ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysts have for some time comfortably debated the question of whether psychoanalysis is science or hermeneutics.The arguments on both sides have been stated clearly and frequently, and the controversy has been a useful one in helping us to understand the dimensions of psychoanalysis. However, to the extent that psychoanalysis lays claim to being a method of treatment, we are, for better or worse, drawn into the orbit of science, and we cannot then escape the obligations of empirical research.As long as we develop practitioners who are members of a profession and charge for their services, it is incumbent upon us to study what we do and how we affect our patients.As most of psychiatry has embarked on brain studies, psychoanalysts and our collaborators in the psychotherapies retain responsibility for the continuing study of mental processes.
