Psychoanalysis between Science and Reality: Requirements for a Scientific Discussion

This article proposes to set the classical debate between the sciences of the mind and psychoanalysis starting from a definition of the later as an interpersonal method or praxis, rather than as a general theory of the psychic or of the mind which would be comparable (or incomparable!) to contemporary psychological theories. Correlatively, it suggests that the main stumbling block in the debate is not the scientificity or not of psychoanalysis, but the belief of scientists in its reality. Indeed, access to the reality of the psychoanalytical object, i.e. its process as it appears in practice, remains today still dependent on the personal experience of the psychoanalytical situation, and is otherwise reduced only to the testimony of those who have had this experience. Another way of accessing this object, a way of acknowledging its reality and study, is therefore necessary to really open the debate between psychoanalysis and science. It is a methodological challenge for the sciences as much as an ethical and technical challenge for psychoanalysis.