ABSTRACT
The chapter summarises the epistemological processes which demarcate the sphere of psychiatry. As a clinical science, psychiatry is characterised within the field of medicine by its object—the subject and Sigmund Freud's language. This object is thus of a historical order, and cannot be reduced to the rank of an object of observation or experimentation—as is the case in the natural sciences. Even if such observations or experiments were possible, an irreducible residue subsists which—due to the action of the unconscious—divides both the patient and the physician. Hence, a clinical psychiatry cannot be conceived of as operating outside the bounds of the transference phenomenon. The two criticisms of Freud with which the author began this investigation— that Freud was neurotic and a mediocre psychiatrist—stem from a dual misapprehension. In effect, Freud is imputed to have gone outside the bounds of psychiatry whereas, in actuality, psychiatry prevented him from practising his profession.
