The scientific validity of psychoanalytic theories as analyzed through Popper's falsifiability principle, Gödel's theorem, and Habermas' validity criteria

Ultimately, the goal of psychological research is to better understand the human mind and behavior, and this requires a willingness to consider a variety of perspectives and approaches.

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Summary

The unconscious, or the subconscious, is now recognized as an important part of human mental life and is being studied intensively within modern psychology. This includes research on how unconscious processes can affect our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, as well as how unconscious learning and memory work. However, it is worth noting that the modern concept of "unconscious" is not necessarily the same as the concept used by Freud and his colleagues in their psychoanalytic theories. Freud and his followers defined the unconscious as a layer of the psyche that contained unconscious desires, feelings, and experiences that had been repressed due to their unpleasant or conflict-laden nature. The modern concept of "unconscious," however, also includes processes that occur without our awareness, but that are not necessarily associated with repression or conflict.

It is also worth mentioning that Freud and his theories have been criticized by many for their lack of verifiability and inability to generate falsifiable hypotheses. This has led to psychoanalysis being largely dismissed as unscientific by many within modern psychology. Although the unconscious is now a recognized area of research within psychology, it is important to remember that this does not necessarily mean that all aspects of Freud's theories are valid or verifiable.

Psychoanalytic theories, developed by Sigmund Freud and his followers, have been rejected by many as unscientific and no longer play a central role in modern psychology. This is due in part to their inability to meet scientific criteria for validity and verifiability, such as Popper's falsifiability principle. This principle states that for a theory to be scientific, it must be falsifiable, meaning it can be tested and potentially rejected through empirical observations. Psychoanalytic theories have, however, proven difficult to falsify and have not been able to generate hypotheses that can be verified or rejected through objective observation and testing.

It is worth noting that Popper's falsifiability principle has also been criticized for its limitations and oversimplifications. For example, it has been argued that the principle does not adequately account for the complexity and diversity of scientific theories and practices, and that it may be overly restrictive in its requirement for strict falsifiability (Lakatos, 1970). Additionally, some have pointed out that the principle does not necessarily reflect the actual process of scientific discovery, which often involves the testing and revision of hypotheses rather than their strict falsification (Laudan, 1977).

Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which states that any formal system that is powerful enough to represent arithmetic truths cannot be complete or consistent, has also been discussed in relation to psychoanalysis theories and their potential limitations. The theorem suggests that there may be certain truths that cannot be fully understood or proven within a given system or framework. This may be relevant to psychoanalysis theories, as they often rely on subjective interpretation and may not be able to fully capture the complexity of human experience.

Habermas' validity criteria, which state that scientific theory must be logically consistent, have theoretical generalizability, and be verifiable through empirical observation, can also be applied to psychoanalysis theories and other theories within psychology. These criteria can help in evaluating whether a theory is scientific or not. American philosopher Ken Wilber has built upon Habermas' validity criteria, and this formed the philosophical backbone of his Integral Theory, which aims to provide a comprehensive framework for understanding the human experience and integrating various approaches and disciplines.

In conclusion, while the unconscious is now recognized as a valid area of study within psychology, psychoanalysis theories developed by Freud and his followers have largely been rejected as unscientific due to their inability to meet scientific criteria for validity and verifiability, such as Popper's falsifiability principle and Habermas' validity criteria. Gödel's incompleteness theorem may also be relevant in considering the limitations of psychoanalysis theories and their reliance on subjective interpretation. However, it is important to note that this does not necessarily mean that all aspects of Freud's theories are invalid or that the unconscious is not a valuable area of study within psychology. In fact, to my mind, psychoanalysis, especially the so-called British object relation theoreticians, is a significant contribution to Western psychology; a contribution at the level of other psychological traditions such as Buddhism, Sufism, and Kabbalah.

