Psychoanalysis is Science or Literature?

Lee, Byung Wook

Abstract

Psychoanalysis can be considered as the condominium between the medicine and the literature, or the natural science and the human science, because it nowadays seems to be a kind of the 3rd alternative medicine. Psychoanalysis is obviously psychological therapeutic methodology for the various psychogenic mental conditions through the psychological approaches, nevertheless it has been ignored to many clinicians for the reason of the unscientific theoretical basis. But now we know that some neurologists and psychoanalysts have been cooperative to explore the so-called neurodynamics and neuro-mechanisms for the psychological phenomena in the analytic situations. Why not psychoanalysis is a science? And what is science? We are sure that our psychic world can not be easily confirmed by scientific methodology, but I think that theory without practice is empty, and practice without theory is blind. Therefore I believe that contemporary many neuro-psychoanalytic researches will show us some clues to psychoanalytic theory and techniques, but there shall be many limitations. More deeply we explore the human psyche, more we can not assure that.