The Psychoanalyst’s Aversion to Proof
A clear and engaging call-to-arms to Freudians everywhere and a fresh diagnosis of the major problem confronting psychoanalysis today, The Psychoanalyst’s Aversion to Proof presents exciting new ideas that could help psychoanalysis reclaim its eminent place among the mental sciences. By showing how and why Freudians have avoided proving their theories, The Psychoanalyst’s Aversion to Proof charts a new future of growth and engagement in which psychoanalysis fulfills its promise: to rescue humanity from its own irrationality.
“An important, serious and timely treatment of the major problem confronting psychoanalysis today, The Psychoanalyst’s Aversion to Proof could help determine the future direction of American psychiatry and mental science. The book is compellingly readable and direct but simultaneously scholarly and edifying — impeccably well researched in relation to the historical facts it reviews and the philosophical arguments it marshals — and it culminates in impressively realistic conclusions and practical recommendations.”
“This ground-breaking book is one of the most creative and valuable contributions to psychoanalysis’s epistemology. Ratner’s bold thesis, that Freud and the entire psychoanalytic community had a genuine aversion to proving psychoanalytic ideas, opens new ways of understanding the obstacles of transmitting psychoanalytic knowledge to the public. The Psychoanalyst’s Aversion to Proof convincingly demonstrates in fresh and systematic ways that validating psychoanalysis for the world is possible if analysts can recover their sense of optimism, curiosity, and ambition. This book is a remarkable achievement of profound scholarship that should be read by every clinician.”
“In this perspicacious and important book, Austin Ratner gives psychoanalysis a wake-up call. Just like Freud who was ambivalent about facing his public critics and justifying the scientific validity of his theories, psychoanalysis as a discipline has unfortunately adopted an avoidant and dismissive resistance to having to defend its viability as a human science and offer proof to skeptical audiences. This lingering institutional attitude of mistrust and indifference to public opinion has contributed to obduracy, insularity, and hubris that threatens the significance and status of the discipline. Ratner challenges us to lift our heads out of the sand, join the game, and begin to offer proof in order to reclaim our relevance today.”