Psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience: Responding to objections to its pseudoscientific status

Abstract

In a contribution to the discussion on the problem of demarcation applied to psychology’s schools of thought, Ferreira published an article on the scientific status of psychoanalysis, which classified it as a pseudoscience. Oliveira wrote a reply to Ferreira, claiming that even though psychoanalysis is not a science, it is incorrect to classify it as a pseudoscience. In this paper we will argue that Oliveira's counter-arguments are not appropriate, and do not correspond to Ferreira's criticisms. To fulfill our objective, we divided this article into ten different items to be answered, all present in Oliveira's arguments and which can also be easily used by other psychoanalysis' enthusiasts. These items include discussions about using testability and the methodology of the natural sciences as demarcation criteria, the reliance on Popper's criterion for assessing the scientific status of psychoanalysis, the impact of theories of meaning on Hansson's demarcation, the relevance of psychoanalysis' proponents declaring that it is scientific, and more. The problems in Oliveira's arguments can be divided into two main groups: (1) by the way he represents the demarcationist theory adopted by Ferreira; and (2) by disregarding meta-theoretical questioning and criticism, which is, in fact, central to the whole debate. We believe that Oliveira was not successful in his objections to Ferreira. That means there is still good reason to consider psychoanalysis a pseudoscience.