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FREUD'S LINE OF REASONING

A note about epistemic and clinical inconsistency
of Grünbaum's argument pretending to confute Freud's therapeutic approach,
with reference to the thesis of Stengers on psychoanalysis

Franco BALDINI

Francesco venne poi, com'io fu' morto, per me ma un de' neri cherubini li disse 'non portar non mi far torto. Venir se ne dee giù tra' miei meschini perché diede il consiglio frodolente, dal quale in qua stato li sono a' crini; ch'assolver non si può chi non si pente, né pentére e volere insieme puossi per la contradizion che nol consente.' Oh me dolente! come mi riscossi quando mi prese dicendomi: 'Forse tu non pensavi ch'io loico fossi'! Dante Alighieri, Commedia, Inferno XXVII, 112-123.

  In my short writing I will tackle the major arguments - as they were expressed in his work The Foundations of Psychoanalysis - A Philosophical Critique¹ The arguments I wish to confront with as key point are the following two :
  1. the first is related to what Grünbaum defines as "The Tally Argument" - according to which he claims that Freud did not succeed in definitely distinguishing the results of a psychoanalytical cure from a common "placebo effect" ² ;
  2. the second argument refers to Grümbaum's denying the comprehensive epistemic effectiveness of the Freudian theory of repression as well as the clinical effectiveness³ with regard to the aetiology of psychoneurosis⁴, hence the validity of free association ⁵, hence again the aetiology of parapraxis⁶and dreams ⁷.
  As I will show in a clear though concise way, Grünbaum's arguments are too scarce when compared with the goals he sets and therefore they have no real power of confutation against the foundations of Freudian theory.
  I must, however, make a preliminary statement: I consider Grünbaum's book - as a whole - as a work of outstanding historical value, for two reasons.
  Firstly, it is the first in-depth analysis of the whole work of Freud by an eminent epistemologist who is not a member of the psychoanalytical movement. In my opinion this clearly shows that scientific communities begin to take Freud seriously. As far as this tendency is going to develop without making recourse to arbitrary or liberticide provisions, the quality standard of psychoanalytical work will improve, thus eliminating from the psychoanalytical movement that horde of second-rate people who are responsible of its scientific degradation and cultural isolation.
  Secondly, the first part of Grünbaum's book - which deals with Popper's criticism of psychoanalysis and its hermeneutical distortion - represents a work whose accurateness cannot be discussed, therefore a real advance in the epistemological critique of psychoanalysis.
  Psychoanalysts are in debt with Grünbaum for his indisputable demonstration of the falsiebility of psychoanalysis and the inconsistency of the amendments Habermas, Ricœur and Kline arbitrarily imposed to it. In particular, the latter tried to give hermeneutical foundations to psychoanalysis without understanding that it was created just to give scientific foundations to hermeneutics.
  The value of the first part of Grünbaum's book is such that we can forgive the gross judgement he makes of Lacan , manifestly without knowing his work, as he assimilates Lacan⁸ to Ricœur.
  Grünbaum, however, would have better concluded here his work as, in the second part, the mountain has brought forth the mouse.
  In my demonstration I will follow the same sequence he used in exposing his objections, even though - for a historical critique of Freudian theory, which would be desirable for many reasons - his first objection should have come last.

Did Grünbaum succeed in dismantling Freud's "Tally Argument" ?   
As stated above, Grünbaum believes he can sustain that Freud did not manage to demonstrate the actual difference between the psychoanalytical mechanism of recovery and the mechanism which causes the so-called "placebo effect". Let us consider, therefore, the epistemological consequences of his throughout analysis of an essay Freud wrote in 1917, Analytic Therapy⁹, on which his criticism is based. It is well known that Freud in this essay reviews in detail his own therapeutic approach, with a view to showing that the results of analysis are not affected by suggestion. In spite of this, Grünbaum's conclusion is the following¹⁰ : "(...) epistemologically, therapeutic success is non probative, because it is achieved not by imparting veridical insight but rather by the persuasive suggestion of fanciful pseudo-insights that merely ring verisimilar to the docile patient".

  Such a conclusion is quite incorrect because - as I intend to demonstrate - Grünbaum carefully avoids to consider - from the essay in question - just the passage where Freud explains how he can discriminate the psychoanalytical from the suggestive effect. This is rather odd, as this passage is included in a page Grünbaum fully quoted¹¹.
  For the sake of clarity, I will summarize Freud's argument.
  As Freud straightaway acknowledges he uses suggestion¹², he feels it necessary to explain how he can remove it from the result of his treatment. After that, he sets forth two preliminary remarks :

  (A) Suggestion cannot be considered as an unbounded influence because only the patient's awareness is affected through it and not his/her sickness¹³ ;
  (B) Analysts do not use suggestion to remove symptoms but just to dissolve the patient's resistance.¹⁴   Now while (A) is undoubtedly true - as its contrary would imply that psychical sickness can be treated by means of suggestion and (since suggestion historically was the most ancient psychical treatment carried out) the birth and development of psychiatry would have been superfluous - (B) is not so obvious. In fact, what guarantee is there that the analyst will actually limit suggestion within the sphere of resistance ?
  It is just in this view that Freud explains the device which suggestion is removed from the treatment results¹⁵ : "We look upon successes that set in too soon as obstacles rather than as a help to the work of analysis; and we put an end to such successes by constantly resolving the transference on which they are based. It is this last characteristic which is the fundamental distinction between analytic and purely suggestive therapy, and which frees the results of analysis from the suspicion of being successes due to suggestion".
  So, as expressly stated by Freud, this is the characterizing mark of psychoanalytical treatment which Grünbaum critical insight should have taken into account. However, in a very odd way, he avoids to do so throughout his work. It is very likely that Grünbaum believes that Freud's method of removing suggestion from the treatment results strictly depends on his two assumptions; in fact, his criticism is focused on both. As a matter of fact, however, this is not the case: Freud's preliminary statements are just used to put the question in an epistemological way, whilst the way of answering the question does not depend on it, as Freud assumes that both (A) and (B) are false, suggestion can leak through everywhere and the analyst does not use it only to dissolve resistance.
  Grünbaum did not see this point, thus actually evading the single thesis he should have invalidated if he wanted to be right. After all, what does Freud do to be sure that treatment results are free from suggestion ? An operation as single as ingenious - since the very moment when his begins to show any success, he ascribes this success only to suggestion and, as such, he rejects it. Indeed, he does even more, because, he attempts by any means to dissolve it. In other words, he set suggestion against the ostensible results of his treatment.
  Now, as far as the patient can be influenced by suggestion - provided that suggestion is the real cause of the experienced results -, there should be only negative results, and no improvement at all. If and when things are not such, if and when a permanent improvement can be observed, the improvement cannot be ascribed to any suggestive influence, as we have focused the contrary goal, in order to dissolve it. That is to say, the patient recovers his/her health against suggestion. This is, for a real Freudian analyst, the probative evidence of the scientific correctness of his/her work.
  Freud, in his highly sophisticated manner, built with a great advance the psychoanalytical and intraclinical version of a drug testing technique which was first systematically applied in psychiatry in the early 1960's and is generally described as "double blind approach". With such a technique, neither the doctor nor the patient know what drug is being given, nor knows whether it is just a placebo¹⁶ . I will now try to clear definitely the clinical correctness of Freud's approach. As Grünbaum sustains¹⁷ : "To discredit the hypothesis of placebo effect, it is essential to have comparisons with treatment outcome from a suitable control group whose repressions are not lifted. Hence the attribution of remedial efficacy to the abreactive lifting of repressions was devoid of adequate evidential warrant".
  I insist that I am not discussing the epistemic validation of the construction, but its difference from suggestion and its clinical effectiveness.
  In fact, the epistemic validation is related to the validation of its object, because the construction implies a specific (individual) version of the aetiology of psychoneurosis, as it is based on repression.
 Grünbaum's objection - in this view - is quite justifiable, as he finds out a fallacious way of reasoning, such as post hoc ergo propter hoc¹⁸. I will discuss this point later.
  For this moment, I will assume that the construction, when correctly expressed, may be the efficient cause of a change in the symptomatic condition of the patient.
  Later on, I will assume that also suggestion may be that cause. In addition to this, I will assume that suggestion, as such, should produce the effect it is meant to produce: if it is meant to produce an improvement, it will do, and it is>eant to produce an aggravation, it will do as well. On the other hand, with regard to construction, I will accept that even when it is present it may be faulty and may not meet the specific operating mode of repression in that special case.
  Finally, I will assume that real construction and suggestion do not exclude each other, and can even share certain effects.
  Let us assume now that a psychoanalyst communicates a construction to his/her patient: neither he/she nor his/her patient know whether such construction is correct and if it is not accompanied with suggestion. How can they know it at all ? This is exactly the problem Freud had to tackle, as he wrote in the second of his Five Lectures on psychoanalysis held in 1909 at the Clark University¹⁹. "At first, I must confess, this seemed a senseless and hopeless undertaking. I was set the task of learning from the patient something that I did not know and that he did not know himself. How could one hope to elicit it ?"
  The problem, in other words to find out a safe epistemic way of selectioning among the four logical possibilities of a construction, namely :
  (X) - it is non-suggestive but false,
  (Y) - non-suggestive and true,
  (W) - suggestive but false, or
  (Z) - suggestive but true.

