Psychoanalysis and Science: Some Unrecognized But Critical Considerations

Recent discussions among psychoanalysts have noted and decried the failure of psychoanalysis to find a place in university curricula and thus, to attract the interest of much of the younger generation. There is as a result, little interest in the field on the part of those who could in the future help keep psychoanalysis alive as a viable field of interest and endeavor. Along similar lines, general interest in psychoanalysis also is waning. Much of this has arisen because psychoanalysis has failed to link up with the various fields of science and has not been able to establish itself as a member of this family. There are however wider ramifications to the failed relationship between psychoanalysis and science. This deficiency cannot be dismissed by proposing that instead of being a biological science, psychoanalysis is a matter of hermeneutics—a non-biological study of meaning detached from the biological strivings of human beings. Given that the field attempts to explore and deal with the activities of the human mind and of their consequences for interactions between individuals and groups, this argument is untenable—a weak effort to excuse and rationalize away a major failure of current psychoanalytic thinking. In addition, the detachment of psychoanalysis from the scientific community and its findings and universal principles, creates a situation in which psychoanalysis can only feed on itself without vitalizing inputs from other fields of endeavor. Decay and extinction is thereby rendered inevitable. In the natural course of its development and without a deliberate intention to develop psychoanalysis as a science or to bring into an alliance with other forms of science, the adaptive paradigm has accomplished both feats. Rather than being posited as a purely theoretical statement, the approach's definition of psychoanalysis as the science of emotional cognition followed the development of several scientific accomplishments involving both evolutionary biology and the development of universal, biological laws of communication. In this connection, the following is a partial listing of the ways in which studies and insights based on the principles of the adaptive paradigm have interacted and interdigitated with the biological and physical sciences: