, dream-formation, and slip-generation as the car-
dinal hypotheses of Freud's clinical system. In his view,
the mechanism of repression is the "dog," whereas the
etiologies are only the "tail." As if I had not devoted
separate chapters to dreams and slips, he writes: "Etiolo-
gy is hardly the ubiquitous preoccupation of psycho-
analysis," and "psychoanalysis has a far wider scope than
the retrospective discovery of etiologies."
Erdelyi starts by trying to diminish the significance of
the tally argument. He offers three reasons for declaring:
"My problem with 'the tally argument' is not Griinbaum's
criticism, but his original enthusiasm for it." He thence
concludes that "there was good reason for 'the tally
argument' to have languished undiscovered." The follow-
ing three consequences from the premises of the argu-
ment are relevant to his complaint: (a) All curative in-
sights are true, (b) If there are any genuine cures of
neuroses at all, only psychoanalytic treatment can
achieve them, (c) There is no spontaneous remission of
neuroses.
Erdelyi offers two reasons against (a). One is that "true
insight, as some modern research on depression implies,
may be countertherapeutic." This result, however, clear-
ly does not tell against (a), but only against its converse
"All true insights are curative." Freud did assert (a), but
its converse is not a consequence of the tally argument,
274 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
and hence irrelevant to its merit. (Incidentally, even if
the modern results on depression mentioned by Erdelyi
were contrary to (a), how was Freud to have known
them?)
Erdelyi's other objection to (a) is that the pleasant
pseudomemories Janet gave hypnotically to traumatized
patients "were claimed to result in long-term cures." Is
Erdelyi suggesting that Freud believed these purported
paramnesic cures to be genuine, but simply disregarded
them, when espousing (a) above? Or that, in view of the
claims made for Janet's interventions, anyone reading
Freud's "Analytic Therapy" lecture after 1917 should not
have taken it seriously? Freud repeatedly discussed the
relation of Janet's work to the Breuer - Freud cathartic
method. It seems clear from these accounts that he
simply did not believe in the durability of hypnotically
achieved results (S.E. 1923, 18:237; 1925, 20:21). Be-
sides, Erdelyi himself seems to have stopped short of
actually endorsing the permanence of Janet's hypnotic
cures. What then is the force of his reference to Janet?
Erdelyi's only other comment on (a) is a red herring.
Suppose, he says, that we assume the truth of (b) and (c)
and also of (d) that "some insights but not others produced
cures." Even then, he points out, (a) "would still not
follow logically." In a private communication (January 30,
1985), Erdelyi informs me (without providing textual
evidence) that he is imputing this deductive blunder to
Freud, not to me.
Thus, Erdelyi's claim that the tally argument was
deservedly neglected seems to rest exclusively on the
supposed durability of Janet's paramnesic cures. He adds
that the collapse of the argument is not as serious for
Freudian theory as I think. Erdelyi overlooks the fact
that, for Freud, the tally argument was intended to
revalidate not just specific hypotheses about the causes of
neuroses, but all clinical data and everything that psycho-
analysis teaches us about the unconscious (S.E. 1917;
16:446-52). Otherwise, how does Erdelyi propose to
answer my criticism of the validity of the clinical evidence
for the psychoanalytic theories of dreams and slips (chaps.
4 & 5)? Apparently Erdelyi would subscribe to the acausal
hermeneutic version of these hypotheses, thus ignoring
my explicit objections (pp. 57-60) to such a limiting
reconstruction.
Erdelyi also seems to ignore some of my own conten-
tions, but then to affirm them himself, as if they could
serve as objections. In this vein, after stating the truism
that psychoanalysis is not just a therapy, and that it makes
"the distinction between manifest and latent content," he
says: "Nor need psychoanalysis be hobbled by an exclu-
sionary reliance on clinical data" (cf. Foundations, p.
278).
Wachtel observes that I depict "a tragic flaw" in the
tally argument. But he is baffled because I couple this
rejection "with a virtual ode" to the argument. I did
indeed say that if its premises were empirically true, then
it would be a "magnificent" argument (p. 141). This
conditional tribute is prompted entirely by the scope and
importance that the consequences would have had if the
premises had been tenable. But Wachtel is then also
puzzled, fairly enough, by my declaration that "if psycho-
analytic treatment does have the therapeutic monopoly
entailed by the Tally Argument, then it can warrantedly
take credit for the recoveries of its patients without

statistical comparions with the results from untreated
control groups, or from controls treated by rival
modalities" (p. 142). How, he asks, can one know, with-
out comparative studies of treatment outcome, that
Freud's therapy does have such a monopoly? My reason
for pointing to the monopoly was surely not to claim that
the NCT premise makes comparative studies, unneces-
sary! It was rather to explain - though not to justify! - the
complacent attitude taken by Freud toward the end of his
"Analytic Therapy" lecture. As I put it: "Small wonder,
therefore, that Freud concluded his 1917 Analytic Thera-
py paper by blithely dismissing doubts as to the
therapeutic efficacy of analysis, after merely alluding to
the difficulties of statistical comparisons of treatment
outcome with results from untreated control groups, let
alone with the results from rival therapies" (p. 142).
Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that when I
offered a reconstruction of the reasoning Freud used to
justify NCT to himself, I explicitly did so "with-
out . . . countenancing" (i.e. without accepting) that rea-
soning (p. 149). It did not, however, simply beg the
question (149-159). (Klerman overlooked my discussion
of treatment efficacy [p. 161].)
How good are the clinical data as data? The received
psychoanalytic tenet that "clinical studies . . . are the
bedrock of theory" is reaffirmed by Pollock, but with the
admonition that they should be "careful."
In Foundations (pp. 211, 265), I cited Marmor, who
gives an account of experimental and clinical studies that
show the contamination and bias inherent in the free-
association method (1970, p. 161; 1962, p. 289).
On occasion, Freud's own writings illustrate this bias,
as in the following passage criticizing the findings of
analysts belonging to rival schools:
. . . one hears of analysts who boast that, though they
have worked for dozens of years, they have never found
a sign of the existence of a castration complex. We must
bow our heads in recognition of the greatness of this
achievement, even though it is only a negative one, a
piece of virtuosity in the art of overlooking and mistak-
ing. (S.E. 1925, 19:254n.)
It would seem that Freud's own error here was "to
mistake a mirror for a window," as Masling (1986, p. viii)
put it so well.
In his commentary, Marmor recalls the upshot of his
1970 paper. He now reports that as early as 1955, he had
tried to persuade his fellow psychoanalysts "that analytic
theory must be subject to consensual validation by find-
ings extrinsic to the psychoanalytic method itself." Yet, as
one might expect, contamination by suggestion is not
confined to clinical data from psychoanalysis in particular.
Carl Rogers's therapy is another case in point. Though
not psychoanalytic, it displays the same kind of thematic
regimentation for which I criticized the typical analyst's
interventions in the patient's "free" associations (pp.
209-10). Summarizing a 1956 study by Murray, Masling
(1986, p. viii) relates that "Rogers' theory led him to
intervene for some themes but not for others; in due time
the client talked only about the issues in which Rogers
seemed interested." From the very outset of therapy,
some content areas are reinforced explicitly or tacitly,
whereas others are not. Thus, using a tape of Rogers's
own treatment sessions, Murray showed that 68 client
Response/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
statements about independence were met by subtle ap-
proval, whereas none were disapproved. On the other
hand, 16 client statements about sex were met with
disapproval and only 2 were approved. By the end of the
therapy, the patient was concerned with independence
and seemed unconcerned with sex.
Hence I fail to see the force of Kachele's remark that
"research on actual tape recordings of sessions have
amply shown that psychoanalytic dialogues are but a
highly technical and rule-specified variant of discourse."
The less so, since I do appreciate the aptness of his choice
of words, when he himself describes the analyst-patient
dialogue as question-answer discourse, having the char-
acter of a "Socratic enterprise." As is well-known, in the
Socratic method, answers to leading questions can be
elicited according to the interlocutor's expectations.
Speaking of the coaching of patients by their analysts,
Masling (1986, p. ix) rightly wonders what Freud would
have said "had he lived to see the ease with which verbal
behavior can be operantly conditioned." Yet Holt is
confident that tape-recorded, transcribed analytic ses-
sions will permit a determination of "the extent to which
therapists do demonstrably 'lead' their patient," and
effects "a kind of operant conditioning." He encourages
me to share that optimism, so I must now explain why,
and in what sense, I expect less from these welcome
investigations than Holt does, and why I maintain that the
treatment setting has delivered a great deal less than
Luborsky already claims for it.
It is significant that the word Freud used in German to
refer to the interpretations given to the patient was
Erwartungsvorstellungen, i.e. anticipatory ideas as to
what the analyst expects the patient to discover in him-
self. Freud made no bones about the fact that the two
parts of his therapy are (1) "what the physician infers and
tells the patient," and (2) "the patient's working-over of
what he has heard." As Freud explains unambiguously,
"We give the patient the conscious anticipatory idea [the
idea of what he may expect to find] and he then finds the
repressed unconscious idea in himself on the basis of its
similarity to the anticipatory one" (S.E. 1910, 11:142; the
interpolation in brackets appears in the S.E. text).
Besides the studies cited in Marmor (1970), to which
Spence apparently turned a blind eye, I gave a detailed
illustration of regimentation of patient responses by the
analyst (pp. 212-14): In a 1974 book by two teaching
analysts on how their therapy ought to be practiced, it is
made evident how they orchestrated a female patient's
"discovery" of penis envy in herself. For considerable
additional illustrative material I referred to a recent book
by the psychoanalyst Peterfreund (1983, Part I). There,
Peterfreund provides case studies from six well-known
analysts, and two analyses he himself conducted under
supervision as a beginner, all of which are replete with
unabashed coaching and coaxing of the patient to produce
stereotypically expected responses.
In the light of this evidence, Spence is unconvincing
when he quotes Edelson (1984) to the effect that analysts
are trained to be sensitive to the dangers of suggestion,
when in fact they fail to avoid these dangers (p. 212).