  To each of the four possibilities the patient can react in three different ways, of course, as far as his/her symptomatic condition is concerned :

  (a) - his/her condition remains unchanged;
  (b) - get worse; or
  (c) - improves.
  Let us try now to establish if there is any form of necessary relation between the logical possibilities of the construction and the change in the patient's symptomatic condition, in order to allow such a deduction as: "If this is the effect, than that is the cause".
  However, we must ask ourselves a further question: "Might any cause, other than the correct construction and the suggestion, affect the change in the patient condition ?" Note that this is a different problem from the one we will rise when we take into account the theory of repression in the aetiology of neurosis. In fact, we need now to know if the symptomatic condition can easily be subjected to fluctuations due to random rather than specific causes.
  This question can only have a negative answer, as otherwise the clinical framework of psychoneurosis would not show the stability it shows in the absence of construction and suggestion. Actually, we cannot exclude that such non-specific causes may have some effect, though rarely and in extraordinary circumstances, however, such circumstances (just because they are extraordinary) can be easily identified. The rate of occurrence would be so low that it can be neglected practically. Therefore, we can safely consider that our four assumptions practically cover the whole range of possible causes. Now, let us consider all the implications under discussion.
  If we consider (X) we can see that it excludes both (b) and (c) and only implies (a). In fact, a non-suggestive intervention together with a false construction cannot produce any clear change in the symptomatic condition. The only result, if any, for the patient will be that he will believe that the analyst he/she had chosen is a good-for-nothing. We can therefore establish a double relation between (X) and (a) and say: "If (a), then (X)" and vice versa.
  We can also easily establish that both (W) and (Z) will only imply (c) : in fact, a suggestive intervention will have as a consequence the improvement of the symptomatic condition for the patient either further to a true construction or a false one, because the suggestion is completely based on the assumption that it works when it is present, and its affect can only be enhanced by the concourse of a true construction.
  Case (Y) is undoubtedly more complex, as it can definitely exclude just one over the three possible alternatives, i.e. (a). In fact, from a non- suggestive and true construction we can only expect some form of response, but we cannot at all expect that, in the short run, it will cause any improvement or worsening, because the patient's condition might even get worse in the event that he/she give him/herself any reason to resist the truth of the construction. In fact, basing on this assumption, we cannot use suggestion in order to condition the patient, and his/her improvement in front of the mere truth may even not be immediate. In other words, the patient may "take it amiss" and may need some time to accept it. In the meantime he/she may even try to "pretend it is not the truth" - and this attempt would result in a temporary worsening. The patient's resistance to truth may even become extreme and lead him/her to reject the analysis, however, this would not affect at all the correctness of the construction. It is not a fault of the analysis if truth can sometimes be as ineffective as repulsive : this is well known. I insist that this would not be a failure of Freud's approach to therapy: in medicine the event of a patient discontinuing at once his/her treatment often occurs, however, nobody has ever invalidated a treatment for such a reason.
  We can not draw up a table showing the relations between the logical possibilities of construction and the changes in the patient's condition.

  Hence, we can draw the following considerations. If the analyst communicates to the patient a construction of which he/she does not know whether it is correct or suggestive, and this results in (a), then the analyst will know for certain that his/her construction was (X).
  By the same token, if it produces (b), the analyst will know that his/her construction was (Y).
  From a worsening of symptoms we can safely infer the use of a true and non-suggestive construction as it obviously appears on the above table: it is the only logical possibility. If the contrary is not true, this would not affect at all our deduction.
  The necessary implications of (b) with (Y) is a first example of indisputable validation of the Freudian approach. Incidentally, this is perfectly in accordance with Freud's statement in Constructions in Analysis (1937): if the patient's condition becomes worse when he/she is confronted with a construction, we can be quite sure that the construction is true and non-suggestive, and his/her worsening is temporary, as due to negative transference²⁰.
  This, however, is far from being enough - as a therapeutic approach exclusively based on worsening might even be correct, but would be quite useless.
  In fact the true problem arises from the fact that (c) - i.e. the possibility we are most interested in - can equally be the result of either (Y), (W) or (Z). In the first case, the improvement would be caused only by the construction, in the second case, by suggestion, in the third by a concourse of both.
  How can the analyst ascertain - in an intraclinical way - which is the correct among the possible deductions from (c) ?
  He/she can only react in three ways to the improvement of the symptomatic condition, namely :
  (I) remaining indifferent;
  (II) trying to enhance the improvement by any means ; or
  (III) trying to dissolve it by any means.