The scientific validity of psychoanalytic theories as analyzed through Popper's falsifiability principle, Gödel's theorem, and Habermas' validity criteria

Keith Stanovich, textbook author and professor at the University of Toronto, begins his book How to Think Straight About Psychology with a chapter called "The Freud Problem" (Stanovich, 2007) in which he emphasizes that Freud and celebrity psychologists largely define the general public's perception of psychological research and practice. It is worth noting that a trend in many sciences is that people generally do not keep up with the results that are published: "Both in mathematics and astronomy, research reports had ceased already in antiquity to be intelligible to a generally educated audience" (Kuhn, 1996, p. 20). Psychology, on the other hand, is a field that most people have some degree of implicit knowledge about: psychology is something that most people think they know something about, which may in turn reinforce the gap between the empirical research being done in psychology and the general perception of psychology (Stanovich, 2007). Psychoanalytic theories once played a central role in psychology but have since been marginalized (Bornstein, 2005, p. 323) and rejected as unscientific (Popper, 1988; Popper, 1992; Cioffi, 1970; Eysenck, 1972; Stanovich, 2007; Teigen, 2004): "There is literally nothing to be said, scientifically or therapeutically, to the advantage of the entire Freudian system or any of its component dogmas" (Crews, 1996, p. 63). It is therefore not surprising that "the common wisdom among psychoanalysts these days is that if a patient asks you if you are 'a Freudian', the correct answer is 'no'" (Levy & Ablon, 2009, p. vii). Perhaps based on a somewhat incorrect reading of Sir Karl Popper (Popper, 1988; Popper, 1992), psychoanalytic theories have been rejected as pure fiction:

"Torrey (1992) concluded his overview of the scientific status of psychoanalysis with an even more dramatic statement: that psychoanalysis has to be situated 'on precisely the same scientific plane as the theory regarding the Loch Ness monster' (p. 221)." (Luyten, Blatt & Corveylen, 2006, p. 574.)

Although a comparison between Freud and the Loch Ness monster is only likely to have philosophical validity within a system where theory is independent of empirical evidence, such as within Quine's system (Quine, 1951), Popper's falsifiability principle is not necessarily the final word on what science is and should do. Popper's falsifiability principle

For Popper, theories are solely "guesses guided by the unscientific" (Popper, 1959, p. 278), and Einstein's theory of general relativity (1915) is therefore an ideally conducted science because its "wild guesses" about light bending around gravitational objects (later the basis for the hypothesis of black holes) could be tested by Arthur Eddington (the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919) after the theory was proposed. For Popper, empirical evidence is "irrelevant to the logical analysis of scientific knowledge" (Popper, 1959, p. 31). Thus, Popper tends to describe theories as "guesses about the structure of the world" (C.R., p. q5), and answers the question "How do we jump from an observation statement to a good theory?"—"... by jumping first to any theory and testing it, to find whether it is good or not" (C.R., p. 55). (Cosin, Freeman & Freeman, 1971, p. 125.)

One reason this may not necessarily be the answer to what is scientific is that empiricism/observation is theory-laden: "Scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before" (Kuhn, 1996, p. 111). Wittgenstein wrote that language was the limit of his world (Wittgenstein, 1999, p. 82)—an interesting parallel to Lee Whorf's hypothesis of linguistic relativity, which specifically means that language influences our experience of the world, and therefore the world itself in a way (Passer & Smith, 2008, p. 305). This idea is also central to Kuhn: "Another introduced me to B. L. Whorf's speculations about the effect of language on the world view" (Kuhn, 1996, p. viii). The falsifiability principle itself can also be brought into doubt, something Popper mentions: "This criterion of demarcation—the criterion of testability, or falsifiability, or refutability—is far from obvious" (Popper, 1988, p. 10). A hypothesis that there is a gold ball in the universe with a diameter of a kilometer probably cannot be falsified with a finite number of observations. The reason for this may be, as will be argued below, an implicit logical flaw in any logical system (Gödel, 1986). Aristotle's third logical law (A ≠ A + B) says that every claim is either true or not true, but when we are faced with infinity, there are some statements that are neither true nor false:

Its main tenet is that our reasoning about the infinite sequence needed to define real numbers "cannot be presumed to obey the law of the excluded middle [Aristotle's III. law]. We know that the arithmetic of infinites is unlike that for finite numbers, e.g., x + 1 = x is false when x is finite, but true when x is infinite. (Hoeflin, 2004, p. 101.)