Spence ignores the evidence I gave from Marmor (1970)
and Peterfreund (1983), saying that I cited "only one"
clinical interchange in which the analyst is leading the
patient. This supposedly narrow evidential base, he sug-
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 275
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
gests, "greatly weakens" my case. In fact, he conjectures
that "the tradition of narrative smoothing" of the case
histories "may account for the small amount of evidence
cited by Griinbaum." The eight case histories marshaled
by Peterfruend, however, show clearly even after narra-
tive smoothing that there is orchestration of patient assent!
Just what did I in fact make of contamination as a
liability of clinical data in Foundations? I will quote my
carefully worded conclusion, since its bleakness has been
crudely overstated by Farrell, and enormously exagge-
rated by others, such as Shevrin, who thinks I believe
that "the patient's reality testing is altogether in
abeyance." Holt too thinks I have overgeneralized "from
the weakness of the traditional clinical method to the
uselessness of the data generated in the psychoanalytic
hour for more rigorous research." What I actually said
was the following:
I do not maintain that any and all clinical data are
altogether irrelevant probatively. Instead, I hold that
such findings cannot possibly bear the probative bur-
den placed upon them by those who claim . . . that
psychoanalysis can typically be validated or invalidated
"on the couch," using a clinical testing strategy that is
mainly confined to the analytic setting. . . . I do not
deny at all that now and then clinical results "are
contrary to the expectations and belief of the clinician."
But as a step toward vindicating clinical inquiry qua
epistemically autonomous testing strategy, I can only
say, "One swallow does not a summer make." (p. 265)
On the whole, data from the couch acquire probative
significance when they are independently corrobo-
rated by extraclinical findings, or when they are induc-
tively consilient with such findings, (p. 266) In general,
the epistemic devices confined to the analytic setting
cannot reliably sift or decontaminate the clinical data so
as to identify those that qualify as authentic, (p. 245)
Hence I do not see the justification for Shevrin's dismal
though constructively intended reductio ad absurdum
that if I am "altogether right about the analytic clinical
method, then there is no relying on reasonableness in any
context." I shall also argue in the next section that no such
dire consequence follows from my doubts about the caus-
al tenets of psychoanalysis, tenets which Shevrin puts
on par evidentially with "readiness in any context."
If future study of tape-recorded analytic sessions
should turn out to be capable of disentangling contami-
nated data from valid data, as Holt surmises, then I shall
appreciatively stand corrected, and will retract especially
the last of the statements from Foundations I just cited. I
have an important caveat, however. Suppose that Holt's
hopes materialize, so that the valid and invalid data are
separated. Even then, it may turn out that the vast
majority of data needed to support the central psycho-
analytic hypotheses are not valid! What then? I do under-
stand that recorded analyses can be, and are being, used
in a "relatively rigorous testing" of some kinds of psycho-
analytic hypotheses, but I call attention to Holt's own
stress on the very modest range of these particular hy-
potheses. Erdelyi too is unduly sanguine.
Thus, using the language of Benjamin Rubinstein's
(1978) illuminating typology of clinical hypotheses, Holt
says: "It needs to be pointed out that most of the research
so far conducted on recorded and transcribed psycho-
276 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
analyses tests particular clinical hypotheses, which con-
cern individual patients" (second emphasis added). That,
I observe, is still a long way from testing explanatory
psychoanalytic hypotheses as to the causal role of uncon-
scious motives or fantasies in neuroses, dreams, or slips.
Luborsky subdivides the question about the extent of
contamination by the therapist's self-fulfilling expecta-
tions into questions pertaining to (1) the accuracy of the
therapist's inferences as to "the parallel between the
patient's current relationship patterns and past parental
relationships," (2) the availability of evidence that these
"parallel" or "central patterns of relationship (of a kind
that are involved in the transference) are an intrinsic
characteristic of the patient," and (3) the accuracy of "the
therapist's inferences about the patient's past and present
behavior when these behaviors are understood in terms
of the patient's response to actual early parental
behavior."
With respect to the past/present parallel referred to in
(1), Luborsky points to evidence that "therapists are
responding to information provided in the session," a
rather innocuous conclusion that I have not denied (pp.
245, 265-66). It is innocuous, because Luborsky himself
adds: "However, we cannot say from this evidence alone
whether the therapist might have induced some of the
parallel." Moreover, he explicitly agrees with me regard-
ing (3). Hence the question is what is to be made of his
answer to (2), which is as follows: Data gathered by a
special interview method applied outside of therapy,
combined with intratherapy findings, show that the "par-
allel relationship patterns were evident both before and
during treatment."
I have not denied this quite vague conclusion either.
But to provide perspective on its contribution to the
validation of the clinical data needed to support major
psychoanalytic hypotheses, I draw on Eagle's (1986) most
instructive essay-review of Foundations. There, he com-
ments on a paper coauthored by Luborsky, Mellon, van
Ravenswaag, Childress, Levine, Alexander, Crits-
Christoph, Cohen, Hole & Ming (1985) and significantly
entitled "A Verification of Freud's Grandest Clinical
Hypothesis: The Transference." Eagle makes the follow-
ing key points: (t) the notion of transference invoked in
their investigations, though clearly analogous to Freud's,
"does not include the distinctively psychoanalytic idea of
unconscious infantile instinctual wishes that the patient
unconsciously pushes for the therapist to gratify." (it)
Shorn of this distinctive component, Luborsky's "paral-
lelism" asserts the existence of strong similarities be-
tween the patient's early behavior toward his parents,
and his conduct toward the therapist or his spouse. (Hi)
Such a similarity, besides not being startling, is a matter
of developmental consistency, largely affirmed by non-
psychoanalytic therapists as well, (iv) The adult patient's
reports in analysis do not reliably attest to his actual early
behavior in the interaction with his parents, a point that
Luborsky concedes here, (u) To the extent that
Luborsky's account of transference asserts causal connec-
tions beyond similarities, it tends to be "mere speculation
with little or no supporting evidence. "
In the next section, I shall give my own reasons for
agreeing with the last item in Eagle's appraisal by draw-
ing on Luborsky's comment on what he calls my "ques-

tion two." For now, I claim that Luborsky's discussion of
my "question one" does not call for a modification of the
response I gave above to Holt.
