ABSTRACT
Having examined a fair number of the most highly regarded empirical studies of Freudian concepts, most of them selected because they were considered by experts to reflect favourably on psychoanalytic hypotheses and theories, what is our verdict? Can we agree with Kline (1972) that ‘far too much (that is distinctively Freudian has been verified for the rejection of the whole psychoanalytic theory to be possible’? Or should we agree rather with Sears (1947) that ‘other social and psychological sciences must gain as many hypotheses and intuitions as possible from psychoanalysis but that the further analysis of psychoanalytic concepts by non-psychoanalytic techniques may be relatively fruitless so long as those concepts rest in the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis’? Or should we accept the even more far-reaching conclusion voiced by Eysenck (1972a) after a searching examination of the evidence presented in Kline's book, namely ‘that this conscientious, scholarly and well-documented summary of the most convincing evidence for Freudian theories leaves the reader little option but to conclude that if this is the best that can be offered by way of support, then the only conclusion can be that there is no evidence at all for psychoanalytic theory’. Obviously the reader is free to come to his own conclusion on the basis of the evidence here presented, but we may perhaps be allowed to put forward a number of points which may be helpful in coming to a decision.