  Obviously, (I) and (II) are not diriment. I will demonstrate now that (III) - the way suggested by Freud in the passage quoted above - is undoubtedly unmistakable. Let us consider the point. In general terms, (III) may be formulated as follows "The improvement of your symptomatic condition is surely due to reasons (transference) other than the truth of my construction - so it includes suggestion, therefore, it is not probatory in order to establish the exclusive therapeutic effectiveness of this specific construction." As such, it is not specific at all, as it is not related to the clinical details of a case, but to the improvement of the symptomatic condition. In this view, it is neither a construction nor an interpretation, but the fixed module where any special interpretation of transference should be inscribed - in the sense that the interpretation cannot clash with this module. In addition to this, it radically undervalues the effect of improvement. Also, it is suggestive as the analyst tries by any means to persuade the patient of his/her truth. Finally, it is obviously independent from any counter-transference, as the analyst is forced to use it regardless of his/her opinion and feeling about the patient.
  I will call "Standard Epistemic Module - SEM" - the above described features of (III).
  Let us assume now that the analyst applies the SEM. The patient will have any of the following three responses (with regard to his/her symptomatic condition):

  (1) the achieved improvement fully vanishes ;
  (2) it vanishes only in part ; or
  (3) it is completely maintained.

  There might be a fourth logical possibility - a further improvement of the patient's condition, however, this is unlikely from a clinical point of view, as such effect would result from a suggestive and undervaluing intervention which - by definition - cannot cause any positive clinical effect.
  We need now to know if the SEM, when applied to (c) can cause effects which can only be related to (Y) (W) or (Z).
  The case (W) assumes that the improvement is only due to suggestion and the construction is false. When we apply the SEM, it cannot be but lead to (1), because the suggestion that was the cause of improvement now operates in the opposite way and will dissolve in any case that rate of benefit the suggestion had produced. Accordingly, we can also infer that the SEM is absolutely true.
  The case (Z) assumes that the improvement is due to the joint concourse of suggestion and construction, which is supposed to be true but insufficient to guarantee the improvement; when tested with SEM, it cannot be but (2), as the contrary suggestion will dissolve that part of benefit which was due to the previous suggestion. Hence, we can infer that the SEM is only partially true.
  The case (Y) assumes that the improvement is exclusively due to the correctness of the construction; by applying the SEM, it cannot be but (3) as a negative suggestion cannot find anything to be affected. Hence, we can infer that the SEM is absolutely false.