Kachele reminds me that since psychoanalytic treat-
ment aims to achieve change in patients, "it shares the
epistemic problems of intervention paradigms with many
other respectable scientific enterprises." I am unsure
what other scientific enterprises he has in mind, and how
ambitious their hypotheses are, as compared to those of
psychoanalytic theory. I suggest, however, that Kachele's
reminder needs to be addressed not to me, but to those
many analysts who continue to uphold the claim that the
treatment setting is an arena par excellence not only for
testing hypotheses about psychotherapeutic process or
outcome, but for testing Freud's general theory of human
nature. As Fisher and Greenberg (1977, p. 363) put it
neatly: "Freud never really came to terms with the
differences involved in trying to learn about people as
opposed to trying to change them." Commendably,
Holzman (1986) has come to terms with that difference,
and has pressed basic doubts about the use of data from
the treatment setting.
In view of Freud's own life-long struggle with the
problem of suggestibility, as well as my preceding consid-
erations, I do not understand why Fine & Forbes think
that my concern with the very mundane role of self-
fulfilling expectations in the production of clinical data is
akin to conjuring up doubts about everything from the
specter of a Cartesian demon. As emerges from Robert
Merton's (1949) work, it is quite inappropriate to identify
the bias arising from self-fulfilling predictions with the
general fallibility of all scientific knowledge, which Fine
& Forbes would have us do at least for now. Nor is it
correct to describe the specific evidence for bias already
at hand as raising a "mere generic possibility" that can be
safely bracketed, while placing the burden of still further
evidence on skeptics such as the analyst Marmor, or on
me. Why is it, for example, that the success or failure to
discover penis envy in women and castration anxiety in
men is correlated with membership in a particular school
of psychoanalysis, as Freud knew? In any case, Fine &
Forbes overlook all of Part II of Foundations in reading
me as having supposed that "skeptical doubts about
suggestibility . . . were the major obstacle to accepting
Freud's clinical arguments." If need be, I could and
would rest my case on Part II alone.
What would unbiased clinical data prove? It is now ger-
mane to cite the last sentence of Part I in Foundations
where I anticipate the main conclusion of Part II: "The
major pillars of the theory of repression will turn out to be
ill-founded, even if clinical data could be taken at face
value as being uncontaminated epistemically" (p. 172;
italics in original). Hence I shall now disregard the doubts
I expressed in the preceding section.
Fine & Forbes's principal objection is the astonishing
one that I have made a Utopian demand of psychoanalysis.
In evaluating Freud's evidence for his causal hypotheses,
they contend, my central strategy is to demand that he
first rule out all rival explanations: "Griinbaum's strategy
embodies the methodological myth that support accrues
only in the absence of rivals."
This is an incorrect depiction of my methodological
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
criteria. Typically, in the case of a causal hypothesis, my
demand for evidence of the existence of a causal connec-
tion takes the form of calling on Freud to rule out just one
eminently reasonable rival hypothesis, rather than all
such rivals! For example, when he claimed that the lifting
of the repression of a trauma should be given credit for the
patient's subsequent improvement, what I deemed es-
sential for validation was "comparisons with treatment
outcome from a suitable control group whose repressions
are not lifted" (p. 180; cf. also pp. 214, 261). Clearly, I did
not thereby call on Freud to show that the patient's
insight was the only explanation or possible cause of the
positive treatment outcome. It is standard scientific prac-
tice in research on therapeutic process and outcome to
call for evidence, as I did, that the putative treatment
variables are in fact causally linked to the outcome vari-
ables. Surely this demand is not a matter of "Descartes'
demon," as Fine & Forbes think.
Finally, Fine & Forbes say that "by depriving Freud's
inferences of their natural background in everyday psy-
chology," I was able to "make even the most cogent
patterns of reasoning seem implausible." The penalty for
doing so, they claim, is visited upon me when I deny that
free association is a bona fide method of causal validation.
My "atomistic construal of causes" prevents me from
seeing, they think, that "when we follow a chain of
associations we see, along the way, what the connections
are, and there is no additional question, in the causal
mode, as to the relation between one end of the chain and
the other."
This criticism, too, rather amazes me, because it over-
looks two elaborate discussions in Foundations: In the
chapters on dreams and on slips, I explicitly discussed the
role of common sense psychology in Freud's arguments.