If we were to consistently apply Popper's method, at least as it is often interpreted, physics' string theory, large parts of mathematics—Wittgenstein, for example, thought that the discovery of new decimals in an irrational number is an extension of mathematics itself (Wright, 1980, p. 145)—almost all social science and all interpretations (for example of a musical or literary work) must be dismissed as unscientific. It is therefore important to note that Popper believes scientificness comes in different degrees. A theory is not worthless even if it is unscientific (unfalsifiable), on the contrary, Popper believes that, for example, Freud's theories are very valuable:

The purpose of this section is to show, by analyzing a famous case, that the problem of demarcation is not merely of classifying theories into scientific and non-scientific ones, but its solution is urgently needed for a critical appraisal of scientific theories, or allegedly scientific theories. I have selected for this purpose Freud's great work, The Interpretation of Dreams, for two reasons. First, because my attempts to analyze its arguments played a considerable part in the development of my views on demarcation. Secondly, because, in spite of severe shortcomings, some of which I shall try to expose here, it contains, beyond any reasonable doubt, a great discovery. I at least feel convinced that there is a world of the unconscious, and that Freud's analyses of dreams given in his book are fundamentally correct, though no doubt incomplete (as Freud himself makes clear) and, necessarily, somewhat lopsided. (Popper, 1992, pp. 163-164).

Stanovich also writes that Freudian psychoanalysis today plays a larger role in literature than in modern psychology (Stanovich, 2007, p. 23): "His [Freud's] conceptions are so magnificent in their indefiniteness that they have begun to merge with our culture, and indeed now form the only Western mythology that contemporary intellectuals have in common" (Bloom, 1986, p. 2). Literary critic Harold Bloom believes that Freud is a literary figure on par with the modernist giants Proust, Joyce, and Kafka (Bloom, 1996, p. 12), and that he will be remembered as an essayist and not as the "founder of a therapy that is already discredited (or elevated) as just one more episode in the long history of shamanism" (ibid.). This may be a criticism based on Popper's theories and academic psychology, but it appears to be out of sync with empirical data from psychological process research.

The divide between theory and practice

This view of Freud as a great myth maker (Wittgenstein, 1987; Bloom, 1986; Sluga & Stern, 2006, p. 14) is widespread (Mitchell & Black, 1995, p. xix), and it is interesting to see how, for example, the idea of the subconscious spreads to new cultures (ibid.):

"It has become clear that the sphere of the subconscious is an immense source of reserves of the human psyche," one of the psychiatrists, Dr. Ivan Belkin, wrote, extolling the value of Freudian psychoanalytic theory in the June 1 issue of Literaturnaya Gazeta. (Barringer, 1989, p. 1.)

The criticism of psychoanalytic theories is based on the lack of empirical support, which among other things has its roots in Popper's rejection of Freud as unscientific, as his theories (and their derivatives) cannot be falsified (Stanovich, 2007, pp. 20-24; Crews, 1996; Eysenck, 1972):

From a scientific point of view, classical Freudian psychoanalysis is dead both as a theory of the mind and a mode of therapy. . . . No empirical evidence supports any specific proposition of psychoanalytic theory. (Kihlstrom, 1999, p. 376.)

This complete rejection of all psychoanalytic theories as unscientific may appear to be an oxymoron with, for example, Rosenzweig's famous hypothesis that all forms of therapy are equally effective as long as they are used competently ("At last the Dodo said, ‘Everybody has won and all must have prizes’ […] “all methods of therapy when competently used are equally successful” (Rosenzweig, 1936, pp. 412-13)), which has been confirmed in numerous studies (Passer & Smith, 2008, p. 605): "The Dodo bird conjecture has survived many tests and must be considered ‘true’ until such time as sufficient evidence for its rejection are produced" (Wampold, 2001, p. 118). This provides some empirical support for the hypothesis that psychoanalytic treatment is as effective as other forms of therapy, which there seems to be widespread agreement on (Bateman & Fonagy 2004; Gabbard, Gunderson & Fonagy 2002; Leichsenring, Rabung & Leibing 2004; Shedler, 2010; Luyten, Blatt & Corveylen, 2006; Wampold, 2001; Levy & Ablon, 2009), and which at least partially addresses the need for empirical evidence within psychodynamic therapy: "It is crucial to respond to the demands of a society that will not forever allow us to practice clinical psychoanalysis without evidence of its efficacy" (Bornstein, 2001, p. 17). Even though psychodynamic theories play a relatively large role in therapy, theories are still rejected as unscientific within much of academia.

Although the majority of clinicians report that they rely to some degree upon psychodynamic principles in their work (Pope, Tabachnick, & Keith-Spiegel, 1987), most researchers consider psychodynamic ideas to be at worst absurd and obsolete and at best irrelevant or of little scientific interest. (Westen, 1998, p. 333.)