  I have therefore demonstrated the necessary relation of (W) and (1), (Z) and (2) and (Y) and (3), and this implies that by means of SEM - provided the results are (1), (2) or (3) - I can undoubtedly to go back to their first efficient causes and thoroughly evaluate the suggestive aspect of the construction as well as its truth.
  This proves the full epistemic correctedness of the Freudian method as a way of intraclinical validation of treatment results, in the sense illustrated above, as it allows us to acknowledge as completely acceptable only those constructions that result in the case (b) (negative transference) and (3) (positive transference). The remaining cases should be considered as invalidated both from a clinical and from an epistemical point of view - even though somebody might be tempted by (2). I cannot stress enough that precisely the exclusion of this case from the field of validity of the construction separates the psychoanalytical treatment from any other form of psychotherapy. In fact, all the known psychotherapies actually do not and could not exclude the case (2) as they cannot identify it : by doing this, all but the Freudian therapy devote themselves to non-scientific methods - as I have demonstrated.
  From the above remarks, it appears that Freud, through a very subtle argument, continuously passing from the epistemic to the empirical dimension, built what in science is described as a "black box".
  This - to use the terms of René Thom²¹ - is quite simply a system communicating outwards through inputs and outputs, such that it provides an output for any input established. In such a way, as Isabelle Stengers explained²² - a relation is established between what is going in and what is going out, a relation which nobody can practically contest²³.
  Now we have seen how Freud's "black box" is isolated, when we explained that four initial inputs and five final outputs cover both the realm of causality and the realm of effectiveness: it consists of a system which relates each output to only one input in a way that cannot be practically questioned.
  Stengers is therefore wrong when - in her valuable book on psychoanalysis²⁴ she sustains that Freud's "black box" is quite anomalous when compared with scientific "black boxes". However, I must recognize that her criticism is pertinent in as far as the general situation of contemporary psychoanalysis is concerned, which is, in my opinion, just like she describes it. This is so because psychoanalysts generally and pertinaciously disregard the constituent principles of Freudian science, which makes it an odd aberration in the realm of sciences, as it is a science waiting for its scientists. It is, so to say, a suspended science²⁵. It is a dead end which cannot be overcome as long as scientists and epistemologists will challenge the majority of psychoanalysts in reviewing Freud in a misleading and/or restrictive way, in other words, substantially based on subjective prejudices.
  Let us close this short digression to go back to Grünbaum: he might still evoke the following theory²⁶ : "For a number of decades, Freud did claim empirical sanction for both of the premises in his Tally Argument. But ironically, in his lather years he himself undermined this argument by gradually renouncing or significantly weakening each premise. Thus, in an important 1937 paper²⁷, his disparagement of the quality and durability of actual psychoanalytic treatment outcome bordered on a repudiation of treatment success. As Freud reported ruefully, a satisfactory psychoanalysis is not even prophylactic against the recurrence of the affliction for which the analysand was treated, let alone immunizing against the outbreak of different neurosis. Thus, far from holding out hope for cures, Freud essentially confined the prospects to palliation. But the import of this therapeutic pessimism is shattering. For, even if NCT were true, it would need the existential premise of documentated cures in order to vouch for the etiologies inferred by means of free association. But even when Freud was not quite that pessimistic about the calibre of therapeutic outcome²⁸, he gainsaid his erstwhile NCT in 1926 by conceding the existence of spontaneous remission as follows: "As a rule our therapy must be content with bringing about more quickly, more reliable and with less expenditure of energy than would otherwise be the case the good results which in favourable circumstances would have occurred of itself"²⁹. Of course, the label "spontaneous remission" is to convey that gains made by an afflicted person were caused entirely by extraclinical life events rather than by professional therapists, not that these benefits ware uncaused. Notably, Freud grants that neuroses yielding to analytic therapy would, in due course, remit spontaneously anyway. In this way, he demoted his own treatment from being therapeutically indispensable to the status of a mere expediter of otherwise expectable recoveries."
  Unfortunately, as I will try to show, the above is a typical example of imaginary exegesis of a text.
  The "important 1937 paper" is Finite and Infite Analysis. In this writing there is no mention of a "disparagement of the quality and durability of actual psychoanalytic treatment", on the contrary, there are a number of specifications which outline some limits of the analytical treatment with regard to reminiscence (not all the repressed material becomes conscious) and its effectiveness in general (analysis is not always effective). However, not all and not always do not mean not well as Grünbaum seems to argue.
  There is no approach of experience, even the most formal in its method and the safest in epistemological terms, which does not allow any exception, but, when it is possible to show that such exceptions are not due to some fault of the approach itself, people say that they "prove the rule". I do not understand why this should not apply to psychoanalysis; in fact when Freud deals with something I have called the "not always" in the analytical treatment of psychoneurosis, he strictly limits it to cases of negative transference³⁰, that is, those which cannot be ascribed to the Freudian method, a I have shown above. In fact, in the other cases he takes into consideration, i.e. the cases of excessive "viscosity" and mobility of the libido, he does not use at all such terms as failure, but only speaks of slackening. The cases still remain of a full hardening of the libido, for which analysis is quite useless, but this is clearly limited to very old people. In the medical practice itself it is recognized that the patient's age often involves serious limits to any possible treatment, with no prejudice for the medical science.
  With regard to what I have called the "not all", i.e. the unendlich aspect of analysis, the assumption that this would mean a substantial renunciation by Freud of his method has become a flimsy as well as a deep-rooted legend: also Stengers³¹ shares the same opinion. In another essay³² I have demonstrated that the problem actually considered in Freud's writing is the way to make functional to his own therapeutic method an asymptomatic progress of remembering with regard to the originary repressed core. This is not translated by Freud in terms of fault of his method rather than in terms of a structural property of the psychic equipment. Already in 1915, with his Metapsychology³³, he had postulated the primary repression as a general constitutive process of the human mind. In particular, a conditioning imposed to the mind by the Urverdrängung was identified by Freud in the fact that in the unconscious there is no psychic representative of gender difference³⁴. In 1937, Freud simply acknowledges the incidence of this process in remembering, which is brought to asymptotic properties just in these terms. However, this is due to the psychical structure and not to a supposed fault of the method! If the contrary opinion is accepted - as Grünbaum and Stenger do - we should conclude that even the infinitesimal calculus appears groundless, as with this, to pass to the limit, it is not required that all the values of the function are calculated, but it is done starting from N values established on the base of an arbitrary and small enough e interval. This is to demonstrate that it is not universally necessary that a process be actually exhaustive to be symbolically complete. Now, in Analysis Terminable an Interminable and Constructions in Analysis, Freud operates in the same way. In fact, he first notes the asymptotic structure of remembering, then clearly acknowledges :
  1. that it indefinitely gets close to a certain point, i.e. the Penisneid in the woman and the fear of castration in the man;
  2. that even though that point is never reached, it does not place it out of our reach, as its trend leads us to conclude that in any case it would never overcome that point, in other words, if remembering would reach that point, it would stop there.
  Hence, it is quite legitimate to pass to the limit and suggest a final construction based on such issues, as it effectively closes the treatment in the only acceptable way in epistemical terms, that is to say, in the only way consistent with experience.
  It is an impenetrable mystery how this can be considered as an admission of failure.
  With regard to the fact that Freud would acknowledge that "a satisfactory psychoanalysis is not even prophylactic against the recurrence of the afflictions", I think that Grünbaum makes reference to the discussion about the "Wolf Man case" in Finite and Infinite Analysis. However, in that passage, Freud clearly states that he was wrong in considering the patient completely and definitely recovered, and criticizes the use of a certain device - which has nothing to do with psychoanalysis - during that analysis³⁵. It is therefore an atypical example Freud refers to in order to criticize his own deviation from his method, and quite unsuitable for the use that is made of it by Grünbaum.
  As an example of "therapeutic pessimism", Grünbaum quotes the following sentence which Freud wrote in the essay Psychoanalysis in 1925³⁶. "The future will probably attribute for greater importance to psycho-analysis as the science of the unconscious than as a therapeutic procedure".
  Now, I respectfully point out to Professor Grünbaum that the same applies to fundamental physics, mathematics, or biology, however, this does not undervalue at all their applications. Here Freud simply makes the point that psychoanalysis may lead us to a more comprehensive range of applications than those related to the individual treatment of neurotics, which however remains valid.
  Finally, the exegis of the passage from Inhibition, Symptoms and Anxiety (1925) quoted by Grünbaum is quite imaginary. In fact Freud says: "the success that would have occurred in any case, if circumstances had be favourable", and not - as he should have written to allow Grünbaum's deductions - "the success that would occur in any case, if circumstances were favourable"³⁷.
  In fact, Freud's sentence, when correctly interpreted, simply means that psychoanalysis reaches the result that, at the time of the formation of neurosis, could have been reached by the patient him/herself if the circumstances had been favourable. He does not say anything about what can happen now or in the fulture - but does so about what could have happened and unfortunately did not happen and can now happen only thanks to psychoanalysis.
  In medical terms, it is just like saying that a certain antibiotic produces in a faster, safer and cheaper way the same result as the one that would have been produced if the patient, at the time when he was infected, had been in more favourable circumstances, i.e. in such a condition of physical efficiency to provide an immune response sufficient to resist the infection. Is that line of reasoning against antibiotic ?
  Therefore "The Tally argument is not only bursting with good health, but in no case Freud has ever repudiated it.
  So, I believe that the controversy about the first thesis of Grünbaum can be considered settled with a largely unfavourable verdict for him.

  Did Grünbaum succeed in invalidating the Freudian
  theory of repression in its epistemic and clinical aspects ?