Rather than overlooking that role, I documented - in a
painstaking analysis of his attempt to use the Irma dream
as a paradigm - that his appeal to common-sense psychol-
ogy here was an outright sleight of hand. I dealt likewise
with both transparent slips - whose explanation comes
from common sense psychology - and explanatorily
opaque ones, which Freud claimed to explain by latent
motives.
I never said that there was any question about the
causal relation between the initial and terminal elements
in a chain of free associations. On the contrary, I explicitly
took this causal link for granted (pp. 186, 192), though I
emphasized (pp. 208-11) that associative causal chains
can be influenced by the analyst. What I did criticize as
fallacious was the fact that "Freud's conclusion as to the
motivational cause had asserted an order of cause and
effect that is the reverse of the causal order exhibited by
the free associations" (p. 233). The fallacy was to infer that
"a repression which emerges at the end of a chain of free
associations - as its terminus ad quern - was actually the
original cause of the symptom that initiated the chain as
its terminus a quo" (pp. 186-87). I had also been careful
to illustrate exactly how this causal inversion fallacy was
committed in Freud's explanation of the aliquis slip on
the basis of the subject's fear of his girl friend's pregnancy
(p. 233).
Ifindnothing at all in what Fine & Forbes say about the
causal (or thematic) integrity of the associative chain itself
that justifies inverting the direction of causation. Just that
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 277
Response/Grunbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
fallacious inference is drawn, however, whenever the
psychoanalytic method claims to have unearthed the
cause of a neurotic symptom, a dream-instigating wish, or
a motive for a slip.
Shevrin and Strupp make similar errors in reasoning.
Shevrin slides from accepting some of the patient's state-
ments about the current content of his mind, to accepting
the analyst's causal interpretation of such reports, or his
imputations of causal knowledge to which the patient has
no access.
I noted that the client does have direct and generally
reliable access to the object of his momentary attention,
the affect he feels at the moment, and the like (p. 29). On
the basis of the work of such cognitive psychologists as
Shevrin's Michigan colleague Nisbett (pp. 29-30, 147-
48, 208), however, I also said: "Though the subject often
does have direct access to the individual contents of his
mental states, he/she [sic] has only inferential access -
just like outside observers - to such causal linkages as
actually connect some of his own mental states" (p. 30).
Initially, Shevrin seems alert to the difference between
the patient's report of, say, an affect, and his "ability to
explain what lies behind the truths of his experience."
But when Shevrin turns to the concrete case of an episode
in the life of Freud's patient Elisabeth von R. (S.E. 1895,
2:156), he does not heed this difference.
First, Shevrin says, uncontroversially enough: "The
patient can report . . . that at her sister's deathbed, with
her attractive brother-in-law standing nearby, the
thought, 'Now he is free again and I can be his wife,' shot
through her mind and was immediately banished." This
much asserts that the thought of marriage occurred and
was then quickly forgotten, but it does not guarantee that
the content of this thought - rather than, say, the intru-
sion of a further idea - was the motive for this rapid
forgetting. Yet Shevrin proceeds at once to equate the
evidential validity of the self-report itself with that of the
account Freud then gave of the forgetting as a case of
repression caused by a particular motive.
Thus Shevrin asks: "Why should this account not have
evidential status as much as the statement, 'I see
blue'. . . ?" I respond: Although in this particular case
Freud's motivational explanation of the rapid forgetting
may well be entirely reasonable, its validity is simply
more open to question than that of "I see blue." The
former is a causal attribution, whereas the latter is a self-
report on a current state of mind. This difference is
essential here, because Shevrin makes it appear that if I
discount Freud's theory of hysteria as clinically ill-sup-
ported, then I would also have to be skeptical of the self-
report "I see blue." From this misrepresentation of my
position as wholesale skepticism, he tries to construct a
reductio ad absurdum of my thesis about psychoanalysis.
Shevrin's disclaimers do not go nearly far enough,
when he allows that "to establish the existence of repres-
sion or its role in pathogenesis is not the same as knowing
how repression works or exactly how it produces neu-
rosis." In any science there is always unfinished business.
Hence, that much is surely not a liability of psycho-
analysis. It is a liability, however, to slide, as Shevrin just
did, from establishing the existence of repression to
establishing "its [causal] role in pathogenesis." Zamansky
(1958), as we saw, rightly avoided that pitfall.
Strupp apparently shifts back and forth between ac-
278 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
cepting and rejecting the received psychoanalytic ac-
count of the dynamics of its therapy. On the one hand, he
seems to endorse "the substance of all forms of psycho-
therapy based on psychoanalytic principles." Thus he
explicitly includes the emphasis on the patient's "working
through" of his childish "transference" behavior toward
the analyst. On the other hand, he chides Freud for
having "attached undue weight to the mutative effect of
interpretations." Strupp is content with the truism that
"in all forms of psychotherapy the therapist exerts a
psychological influence." In the context of the theory of
therapeutic process, however, it may matter greatly
whether or not therapeutic gain is actually caused by the
particular treatment factors to which the therapist's theo-
ry attributes it. In the latter case, I have spoken of the
outcome as being a "placebo effect" with respect to that
theory (1981; 1986). Hence, in saying that positive effects
of psychoanalytic treatment may be placebo effects, I am
saying that Freud's theory of how the therapy works may
be erroneous, a conclusion that Strupp also seems to have
reached. Moreover, in claiming that a placebo effect may
be involved, I surely was not saying, as Strupp mistakenly
believes, "that there must be 'special' psychological
mechanisms m_formal psychotherapy."
