In Defense of Psychoanalysis (Psychiatry Talks, April 2019, San Antonio)

Video Presentation in Psychiatry Talks, April 2020, San Antonio, Texas, USA

No social theory has been more influential and, later, more reviled than psychoanalysis. It burst upon the scene of modern thought, a fresh breath of revolutionary and daring imagination, a Herculean feat of model-construction, and a challenge to established morals and manners. It is now widely considered nothing better than a confabulation, a baseless narrative, a snapshot of Freud's tormented psyche and thwarted 19th century Mitteleuropa middle class prejudices.

Most of the criticism is hurled by mental health professionals and practitioners with large axes to grind. Few, if any, theories in psychology are supported by modern brain research. All therapies and treatment modalities - including medicating one's patients - are still forms of art and magic rather than scientific practices. The very existence of mental illness is in doubt - let alone what constitutes "healing". Psychoanalysis is in bad company all around.

Some criticism is offered by practicing scientists - mainly experimentalists - in the life and exact (physical) sciences. Such diatribes frequently offer a sad glimpse into the critics' own ignorance. They have little idea what makes a theory scientific and they confuse materialism with reductionism or instrumentalism and correlation with causation.

Few physicists, neuroscientists, biologists, and chemists seem to have plowed through the rich literature on the psychophysical problem. As a result of this obliviousness, they tend to proffer primitive arguments long rendered obsolete by centuries of philosophical debates.