  We need now to check the legitimacy of our assumption preliminay to the validation of "The Tally Argument", i.e. that, between construction and change in the patient's symptomatic condition there is a specificity of causation. This obviously implies that what the construction is related to was in turn the single efficient cause of the disease or - to use Grünbaum's terms - that a certain pathogenic experience P is causally necessary for a certain trouble N, therefore that P cannot ever be an etiologic factor of another nosologically different syndrome.
  In the chapter 8 of the second part of his book³⁸ , Grünbaum believes that he has demonstrated that Freud did not succeed in proving such a substantial link.
  He takes as an example the famous "Rat Man case"³⁹ in the reconstruction by Glymour, then he develops his logical argument we need to summarize.
  If we call N a psychoneurosis - for example an obsessional neurosis, as in the case considered - and P the pathogenic agent, if a person experienced P and then was afflicted by N, we will say that it was "both a P and an N", or just PN. Obviously, it is taken for granted that Ns and non-Ns as well as Ps and non-Ps do exist. In order to verify the Freudian thesis, however, it will not be sufficient to demonstrate the existence of PN examples, but also the existence of non-Ps and non-Ns. In fact, this is the only argument which prevents any possibility for non-Ps to become Ns.
  The following is the conclusion of Grünbaum's argument⁴⁰ : "One can grant that since 'All Ns were Ps' is logically equivalent to 'All non-Ps are/will be non-Ns' - any case of an N who was a P will support the latter to whatever extent it supports the former. But this fact is unavailing to the support of Freud's aetiology, for the issue is not merely to provide evidential support for 'All non-Ps are/will be non-Ns', or for its logical equivalent, by some instance or other. Instead, the issue is to furnish evidential support for the (strong kind of) causal relevance claimed by Freud. But, for the reasons I have given, the fulfilment of that requirement demands that there be cases of non-Ps that are non-Ns, no less than instances of Ns that were Ps. Yet at best, the Rat Man could finish only the latter kind of instance. In other words, if we are to avoid committing the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc ; we cannot be content with instances of Ns that were Ps, no matter how numerous."
  As I said before, Grünbaum's argument is consistent, but his conclusion is wrong. In fact he holds that the evidence of epistemic validity would be provided if the Rat Man himself were an example of PN as well as one of non-P and non-N. This might be possible if he were affected with what Freud identified as a "mixed neurosis" ⁴¹.
  If we took into account, instead of the Rat Man, a case of this type, could we validate Freud's theory ?
  Apparently Grünbaum believes we could, but he is wrong, because this would not remove the suspicion that non-P was the cause of N. In fact, if in the same person N and non-N, P and non-P are together present, we do not have any practical way to undoubtedly relate P to N and non-N. Different etiologic assumptions can never be proved in a same individual, but have to be proved in different individuals or classes of individuals. In other words, an etiologic theory cannot be based on mixed pathologies - on the contrary a "mixed pathology" considered after the epistemic validation, in pure forms of pathologies, of different etiologies which contribute to it.
  Therefore the condition set by Grünbaum as probatory cannot be reached in the way he required.
  Moreover, he seems to believe⁴² that for Freud the intraclinical control of his causative statements for the specific etiologies of psychoneurosis was totally independent from extraclinical considerations. As I will show later on, when discussing the clinical validity of the theory of repression, from a simple reading of the first part of Freud's An Autobiographical Study (1924) it appears that things are not so: Freud was always quite aware that the intraclinical control of an etiologic theory was other than its epistemic validation which cannot, in any case, be intraclinical.
     Let us take again from the beginning Grünbaum's argument and apply it in a correct way to the case of the Rat Man.
     It is immediately clear what is intended with N: it is the clinical outline of obsessional neurosis. On the other hand, it is not so clear what is intended with P. Simply said what should we assume, in this case, as a pathogenic agent ? Grünbaun, following the footsteps of Glaymour, writes that it would consist in a premature sexual activity, such as excessive masturbation, subjected to severe repression⁴³. This is quite insufficient. To say the truth, as we can infer from Freud's essay, the specific case of the neurosis for the Rat Man is much more complicated. If we intend as a "specific cause" the necessary concourse of all the elements to produce a pathogenic effect, then, in Freud's⁴⁴ opinion, the pathogenic experience P requisitely includes all the following events :

  (1) - the patient is in his early childhood ;
  (2) - he frequently masturbates ;
  (3) - he is punished ;
  (4) - the punisher is his father ;
  (5) - he tenderly loves his father ;
  (6) - but in the same time he hates him because of the punishment ;
  (7) - it arouses in him a psychic conflict which causes him to suffer excessively ;
  (8) - it resolves it by repressing all the images linked with the punishing and displacing the affect - i.e. the hatred - to other images which are not related to the repressed ones.
  (9) - we need then to consider the occasional event which, by affecting the above elements, sets off the symptomatology.

  Therefore, in this case there is much more than the simple sequence "masturbation- repression" as suggested by Grünbaum.
  Basing on this, in order to identify "non-P", if any, it would be sufficient that only one over the nine above listed conditions is missing in order to have a quite different specific cause: if one could then demonstrate that it is undoubtedly the cause of a trouble other than obsessional neurosis - i.e. non-N - Grünbaum's conclusion would be definitely disproved.
  This is just what I am going to try.
  Let us build a rigorous non-P. As the matter under discussion is the aetiology based on repression, let us generously remove from our nine conditions all those conditions which contribute to produce it, i.e. (1), (3), (4), (6), (7), (8) and (9). Now we have the following framework :

  (a) - the patient is not in his early childhood but in his adolescence ;
  (b) - a frequent masturbation is the only type of satisfaction through his genitals he allows himself ;
  (c) - he is not punished ;
  (d) - he retains a memory of all that.