As indicated in Foundations (p. 259), Kazdin (1981, p.
185) has pointed out that in the study of the effects of
treatment, case studies and experiments fall on a con-
tinuum with respect to their ability to cope with the
challenge that the treatment may not in fact have pro-
duced the patient's gains. It needs to be emphasized,
however, that there is no reason to believe that case
studies are capable of validating hypotheses about the
causal role of true insight in successful psychoanalytic
treatment (i.e. the account of how and why the treatment
works). As I noted in connection with Caws, Freudian
theory attributes the therapeutic success of the inter-
pretations given to the patient partly to the correctness of
the insights to which they give rise. I argued (Chapters 3
and 8), however, that there is no good reason to suppose
that the case study method can provide independent
evidence of correctness.
Regarding the substance of causal insights, Marmor
criticizes Freud for always having looked "for a single
cause for neurosis (akin to the tubercle bacillus), such as
an infantile sexual trauma." As I stressed (pp. 109-10),
however, precisely when speaking of the causal role of the
tubercle bacillus, Freud (S.E. 1896, 3:209) warned
against the unicausal model of either tuberculosis or
neurosis, rejecting it in favor of a multifactorial one. In
Freud's early typology of causes (S.E. 1895, 3:135-37),
the technical meaning of his term "specific cause" is not
unicausal, since the realization of other "preconditions" is
also required. By the same token, his reference to "causal
overdetermination" calls for a multifactorial model.
Luborsky asks: "Do psychotherapy sessions provide
data that permit verification of the causes of symptoms,
including 'Freudian slips'?" He thinks that his affirmative
answer creates a problem for my view, because he can use
intraclinical data to discern the "causes" of symptoms in
the following ad hoc sense: "I use the word 'cause,'" he
explains, "in the sense of a factor that is shown to have a
high probability of being temporally associated with the
development of a symptom." In particular, in his vocabu-
lary, the term "cause" is explicitly "being taken to

mean . . . a factor associated with the development of a
symptom that recurrently appears in the material prior to
the appearance of the symptom." He then notes that his
own symptom-context method has shown helplessness to
be the most prevalent "cause" of psychological
symptoms.
Most disappointingly, Luborsky's construal of the term
"cause" begs the question by trivializing it. Plainly, an
antecedent event can be the "cause" of a psychological
symptom in Luborsky's sense without making any dif-
ference to whether the symptom occurs or not. That such
an antecedent does not contribute to the explanation of
the symptom is evident, for, in his idiosyncratic sense of
the term, even ordinary breathing qualifies as a "cause" of
a neurotic symptom, since any post hoc argument is good
enough for Luborsky to confirm the causal relevance of
the antecedent. Perhaps Luborsky's findings will, howev-
er, turn out to be heuristic.
Speaking again of his symptom-context method,
Luborsky says: "The recent book by Edelson (1984)
expresses the same view about the cogency of my method
in answering Griinbaum's challenge." However, in its
new paperback edition, Edelson has changed his own
1984 reconstruction (pp. 144-46) of a study that used
Luborsky's method. In either version, I claim, the con-
clusion / on his p. 145 - which states the expected
empirical outcome of the pertinent study - simply does
not follow from the conjunction of his psychoanalytic
premises c, d, and e. The deduction fails, because it relies
on an invalid hypothetical syllogism. Hence Edelson's
(1984) reconstruction has offered no valid grounds for
believing that Luborsky's empirical confirmation of the
ill-founded conclusion/qualifies as an intraclinical test of
a psychoanalytic causal hypothesis.
Envin has taken issue with other features of that
reconstruction. Pollock, however, suggests that Edelson
(1984) has elegantly answered some of my arguments. I
have devoted a chapter of Griinbaum (1987) to a detailed
appreciative rejoinder to Edelson's answers. Alas, Pol-
lack does not say in what way my critique "does suffer"
from my lack of direct clinical experience.
Due to the benefit I have had from discussions with
Edelson, Luborsky, and Erwin, I now gladly affirm the
following: It is indeed foolhardy for me, or anyone else, to
declare it impossible that some future psychoanalytic
researchers could come up with as yet unirhagined
clinical research designs capable of testing Freud's major
clinical hypotheses. To this extent, I can surely accede to
the opening reservation in Edelson's commentary, and
also concur with Erwin's refinement of my skeptical
stance. But I adhere to the view that, so far, neither
Edelson (1984) nor Luborsky have supplied good grounds
for actually expecting such a research possibility to
materialize.
Let me say specifically under what sorts of conditions I
would be prepared to acknowledge that intraclinical tes-
tability is feasible. Perrez (1979, Chapters 4-7) gives a
valuable, detailed statement of the array of hypotheses
that Freud invokes in a single case history of the Wolf
Man. I would change my view on intraclinical testability
if, for example, someone were to propose research de-
signs within the treatment setting, capable of testing even
a fraction of this elaborate set of hypotheses. Until such
research plans are worked out, it does not seem sensible
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
for analysts, including Edelson, to handicap themselves
with the do-or-die demand that their clinical arena must
carry the evidential burdens of their enterprise, over and
above the heuristic ones. I do take Edelson's point,
however, that the pertinent phenomena may be hard to
generate extraclinically with sufficient intensity. All the
same, I am loath to put a cap on the ingenuity- of extra-
clinical investigators, any more than on that of the intra-
clinical ones.