The significance of Freud's theories for humanity's psychological fiction and the position of psychodynamic therapy on the one hand, and the rejection of psychodynamic theories as unscientific on the other, both point to a divide between psychological theory and practice and an interesting paradox:

Psychoanalysis remains a paradox—one of the 20th century's great intellectual achievements and at the same time one of its most resounding scientific failures. The failure, though, has less to do with the theory itself than with how psychoanalysts have mismanaged Freud's ideas. (Bornstein, 2001, p. 17.)

One possible reason for this is that modern psychologists do not primarily relate to Freud and his original psychoanalysis, but rather to the development of psychodynamic theories by Mahler, Erikson, Bowlby, Jung, Fairbairn, Kohut, Kernberg, Winnicott, Sullivan, Klein, Loewald, Bion, Lacan, Guntrip, Jacobson and Horney (Mitchel & Black, 1995), a view supported by several others:

Undergraduate textbooks too often equate psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapies with some of the more outlandish and inaccessible speculations made by Sigmund Freud roughly a century ago, rarely presenting mainstream psychodynamic concepts as understood and practiced today. (Shedler, 2010, p. 98.)

Even though this divide between theory and practice is actually a philosophical impossibility in science (Hillestad, 2007, p. 229), there may not be a reason for such a bleak assessment of research as some theoretical scientists have presented: Scientists are not paid to find the truth, but to exercise power: "The scientific language game becomes a game for the rich, where the one with the most money has the greatest chance of being right. This equates wealth, efficiency and truth" (Lyotard, 1984; Kvale, 2009, p. 260), but psychodynamic theories are much more than Freud's psychoanalysis, even though many of the concepts of Freud's successors are also unfalsifiable. The foundation for Fairbairn's object relations theory, for example, is the innate ability of humans to develop their ego— the ego/personality is not an outer layer on top of animalistic drives. We start life as an existing psychological whole, no matter how primitive it may be: "Fairbairn believed that we must be primarily aware of the fundamental dynamic wholeness of the human being as a person, which is the most important natural human characteristic" (Guntrip, 1973, p. 93). This is a type of claim that is probably impossible to observe empirically (Stanovich, 2007), which object relations theorists also point out themselves (Mahler, 1975, p. 224; Stern, 1985, p. 248). Popper's rejection of Freud's theories as unfalsifiable does not mean that these theories are worthless:

"At the same time I realized that such myths may be developed, and become testable; that historically speaking all – or very nearly all – scientific theories originate from myths, and that a myth may contain important anticipations of scientific theories. Examples are Empedocles' theory of evolution by trial and error, or Parmenides' myth of the unchanging block universe in which nothing ever happens and which, if we add another dimension, becomes Einstein's block universe (in which, too, nothing ever happens, since everything is, four-dimensionally speaking, determined and laid down from the beginning). I thus felt that if a theory is found to be nonscientific, or 'metaphysical' (as we might say), it is not thereby found to be unimportant, or insignificant, or 'meaningless', or 'nonsensical'. But it cannot claim to be backed by empirical evidence in the scientific sense – although it may easily be, in some genetic sense, the 'result of observation'. (Popper, 1988, p. 9.)

One example of how some of Freud's myths have gained empirical support in modern experiments is the research on "the unconscious."

The Unconscious

"After 100 years of neglect, suspicion, and frustration, unconscious processes have now taken a firm hold on the collective mind of psychologists" (Kihlstrom, Barnhardt, Tataryn, 1992, p. 788; LeDoux, 2002), a view that is now consensus (Greenwald, 1992):

Now, almost a century after Freud's pioneer theorizing (Breuer & Freud, 1895/1955; Freud, 1900/1961), recently developed research methods have at last made unconscious cognition a routine subject of laboratory investigation. (Greenwald, 1992, p. 766.)

Teigen (2004) points out that it often seems strange when old concepts are applied to new areas, which the creator of the term did not know about, and this is a possible objection to using modern research on the unconscious as empirical evidence for psychodynamic theories:

More important, the psychological unconscious documented by latter-day scientific psychology is quite different from what Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic colleagues had in mind in fin de siècle Vienna. (Kihlstrom, Barnhardt, Tataryn, 1992, p. 789.)"

