The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: what would it mean for psychoanalysis to count as a science?

Introduction Our first critique sets out to evaluate psychoanalysis as a normal empirical science. This means that it must demonstrate that psychoanalytic concepts and explanations can be justified by ‘experience’, typically through the measurable data which sensory experience can access. This kind of data is usually gained through observation and experiment, methods which are systematic, replicable and open to public scrutiny. The claims of empirical science are judged as valid to the extent that they are supported by the evidence yielded by these methods, and invalid to the degree that such evidence falls short.