As Edelson sees it, I have been atypically and unduly
harsh with Freud in my critique of his reliance on free
association as a method of validating causal inferences.
But I was hardly declaring him a "simpleton" when I
wrote: "Freud had enunciated his fundamental rule of
free association as a maxim of clinical research, because
he thought that associations governed by it had reliably
certified the unconscious pathogens of the neuroses" (p.
185). This much of his reasoning I depicted as sophisti-
cated though not, in the end, successful.
Then I turned to the analysis of his Irma Dream, where
Freud gives his justification for enlarging the role of free
association from a method of inquiry into etiology aimed
at therapy to a way of investigating dreams (Chapter 5). If,
as Edelson thinks, reasons of discretion prevented Freud
from using this dream to make his case adequately, then
he surely should not have offered Irma as "the" dream
specimen of psychoanalysis. Instead, he should have
chosen a less sensitive one. As is, I believe that Edelson's
defense strains charity.
I am inclined to think instead that Freud used the
analysis of Irma partly because it had been heuristic for
him, but, more importantly, because he counted on it to
be more persuasive than anything else he might offer. In
die case of the unwary, this expectation has been abun-
dantly fulfilled. In short, perhaps uncharitably, I believe
that Freud's Irma analysis was, at bottom, a mere piece of
salesmanship. Yet Edelson overlooks the fact that pre-
cisely apropos of Freud's use of free association in dream
interpretation, I had nonetheless said: "Freud's fallacious
causal inference is not quite the glaringly crude blunder
that it appears to be" (p. 234). Thus, insofar as I expressed
real scorn for unsound justifications of causal inferences
based on free association, I reserved it for Rapaport's
(1967, pp. 216-17) stance (pp. 186-87). The unanswered
questions Edelson goes on to raise regarding free associa-
tion seem to me well taken, to the extent that I under-
stand them.
Hermeneutics. In Foundations I raised three objections
to Gauld & Shotter's hermeneutic psychology, in its
bearing on psychoanalysis: (1) Their hermeneutic epis-
temology cannot justify imputing explanatory uncon-
scious motives (pp. 56-57). (2) They mistakenly denied
the compatibility of causal explanation of behavior with
explanation of action by "reasons" (p. 69). (3) A causally
relevant antecedent of an event need be neither a suffi-
cient nor a necessary condition for the occurrence of the
event (p. 73) (to the detriment of their case against causal
explanation of conduct.)
As to (1), Gauld & Shorter do not contest my citing (p.
56) their statement that "after psychotherapy the patient
comes to understand that his strange action was a sym-
bolic piece of aggression against his father." Was it there-
fore not reasonable for me to believe that they were
THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2 279
Response/Griinbaum: Foundations of psychoanalysis
discussing explanation of neurotic action by unconscious
aggression? I accept their clarification that they were not.
And thus, I modify my challenge (1) so as to pertain
instead to explanation by conscious motives. Further-
more, I note that they say nothing at all that comes to
grips with my (2) and (3).
Leibin treats any sort of actual or alleged attribute of
psychoanalysis as a defining characteristic. In this way, he
concludes that Freud himself has actually given "at least
ten" definitions of his enterprise, which are not only
different but in some cases even pairwise incompatible. I
suggest that the founding father told us otherwise. He
gave us a simple cluster of major attributes:
Psycho-Analysis is the name (1) of a procedure for the
investigation of mental processes which are almost
inaccessible in any other way, (2) of a method (based
upon that investigation) for the treatment of neurotic
disorders and (3) of a collection of psychological infor-
mation obtained along those lines, which is gradually
being accumulated into a new scientific discipline.
(S.E. 1923, 18:235)
I urged a negative answer to the following basic ques-
tion: Did Freud's clinical arguments provide sufficient
support for the knowledge claims he made for his evolv-
ing theory in labeling it "scientific" (p. 94)? Leibin mis-
casts this conclusion as being a rejection of "precisely"
Freud's own "definition," as if I were proposing a rival
definition. He also overlooks the fact that the focus of my
scrutiny was unambiguously on the clinical theory of
repression. Furthermore, in the face of my critique of the
hermeneutic reconstruction of psychoanalysis, Leibin
gives no grounds for his claim that this version is viable, if
one-sided. As I argued in detail (pp. 1-94), the sense in
which psychoanalysis is an "interpretative" endeavor
lends no support at all to the philosophical theses of those
who offered the hermeneutic reconstruction. Physicists
too interpret phenomena, when they explain them. The
big-bang theory offers a historical narrative for the large-
scale features of the universe. Hence, as I put it: It is not
informative to designate "the psychoanalyst's in-
terpretive stock-in-trade as being 'hermeneutic'" (p. 91).