Stanovich emphasizes that modern psychology is so differentiated that it is impossible to find general guidelines for integrating the fields and research literature within the various subdomains (Stanovich, 2007, pp. 4-6), and this probably also applies here. A discussion of whether the modern unconscious is the same as Freud's unconscious quickly becomes unproductive because it soon ends in a dialectic between essentialism and operationalism (Stanovich, 2007, pp. 35-52): For example, Descartes found it meaningless to have a descriptive theory of gravity (Newton) that did not define what gravity was. Kuhn believes that scientific theories must be judged and understood in their contemporary context: "Rather than seeking the permanent contributions of an older science to our present vantage, they attempt to display the historical integrity of that science in its own time" (Kuhn, 1996, p. 3). This can just as easily be used in defense of Freud, as researchers such as Loftus (LeDoux, 2002, p. 203) have criticized Freud's idea of repression based on current validity criteria. Freud was originally a pioneer in neuron research (Gazzaniga, Ivry & Mangun, 2009, p. 10; LeDoux, 2002, p. 38), but he felt that this would not go far enough, and later turned to testing his theories with clinical observations (case studies) that he believed were the best empirical method. Freud was against experimental setups because he believed that the complexity of reality could not be revealed in this way (Passer & Smith, 2008, p. 462; Grünbaum, 1992, p. 384; MacKinnon & Dukes, 1964, pp. 702-703; Stanovich, 2007, p. 2). Loftus' criticism does not take this into account, and it is also little known that Freud himself rejected his own theory of repression: "In his later writings, Freud himself rejected the mechanism of repression, concluding that he had pressured his patients into fantasies" (Ofshe & Watters, 1996; Ruscio, 2006, p. 186). Regardless of what is meant by the term unconscious (which can just as easily be attributed to Helmholtz), there is solid empirical evidence supporting the existence of unconscious functions (Libet, Gleason, Wright & Pearl, 1983; Reber, 1967; Reber, 1989; Reber & Allen, 1978), for example, some implicit learning has been found under anesthesia (Kihlstrom, Schacter, Cork, Hurt & Behr, 1990, p. 303, Penrose, 1989, p. 524): "In other words, they showed some implicit memory for the words even though they were anaesthetized while receiving them" (Braisby & Gellatly, 2005, p. 559).

Gödel and the incompleteness of logic

One way to further highlight the problem with the falsification criterion used to validate scientific theories is that the ultimate source of knowledge, mathematics (Wigner, 1960), has itself proven that it will always contain an infinite number of true statements that cannot be proved, and an infinite number of false statements that can be proved (Gödel, 1986): "When we convince ourselves of the validity of Godel's theorem we not only 'see' it, but by so doing we reveal the very non-algorithmic nature of the 'seeing process itself'" (Penrose, 1989, p. 541). Therefore, according to mathematics, it is impossible to formulate a set of rules (hypothesis/theory) that can explain all observations this theory attempts to encompass, since within any such system there will be phenomena that by definition of this system cannot be proved, but still be valid, and vice versa:

Some people will be very disappointed if there is not an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles. I used to belong to that camp, but I have changed my mind. I'm now glad that our search for understanding will never come to an end, and that we will always have the challenge of new discovery. Without it, we would stagnate. Gödel's theorem ensured there would always be a job for mathematicians. (Hawking, 2002.)

In quantum mechanics, the double-slit experiment (where it has been shown that quantum particles form interference patterns even when they are sent individually through a double-slit with up to a day's interval between them— a phenomenon that further collapses when the experiment is observed) creates the same type of paradox, which has led to speculation that consciousness itself collapses the wave function (Wigner, 1961), something that Oxford Professor Sir Roger Penrose is not enthusiastic about (Penrose, 1989, p. 381). However, some empirical evidence has been found for the hypothesis (Bierman, 2003), and Penrose himself believes that Kurt Gödel, known to be one of Einstein's best friends, also Einstein himself has expressed what happened to him when he tried to define theories mathematically within his system:

"The simpler and more fundamental our assumptions become, the more intricate is our mathematical tool of reasoning; the way from theory to observation becomes longer, more subtle, more complicated. Although it sounds paradoxical, we could say: Modern physics is simpler than the old physics and seems, therefore, more difficult and intricate. The simpler our picture of the external world and the more facts it embraces, the stronger it reflects in our minds the harmony of the universe." (Einstein & Leopold, 1967, p. 213.)

Both the double-slit experiment and Gödel's theorem also point to another weakness in the Aristotelian/Cartesian duality— either A or B is not always true, as we also saw in the example of Aristotle's third law. Descartes' cogito argument can be criticized in much the same way. Gregory Bateson points out that the argument does not distinguish between thinking and being at different levels, and as a result it is unclear what thinking and being mean at all, thereby disguising the gap between different logical levels.

