Psychoanalysis, Science or Pseudoscience?

Abstract

As much as the couch is a piece of furniture associated with television, the “divan” or Turkish couch is a piece of furniture associated with psychoanalysis. Starting at the end of the 19th century, the Austrian Sigmund Freud abandoned neurological research to develop his psychotherapy, the method that acquired such notoriety that it became an ingredient of Western popular culture, elevating its originator to the position of the most famous psychiatrist —something he never was— of all time. But his status is wrapped up in a perennial polemic: Is there any scientific evidence to support psychoanalysis? Or is it merely a pseudoscience, perhaps among the most academic of them all?