It is hard to know what to make of Erdelyi's contention
that "typically, the meanings that Freud uncovered were
not deterministic." Is he telling us that when Freud
provided explanatory motives, he did not say they were
causally relevant? Or that the "meanings" he uncovered
were not held to be explanatory? To make his case,
Erdelyi declares: "When one establishes the meaning of
an unknown word from its context, one does not establish
that the context has caused the unknown word." In the
latter case, however, it is semantic rather than explanato-
ry "meaning" that is at issue. In my argument against
Ricoeur's so-called "semantics of desire" (Introduction,
Section 3C) I was at pains to show that equating the
discernment of motives with the specification of the
referents of linguistic signs is riddled with confusion.
Hence, how is my account contradicted or supplemented
by Erdelyi's comment that free associations provide "the
contextual ecology" of meaning (though he grants that
associations fail to validate Freud's explanatory hidden
"meaning")? Similar objections apply to Storr's claim that
Freud's "expertise lay in semantics. "
Like Woolfolk, I had emphasized that, "far from ques-
tioning . . . Freud's clinical theory," the hermeneutic
280 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1986) 9:2
philosophers take it for granted without ado (p. 9). Wool-
folk calls for "some elucidation of the moral dimensions of
psychoanalysis' vis-a-vis the natural science status to
which Freud aspired. Much has, of course, been written
about its social role, and about Freud as a moralist. Thus,
as Suppe points out, Freud expressed himself ethically on
the attitude he took toward homosexuals. It may bear
further elucidation to just what extent this attitude is
linked to his account of homosexuality as a "perversion"
rather than a neurosis (S.E. 1905, 7:23, 165). I take Ruse
to agree that developmental inquiry into homosexuality
need not itself be judgmental, although the technical
term "perversion" unfortunately has negative moral
connotations.
Woolfolk also sees psychoanalysis as an emancipatory
gospel. To be sure, it holds out the possibility of freeing
one from unconscious dictates and widening the options
in one's life. But did Freud not also teach that it is the
patient, not the analyst, who must decide whether to
translate the insight that his therapy promises into eman-
cipating options?
Quo vadis? The Editor's question about inductive strat-
egy goes well beyond the confines of the current status of
psychoanalytic theory: Just what is the connection be-
tween the evidential appraisal of a theory and heuristic
advice concerning its investigative pursuit? Lakatos
(1971), Quinn (1972), Giere (1975), and Laundan(1977)
have argued that the construction of a suitable decision
theory is much more complicated than the editorial
commentary seems to allow. Indeed, as Popper (1962, p.
33) has emphasized: "Science often errs and . . . pseudo-
science may happen to stumble on the truth."
Mindful of documented cases from the history of sci-
ence, in which initially very dubious hypotheses subse-
quently either proved fruitful or were validated after all,
Lakatos (1971, p. 104) wrote: "One may rationally stick to
a degenerating [research] programme until it is overtaken
by a rival and even after. What one must not do is to deny
its poor public record. . . . It is perfectly rational to play a
risky game: what is irrational is to deceive oneself about
the risk." I appreciate that the resources available for
research are finite. Yet I believe that it would be an
imprudent allocation strategy if the scientific community
as a whole were to pull all of its research eggs into only
very few baskets, instead of hedging its bets (Feyerabend
1972). Since scientific inquiry is conducted by a commu-
nity of scientists, research policies or practices that would
indeed be irrational if adopted by that community as a
whole, or by a majority of it, need not necessarily be
irrational when only a certain gifted minority engages in
them. Thus, in my view, the heuristic rationality of the
further pursuit of research on a currently ill-faring theory
does not conform to Kant's rule that the principle of ones
conduct must be such that one could consistently univer-
salize it to everyone. After all, in the hagiography of
science, the encomium of prophetic genius has at times
been bestowed retroactively on individuals whose con-
temporaries dismissed them as charlatans or cranks.
In this vein, Farrell (1981, p. 193) has pointed to a few
historical episodes in physiology and physics to draw the
following moral for psychoanalysis: "Since scientific dis-
covery so often startles us with surprise, it is unwise for
anyone to bet on the contribution that psychoanalysis will

ultimately make to the definitive account of human func-
tioning which we may arrive at in the course of the next
few centuries." Though I myself would not hazard a bet as
to the value of the long-term explanatory residue from the
Freudian legacy, I reject the Editor's comparison with
the primitive fundamentalist doctrine of creationism, if
only because I find some empirical plausibility in the
psychoanalytic theory of defense mechanisms, e.g. denial
and rationalization, reaction-formation, projection, and
identification (Fancher 1973, pp. 217-23).
Instead of presuming to offer heuristic advice on the
basis of my evidential appraisal, I am content to leave the
betting to those inside and outside the psychoanalytic
community who forego immunizing strategies as regular
tools of their trade, but whose expected utilities make
them willing to run the pertinent risks. (This is my reply
to Ruse as well.)
Concluding remark. I did not respond to the very wel-
come commentaries by Eagle, Flanagan, Hobson, Pag-
nini, and Reiser, all of which were highly gratifying and
supportive. I warmly thank these commentators as well,
and trust that they will understand the necessity of
confining myself to points of criticism.
NOTES
1. For the definition of "clinical" and "extraclinical" data as
the terms are used throughout this symposium, see footnote 2 of
the pre'cis.
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