In the argument, the first algorithm (algorithm 1) appears as the thinking about which something is said. However, since every thinking is a thinking about something, this algorithm implies the existence of another algorithm (algorithm 0) of even lower order, or at least previous algorithmic steps at a lower level of being. The cogito argument itself, however, is a relationship between algorithm 1 and another relatum— "I am"— and thus expresses another algorithm (algorithm 2) of a higher order. (Johansen 2008: 241.)

As Popper's scientificity comes in various degrees (Popper, 1959), this insight is already implemented in his theory of science, but the application of Popper's theories often does not take this into account, which in turn easily leads to an uncritical devaluation of valuable theories.
Habermas's three distinct validity criteria

By being aware of the fundamental validity criteria Jürgen Habermas proposes, some conflicts within psychology can possibly be avoided, and also lead to increased awareness of what the research actually tells us, and not least the timeless Socratic insight: what it does not tell us. Habermas introduces three different truth criteria depending on whether we are talking about objective truth (it), subjective sincerity (I) or intersubjective justness (we). Habermas applies this differential epistemological approach to psychoanalytic perspectives by distinguishing between general theories (it) and general interpretations (I):

When valid, [general] theories hold for all who can adopt the position of the inquiring subject. When valid, general interpretations hold for the inquiring subject and all who can adopt its position only to the degree that those who are made the object of individual interpretations know and recognize themselves in these interpretations. (Habermas, 1994, s. 261–262.)

Habermas builds on Kant's threefold critique of the self-, object-, and intersubjective domains, and argues that Popper's falsifiability principle only applies to the object domain. Therefore, psychoanalytic theories can only be judged based on the extent to which individuals recognize themselves in the interpretations of the theory (self domain). By calling Freud unscientific, Popper eliminates psychoanalysis from the object domain. However, according to Habermas' theory, this is not interesting, as Freud does not belong to this domain in the first place. This argument has also been strongly criticized, as it goes against Freud's own intentions and claims:

What then is the merit of the reproach by Habermas and Ricoeur that Freud fell prey to a “scientistic self-misunderstanding”? I submit that it was not Freud, but these hermeneuticians themselves, who forced the clinical theory of psychoanalysis onto the Procrustean bed of a philosophical ideology demonstrably alien to it. For, as I have argued, they first trumped up a mythic exegesis of his own perennial notion of scientificity, and then used an ante-diluvian paradigm of the natural sciences to boot. So much for the unjustified demand of the hermeneuticians that we abjure the very standards of validation by which Freud himself wanted his theory to be judged. (Grünbaum, 1992, s. 373.)

In yet, the self-domain must also have a place as a valid epistemological methodology, otherwise there will be no room for interpretations, which is completely necessary for a number of knowledge domains. Habermas' theory of knowledge may seem to be more in line with current empirical and practice in psychology than Popper's falsification principle. There have also been fundamental questions raised about what Popper actually means when he says that Freud's theories are not falsifiable:

Freud’s etiology of paranoia postulates that repressed homosexual love is causally necessary for being afflicted by paranoid delusions (S.E. 1915, 14:265–266). And when the pathogenically required intensity of repression exists, it is largely engendered by the strong social taboo on homosexuality. Thus, the detailed pathogenesis of paranoia envisioned by Freud warrants the following prediction: a significant decline in the social sanctions against this atypical sexual orientation should issue in a marked decrease in the incidence of paranoia. Incidentally, this prediction alone refutes Karl Popper’s claim that psychoanalytic theory is not testable. (Grünbaum, 1992, s. 372–373.)

This again provides a basis for returning to the empirical research that has examined the predictions of psychoanalysis, without using Popper to claim that it is impossible. Over time, this may potentially reduce the gap between theory and practice in psychological work.