  Somebody may object that (b) is remarkably different from (2), but this is only seemingly true: also for a small child masturbation is the only possible type of satisfaction through genitals.
  Now, is it possible to affirm that this specific aetiology is the sure cause of a neurosis other than the obsessive one, i.e. the cause of non-N ?
  Fortunately, it is, as this is the aetiology of neurasthenia as Freud himself demonstrated in one of his works, in 1896, entitled Heredity and the Aetiology of the Neuroses.⁴⁵
  The question may rise whether also this aetiology could be refuted by Grünbaum ? Surely it could not, as he, in order to rehabilitate Freud as a "sophisticated scientific methodologist", demonstrates exactly the validity of the etiologic theory supported by Freud for neurasthenia and anxious neurosis⁴⁶. Therefore at the time when Freud wrote the case of the Rat Man, i.e. when he outlined the PN under discussion, he had already demonstrated with no fault the existence of cases of non-P and non-N, in particular through an aetiology which excluded repression though implying masturbation.
  The objection cannot apply here basing on which neurasthenia would not imply in any case children's masturbation: there is no reason to assume that the future neurasthenic is an exception to a well-known regular practice in childhood. Precisely this masturbation, however, does not play any etiological role in neurasthenia, because it is not repressed.
  So I have disproved the epistemic invalidation as constructed by Grünbaum of the aetiology based on repression, thus offering the confirmation which was still missing to "The Tally Argument".
I need now only to deal with that criticism related to the clinical validity of this etiological theory which is not directly covered by the amendments I made so far. When discussing the theory on which Breuer and Freud had tried to establish their cathartic method, Grünbaum says⁴⁷ : "In the course of such treatment, it had turned out that, for each distinct symptom S afflicting such a neurotic, the victim had repressed the memory of a trauma that had closely preceded the onset of S and was thematically cognate to this particular symptom. Besides repressing this traumatic memory, the patient had also strangulated the affect induced by his trauma."
  So, Grünbaum believes that the theory of repression dates back to the time of Freud's co-oporation with Breuer and later it never diverged from its established pattern. Unfortunately, this is not true. In An Autobiograp hical Study, Freud declared he gained the theory of repression long after the end of his collaboration with Breuer⁴⁸, and identified its most important characteristic in the fact that there exist specific reasons of resistance to recollection. The theory worked out with Breuer was generically based on forgetfulness, and as such it was enormously different from the real theory of repression because - as expressly stated by Freud it was not an etiological theory⁴⁹. "The theory which we had attempted to construct in the Studies remained, as I have said, very incomplete; and in particular we had scarcely touched on the problem of aetiology, on the question of the ground in which the pathogenic process takes root."
  If you thoroughly read the first part of Freud's An Autobiographical Study⁵⁰ you can find a clear illustration of the stages from the simple "theory of forgetfulness" of Freud and Breuer to the theory of repression. They include :
  1. first of all, Freud opposed to Breuer's "theory of hypnoid status his own theory based on "the existence of a play of forces, i.e. the effect of intentions and trends similar to the ones observed in normal life"
  2. then Freud became aware of the fundamental role played by sexuality in these motives;
  3. following to this, he was led to investigate the role of sexuality in other forms of neurosis, thus beginning to deal with neurasthenia;
  4. the positive results of his investigation led him to consider neurosis in general as a set of troubles of the sexual function;
  5. which in turn - also considering the dependence of cathartic effects on the personal relationship of the doctor with the patient, led him to look for a way to go beyond the treatment intended for hysteria - i.e. hypnosis - and to engage in the way of free association.
  Only at that stage Freud, considering that sexual motives of neurasthenia can be perfectly recollected whilst in the case of hysteria they cannot, felt himself strongly legitimated to suggest - as I just showed - an aetiology based on repression, i.e. on the specific difficulty in remembering rather than a simple process of forgetfulness. After that, as the suspicion still remained that the treatment results were due to suggestion because "the personal relationship of doctor and patient was much more powerful than any cathartic work"⁵¹ , he invented the safe method I have illustrated above. This implies that, while the cathartic abolition of forgetfulness was previously considered sufficient to eliminate the different symptoms, now the abolition of the specific difficulty in remembering (repression) becomes a necessary, but no more sufficient causative condition as it should be accompanied with an analysis of transference strictly subject to SEM requirements.
  According to Grünbaum, Freud should have dropped his theory as soon as he became aware of the implication of transference in the treatment⁵² : this is an abnormal demand which no doctor whoever would comply with.
  Let us consider again the case of medicine. If a doctor, on the base of relevant epistemic reasons, decides to give his patient a certain drug and notes that it produces any unstable improvement, he will not infer at all - like Grünbaum would do - that is not the right drug, but, considering it unsteadiness, he will assume that it might be due to an insufficient dose or that some additional therapy may be needed in order to make its effect steady. So - just to quote one of many examples - the discovery was made that tranilcypromine - antidepressive utilized beginning from the sixties - should be imperatively taken without eating cheese - especially cheese rich in thiamine - as otherwise it would become seriously toxic⁵³.
  Only after both possibilities have been excluded, a doctor would allow him/herself to pass a negative judgement on that drug.
  Now, Freud precisely follows the same procedure as any other conscientious research worker. As I have shown with regard to non-P and non-N, in the difference between actual neurosis and psychoneurosis he already had a valuable argument from an epistemological point of view; since he has drawn from cathartic therapy an effect of improvement which however was following the trend of a transferential relation, it made it stable by adding a further condition - i.e. the SEM, the consistency of which I have demonstrated.
  As you see, this is something quite different from the mess Grünbaum ascribes to Freud. However this does not make him give⁵⁴. "But the granted therapeutic premise would not have warranted Breuer's and Freud's extrapolation that the repression of E [traumatic event] was also a casually necessary condition for the origination of S [the symptom]. For, as Morris Eagle has remarked, their therapeutic conclusion does comfort with the following contrary etiologic hypothesis : the conscious traumatic experience itself - as distinct from its ensuing repression - was responsible for the initial formation of S, whereupon the displeasure (anxiety) from the trauma actuated the repression of E, which is causally necessary for the mere maintenance of S."
  Grünbaum should mix with a better sort of friends, because the author whose metaphysical lucubration he embraces is not exactly a raptor as his name would suggest. In fact, the problem Freud had to tackle was simply that in hysteria - contrary to traumatic neurosis - no conscious traumatic experience (i.e. felt as such by the patient) can be objectively identified. This is exactly what Freud as to anybody who takes the trouble to read his entirely and without prejudice.⁵⁵ "It seems to me really astonishing that hysterical symptoms can only arise with the cooperation of memories, especially when we reflect that according to the unanimous accounts of the patients themselves, these memories did not come into their consciousness at the moment when the symptom first made its appearance."
  Accordingly, the following is his conclusion⁵⁶. "But we must not fail to lay special emphasis on one condition to which analytic work along these chains of memory has unexpectedly led. We have learned that no hysterical symptom can arise from a real experience alone, but in every case the memory of earlier experiences awakened in association to it plays a part in causing the symptom. If - as I believe - this proposition holds good without exception, it furthermore shows us the basis on which psychological theory of hysteria must be built."
  Eagle would be right if in the anamnesia of hysteria one could identify episodes that, because of the explicit assertion of the patient, were events he recognized as traumatic while they were occurring or immediately later: unfortunately the disease is not se kind and therefore we are forced to follow the way of Freud, which is the sole scientifically practicable one.
  After that, Grünbaum reviews the theory of repression as far as the destiny of affect is concerned⁵⁷. "Note that the affect attached to a traumatic experience E can be suppressed (strangulated) but such that there is still conscious awareness of this pent-up affect. Thus, the affect attached to E can be suppressed without also being repressed. (...) Furthermore, the affect attached to E can be repressed without a cognitive repression of E as a whole. Yet, when E as a whole is repressed, this repression includes it accompanying affect qua being attached to E. By the same token, the cognitive restoration of the forgotten E as a whole does also lift the repression of the affect attached to it. But the cognitive repression of E can be lifted without undoing E's affective suppression. Indeed, as Breuer and Freud report, the implementation of just this latter scenario was almost always therapeutically unavailing: "Recollection without [release of the attached pent-up] affect almost invariably produces no [therapeutic] result"⁵⁸. Thus it would be empirically false to deem the mere lifting of the cognitive repression of E without catharsis causally sufficient for the removal of Tao symptom S."
  The fact is that Freud had a theory of the affect different and much more refined than the one described by Grünbaum: in fact he, far from limiting himself to assume a generic "suppression or strangulation", in 1894 already maintained the following thesis⁵⁹. "I know three mechanisms: that of affect transformation (conversion hysteria), that of affect displacement (obsessional ideas), and that of exchange of affect (anxiety neurosis and melancholia)."
  From which we can see that according to Freud - differently from what Grünbaum upholds - the affect is never subject to the same destiny as the representation: later he will explain that one cannot properly refer to "unconscious affects"⁶⁰. "However, when compared to the unconscious representation, there is the following meaningful difference: after the repression the unconscious representations still exist as a real structure in the unconscious system, while in the same position only a potential, something that could not develop is related to the unconscious affect. Strictly speaking, there are not unconscious affects in the same way as there are unconscious representations."
  Most important, Freud with the term "repression" never intended to refer only to the destiny of the representation, but both to this destiny and the one of the affect; as clearly shown in a passage of his essay of 1927, Fetishism⁶¹ : "A new technical term is justified when it describes a new fact or emphasizes it. This is not so here. The oldest word in our psycho-analytic terminology (Verdrängung) is already related to this pathological process. If we wanted to differentiate more sharply between the vicissitude of the idea as distinct from that of the affect, then the correct German word be Verleugnung (disavowal)."
  No comment is required to show how Grünbaum's objection is quite inadequate.
  So, we have finally closed up that the Freudian aetiology of neurosis has sound epistemic and clinical foundations and that Freud's approach to therapy is discriminating against suggestion: this necessary implies that also the free association is well-grounded as it is verified within the framework of analytical therapy. Accordingly, Grünbaum's objections to this regard⁶² can be rejected.
  This, however, does not confirm the legitimacy of its use also outside treatment, as it may occur in the case of parapraxis and dreams.
  If, however, we consider that in the psychoanalytical treatment both are there, we should accept that there is at least one instance in which the free association proves to be well-founded. Then, since the consistence of free association with such psychical formations can be demonstrated during the analysis, why should this not apply also outside of it.
  Remember that Freud's starting point, in his separation from Breuer (the legitimacy of which I have extensively ascertained) was the assumption that, behind the "hypnoid status" there were "intentions and trends similar to the ones observed in normal life⁶³.
  However, Grünbaum notes⁶⁴ - outside the analytical framework there would not be a way to control any suggestive influence by the analyst - i.e. to apply Tao SEM.
  It is just in this view that Freud sets - in The handling of dream-interpretation in psycho-analysis (1911)⁶⁵ - an important bond to the interpretation of dreams and slips outside the analysis. "To begin with, it must be recognized that in cases of severe neurosis any elaborate dream-production must from the nature of this be regarded as incapable of complete solution. A dream of this trend is often based on the entire pathogenic material of the case, as yet unknown to both doctor and patient (so called "programme dream" and biographical dreams), and is sometimes equivalent to a translation into dream-language of the whole content of the neurosis. In the attempt to interpret such a dream all the latent, as yet untouched, resistances will be roused to activity and soon set a limit to its understanding. The full interpretation of such a dream will coincide with the completion of the whole analysis."
  The above passage, though here Freud is referring to dreams, has properly the value of a comprehensive rule one must comply with in the interpretation. The rule states that, in extraclinical situation, only those dreams can be acceptably interpreted which have an indirect link with the primary repressed content, namely those dreams whose cause at hand is prevailing on the remote cause. These cases in which a parapraxis or a dream "can be caused by an internal process which has become in some way recent through the daily mental work"⁶⁶. In these cases, in fact, the role played by the resistance in the free association is negligible, and also negligible is the risk of their directive contamination by the interpreter - the risk Grünbaum is so afraid of⁶⁷.
  However, also in these cases, one can only be sure that the interpreta tion has a good degree of approximation to the unconscious motive. With this in view, Freud wrote the following sentence.⁶⁸ "I submit, therefore, that dream-interpretation should not be pursued in analytic treatment as an art for its own sake, but that its handling should be subject to those technical rules that govern the conduct of the treatment as a whole."
  Accordingly, if even in the treatment the interpretation of dreams cannot be carried out as an art in itself, a fortiori it must not be used outside the treatment, otherwise, it must be subjected to the bonds set by Freud.
  I will note again that, if Freud's theory strictly limits the extraclinical interpretation of dreams, it does not limit so the interpretation of slips and witticism, as they belong in general to that class of psychic formations only indirectly linked to the primary repressed content I discussed above.
  In this view, The Interpretation of Dreams, Psychopathology of Daily Life, and Witticism in Its Relation with the Unconscious should be considered as aetiologic examples, the legitimacy of which cannot be proved within them, but only within the psychanalytical treatment.
  Once again, Grünbaum criticism⁶⁹ appears to be groundless. In particular, one can hardly understand his support to Timpanaro's theory⁷⁰ suggesting, against Freudian theory, that slips would be due to an indefinite "tendency to effect mental economies by syntactic and stylistic banalization, coupled with the elimination of the superfluous"⁷¹ . In fact, if in the human mind a general trend to economy were not prevailing, not only would the number of slips in speeches and writings be much larger, the whole cultural production of mankind would not exist. It should be noted that Timpanaro's assumption is not unrelated at all to Freud's theory: also Freud considers a "principle of pleasure" but in the same time he is aware that it is necessary to postulate also a "principle of reality", concomitant to and conflicting with it, in order to avoid the above criticism. The problem is not only to explain how slips occur, but also why, and here the reason needs to be explained why slips, in speech, are an exception rather than a rule.
  I feel therefore that my task has been completed all the remaining objections to Freud are strictly dependent on the ones whose inconsistency I have shown. So, to use the words of Descartes, who used to entrust his page with the solution of the simplest problems "they are things for Gillot".
  The criticism of Grünbaum to other psychoanalysts does not concern me at all. Moreover, it is almost always correct : Grünbaum clearly shows us how within the psychoanalytical movement itself there is a massive trend to justify Freud with arguments that Freud would have rejected. This is one of his obvious merits.
  I must however disapprove that Grünbaum, after having proved so witty in the first part of his book, in the second part flew into some irrational kind of spite against Freud which prevailed over his sagacity. It should be noted, however, that, in his exploration of Freud's work he was not surely helped by the psychoanalysts he turned to, who are often less expert than him on the subject.
  Let this be a serious warning to the whole psychoanalytical movement which, as a whole, is no longer up to the scientific rigor of Freud since the 1940's to the 1970's psychoanalysis has been triumphant everywhere, but, almost always over the dead body of reason, and I feel that nobody can be proud of this.
  I can only hope that, urged by the crisis it has been experiencing for two decades, psychoanalysis can be renewed in the sense Jean Petitot-Cocorda has shown for a long time.⁷² "I would consider that presently psychoanaly sis should on the one hand turn into a phenomenical science (become again a metapsychology according to Freud and connect itself to the de development of the complexity, self-organization and cognitive sciences (...), on the other hand it should clearly propose again, without transcendental confusion, the issue of ethics."

