ABSTRACT
Grunbaum starts from the well-documented position that Freud always insisted that psychoanalysis has the status of a science, meaning by this a causal, explanatory system built on the model of the natural sciences rather than on the interpretive approach characteristic of hermeneutics. At the centre stands a two-fold claim attributed to Freud: that accurate analytic interpretations are distinct from suggestions, but instead map out something that is 'true' of the patient; and that psychotherapeutic successes are produced by such accurate analytic interpretations. Grunbaum outlines what he calls Freud's 'necessary condition thesis' relating to the causal properties of analytic treatment. This 'NCT' has two components: only the psychoanalytic method of interpretation and treatment can yield to the patient correct insight into the unconscious pathogens of his psychoneurosis. Then the analysand's correct insight into the aetiology of his affliction into the unconscious dynamics of his character is in turn, causally necessary for the therapeutic conquest of his neurosis.