Conclusion

Poppers falsification principle is often used to dismiss psychoanalysis as unscientific. This is itself criticism-worthy as the falsification principle itself is an insufficient differential epistemological foundation. Poppers distinction between scientific and unscientific is graded, and theories are not necessarily valueless just because they are unscientific. It is also not certain that Freuds theories are unfalsifiable, as we see for example in studies of unconscious processes. The criticism of psychoanalytic theory as unscientific often targets Freuds writings specifically, and not the large and diverse psychodynamic literature in general, and these cannot necessarily be equated. There is within psychology a large gap between theory and practice, between academia and therapeutic work. Gödels theorem tells us that within any system there will always be an infinite number of true statements that cannot be proved, and an infinite number of false statements that can be proved. This can be used as an argument against the validity of the falsification principle. Popper also maintains that empiricism and theory are independent of each other, something that Kuhn has strongly criticized. Habermas's three validity criteria provide more awareness of which knowledge domains different theories must be understood within, but the application of this hermeneutic philosophy to Freud has been criticized as an attempt to save Freud from himself. According to a broad interpretation of Gödels theorem, it could be assumed that parts of psychoanalytic theories are true but cannot be proved, which could explain the gap between theory and practice. However, there is no reason not to continue building up the empirical literature, and this in itself is a rejection of Popper, who initially believes this will be impossible.

Norwegian summary

Det ubevisste, eller det underbevisste, er nå anerkjent som en viktig del av menneskets mentale liv og at det blir studert intensivt innen moderne psykologi. Dette omfatter forskning på hvordan ubevisste prosesser kan påvirke våre tanker, følelser og atferd, samt hvordan ubevisst læring og hukommelse fungerer. Det er imidlertid verdt å nevne at det moderne begrepet "ubevisst" ikke nødvendigvis er det samme som det begrepet Freud og hans kolleger brukte i sine psykoanalytiske teorier. Freud og hans etterfølgere definerte det ubevisste som et lag av menneskets psyke som inneholdt ubevisste ønsker, følelser og erfaringer som var blitt fortrengt på grunn av deres ubehagelige eller konfliktfylte karakter. Det moderne begrepet "ubevisst" omfatter imidlertid også prosesser som skjer uten at vi er klar over dem, men som ikke nødvendigvis er forbundet med fortrengning eller konflikt.

Det er også verdt å nevne at Freud og hans teorier har blitt kritisert av mange for mangelen på verifiserbarhet og den manglende evnen til å generere falsifiserbare hypoteser. Dette har ført til at psykoanalytiske teorier i stor grad har blitt avskrevet som uvitenskapelige av mange innenfor moderne psykologi. Selv om det ubevisste nå er et anerkjent område av forskning innen psykologi, er det derfor viktig å huske at dette ikke nødvendigvis betyr at alle aspekter av Freuds teorier er gyldige eller verifiserbare.

1. What does the argument in the text refer to as the first algorithm?
   A) Algorithm 0
   B) Algorithm 1
   C) Algorithm 2
   D) None of the above

2. According to the text, how many distinct validitetskriterier does Habermas introduce?
   A) 1
   B) 2
   C) 3
   D) 4

3. According to the text, what does Popper's falsification principle only apply to?
   A) The "I" domain
   B) The "we" domain
   C) The "it" domain
   D) None of the above

4. What has the application of Popper's theories often failed to take into account?
   A) The fact that scientificity comes in different degrees
   B) The fact that Freud's theories are unfalsifiable
   C) The fact that empirical and theoretical knowledge are independent of each other
   D) The fact that Freud's theories belong to the "it" domain

5. How has Habermas' hermeneutic philosophy been criticized when applied to Freud?
   A) It is a misguided attempt to save Freud from himself
   B) It is a misguided attempt to save Freud from Popper
   C) It is a misguided attempt to save Freud from Habermas
   D) It is a misguided attempt to save Freud from Freud

6. According to Gödel's theorem, within any system, what will always exist in an infinite number?
   A) True statements that can be proved
   B) False statements that can be proved
   C) True statements that cannot be proved
   D) False statements that cannot be proved

7. Who has criticized Popper's view that empirical and theoretical knowledge are independent of each other?
   A) Jürgen Habermas
   B) Thomas Kuhn
   C) Søren Kierkegaard
   D) Immanuel Kant

8. What is the main reason for the criticism of psychoanalysis as unscientific?
   A) Its reliance on interpretation and subjectivity
   B) Its lack of predictive power
   C) Its reliance on Freud's writings specifically
   D) Its lack of falsifiability

9. What is the main reason for the divide between theory and practice in psychology, according to the text?
   A) Popper's falsification principle
   B) Freud's theories being unfalsifiable
   C) Gödel's theorem
   D) The lack of consensus on the validity of psychoanalysis

10. What is the main reason for building up the empirical literature on psychoanalysis, according to the text?
    A) To prove Popper wrong
    B) To prove Freud right
    C) To prove Gödel right
    D) To prove Habermas right

Correct answers