NDLI: Psychotherapy as Science or Knack? A Critique of the Hermeneutic Defense

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Holowchak, M. Andrew
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	Psychoanalysis, in Freud’s day and our own, has met with and continues to meet with staunch opposition from critics. The most ruinous criticism comes from philosophers, with a special interest in science, who claim psychoanalysis does not measure up to the above-board canons of acceptable scientific practices and, thus, is not scientific. It is common today to direct such criticisms to all metempirical forms of psychotherapy—i.e., psychotherapies that in no way concern themselves with grounding their claims with empirical research. The most common defense is to cold-shoulder the criticism and counter that psychoanalysis, whether or not Freud recognized it, is a hermeneutical, not an etiological, method of therapy. In that regard, its measure of success is not symptom-removal or redirection of drive-energy in socially condoned or acceptable ways, but broadened understanding through a commonly created myth, effected by therapist and patient, for the patient’s wellbeing. In this undertaking, I argue that the hermeneutical apologia of psychoanalysis is a dodge, not a defense—an impenetrable asylum in which therapists can find refuge by buffering themselves from the possibility of criticism of the scientificity of their discipline. Because hermeneuticism disavows the possibility of knowledge in any meaningful sense—and, with that, scientific knowledge gained through observation or experimentation—it levels the epistemological playing field. With knowledge impossible and science annulled, no “investigative” inquiry or discipline can claim a status superior to any other and, hence, psychotherapy is an investigative discipline as legitimate as any other. The literature on the hermeneutic defence of psychotherapy is vast—too vast for anything but a representative sample of it in this critique. I focus merely on some of the most recent literature.
Starting Page	223
Ending Page	238
Page Count	16
File Format	PDF
ISSN	09254560
Journal	Journal for General Philosophy of Science
Volume Number	45
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	15728587
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2014-09-13
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Freud Hermeneutics Psychoanalysis Psychotherapy Subjectivity Philosophy of Science History Philosophy of Education Methodology of the Social Sciences Social Sciences
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Philosophy Social Sciences History and Philosophy of Science

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
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