Acknowledgement

  I thank Marco Guagnelli, Carlo Izzo and Miranda Mowbray for their help in discussing with me some difficult formal aspects of my argument.

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1. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, University of California Press, 1984.
2. Ibid., pp. 127-172.
3. Ibid., pp. 251-256.
4. Ibid., pp. 177-189.
5. Ibid., pp. 240-245.
6. Ibid., pp. 190-215.
7. Ibid., pp. 216-239.
8. Ibid., pp. 11, 65.
9. S. Freud, General Theory of the Neuroses, Lecture XXVIII : Analytic therapy, (1916-17), S.E., vol. XVI, pp. 448-463.
10. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., p. 138.
11. Ibid., p. 137.
12. S. Freud, General Theory of the Neuroses, Lecture XXVIII: Analytic therapy, (1916-17), o.c., p. 451.
13. Ibid., p. 453.
14. Ibid., p. 451.
15. Ibid., p. 452.
16. D.E., Adelson, L.J. Epstein, A study of Phenothiazines with male and female chronically ill schizophrenic patients, Journal of nervous and mental diseases, 1962, nr. 134, pp. 543-554.
E.M. Jr. Caffey, Experiences with large-scale interhospital cooperative research in chemotherapy, The American Journal of Psychiatry, 1961, nr. 117, pp. 713-719.
J.O. Cole, Phenothiazine treatment in acute schizophrenia, Archives of General Psychiatry, 1964, nr. 10, pp. 246-261.
17. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., p. 180.
18. Ibid., p. 186.
19. S. Freud, Five lectures on Psychoanalysis (1910a [1909], S.E., vol. II, pp. 62-63.
20. S. Freud, Constructions in Analysis, (1937d), S.E., vol. XXIII, p. 265.
21. R. Thom, Paraboles et catastrophes, Flammarion, 1983, pp. 60-61.
22. I. Stenger, La volonté de faire science: à propos de la psychanalyse, Les empêcheurs de penser en rond, 1992, p. 26.
23. It is true - as Mrs Stengers kindly explained to me - that her notion of black box is quit distinct from the current one in systems theory, or rather, it is provided with a definitely sociological valence. And yet, she cannot deny some dependence of her own conception on the latter. As a matter of fact, in her book La volonté de faire science - A propos de la psychanalyse, p. 26, we read: "Before Einstein, most of the physicists accepted the Newtonian laws of motion as a "black box" without any doubt. Obviously, they did this, considering that these formed a "systemic black box". So, I would be induced to speak not about two types of "black box" but about only one, provided of an "esoteric" (systemic) aspect and of an "essoteric" (Latour-Stengersian) one, otherwise the Stengers' sentence wouldn't make sense. As a matter of fact, it seems to indicate that the scientists were in between the "esoteric" and "essoteric" aspect, deeply convinced of the thought of the first one.
24. I. Stengers, La volonté de faire science: à propos de la psychanalyse, o.c., p. 42, p. 43.
25. That is to say, a science where the scientists do not assure the passage from its "esoteric" aspect to the "essoteric" one. This means that between them there is no agreement about the first one: undeniably a serious problem. Here is, according to me, the irresolute aspect of psychoanalysis' scientific status that Stengers, even if tactfully and with a lot of delicacy, underlines rightly. Nevertheless we can see that the reasons, - the fact that provisional agreement has not been reached on the Freudian doctrine - are mainly of a historical nature: the Nazism has blown to smithereens the structure that the European psycho-analytic movement had given to itself and this happened at the height of the theoretic debate. This has subjected the psychoanalysis to the United States' hegemony, who since then distinguished themselves by rejecting the psycho-analytic practice theoretical [metapsychological] foundations absolutely. Moreover, in the psycho-analytical movement there are clear signs that this convergence on the Freudian doctrine is slowly but definitely going to come about, especially through the young people. The preliminary agreement about the basic doctrine - or rather - about what has to be criticized, is in fact indispensable for an effective criticism.
26. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., p. 160.
27. S. Freud, Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937c), S.E., vol. XXIII, pp. 216-254.
28. S. Freud, Psychoanalysis, (1926f), S.E., vol. XX, p. 265.
29. S. Freud, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, (1926d), S.E., vol. XX, p. 154.
30. S. Freud, Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937c), S.E., vol. XXIII, pp. 522-525.
31. I. Stenger, La volonté de faire science: à propos de la psychanalyse, o.c., pp. 61-62.
32. F. Baldini, Considerazioni inattuli sul problema del termine dell'analisi, in Thelema - La psicanalisi e i suoi intorni, nr. 4, Milano, 1993, pp. 19-28.
33. S. Freud, Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis, S.E., vol. XVI, pp. 38-39.
34. S. Freud, The infantile genital organization (1923e), S.E., vol. XVI, pp. 38-39.
35. S. Freud, Finite and Infinite Analysis, (1937c), S.E., vol. XXIII, pp. 217-219.
36. S. Freud, Psychoanalysis, (1926f), S.E., o.c., p. 265.
37. In der Regel muß sich ja unsere Therapie damit begnügen, rascher, verläißlicher, mit weniger Aufwand den guten Ausgang herbeizuführen, der sich unter günstigen Verhältnissen spontan ergeben hätte. (S. Freud, Hemmung, Symptom und Angst, (1926d) G.W., XIV, p. 186.)
38. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., pp. 251-266.
39. S. Freud, Notes upon a case of obsessional neurosis, S.E., vol. 10, pp. 155-248.
40. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., p. 254.
41. For Freud, a "mixed neurosis" is a pathology built by the net of a psycho-neurosis and by an actual neurosis, for instance by obsessional neurosis and neurasthenia or by hysteria of conversion and anxiety neurosis. It is important to stress that the actual neurosis and the psychoneurosis can coexist in the same individual, exactly because they don't have the same etiology.
42. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., pp. 253-254.
43. Ibid., p. 251.
44. Or rather Freud's affirmation, according to which the epistemic correctness of the method of discrimination between the true construction and suggestion is validable intraclinically, does not influence at all the epistemic validation of the etiology of psycho-neurosis that, for Freud, has always and only been extraclinic.
45. S. Freud, Heredity and the Aetiology of the Neuroses, (1896a), S.E., vol. III, pp. 143-156.
46. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., pp. 167-170.
47. Ibid., p. 177.
48. S. Freud, An Autobiographical Study, (1925d [1924]), S.E., vol. XX, p. 29.
49. Ibid., p. 29.
50. Ibid., pp. 16-29.
51. S. Freud, An Autobiographical Study, (1925d), S.E., vol. XX, p. 27.
52. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., pp. 182-184.
53. D. Horwitz et al., Monamin oxidase inhibitors, tyamine and cheese, Journal of the American Medical Association, nr. 188, 1964, pp. 1108-1110.
54. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., pp. 180-181.
55. S. Freud, The Aetiology of Hysteria, (1896c), S.E., vol. III, p. 197.
56. Ibid., p. 197.
57. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., p. 181.
58. S. Freud, J. Breuer, On the Psychical Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena: Preliminary Communication (1893a), S.E., vol. II, p. 6.
59. S. Freud, The complete letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fließ: 1887-1902, J.M. Masson, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, 1985, p. 74.
60. F. Baldini, Considerazioni inattuli sur problema del termine dell'analisi, in Théléma - La psicanalisi e i suoi intorni, nr. 4, Milano, 1993, p. 61.
61. S. Freud, Fetishism, (1927e), S.E., vol. XXI, p. 153.
62. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., pp. 240-245.
63. S. Freud, An Autobiographical Study (1925d [1924]), S.E., vol. XX, p. 23.
64. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., p. 250.
65. S. Freud, The handling of dream-interpretation in psycho-analysis, (1911e), S.E., vol. XII, p. 93.
66. S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, (1900a), S.E., vol. IV, p. 180.
67. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., p. 210.
68. S. Freud, The handling of dream-interpretation (1911e), S.E., vol. XII, p. 94.
69. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., pp. 191-239.
70. S. Timpanaro, Il lapsus freudiano, La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 1974.
71. A. Grünbaum, The foundations of psychoanalysis - A philosophical critique, o.c., p. 198.
72. J. Petit-Cocorda, L'inconscio tra fenomenico e noumenico. Riflessioni sulla costituzione dell'ogetto in psicanalisi (colloquio con Gertrudis Van de Vijver), in Thelema - La psicanalisi e i suoi intorni, nr. 4, Milano, 1993, p. 189.

©  Les Etats Généraux de la Psychanalyse - 2001 -