What is True in Psychoanalysis? (Discussion)

Daniela de Robertis and Maria Luisa Tricoli in their paper (1) discuss an intriguing question: “What is the criterion of truth in analysis?” As I understand the paper the authors put forward the claim that the widely held correspondence theory of truth is not applicable to psychoanalysis. They suggest that we replace it with phenomenologically based hermeneutics. Also, they seem to think, that when Freud rejected the seduction theory, he should have been logically obliged to reject his “positivist” adherence to the correspondence theory of truth as incompatible with his theory of an inner and an external world. Apart from my view that these two assumptions are patently false, I still find the paper stimulating reading. Although I am not convinced by the author's view that hermeneutic interpretations could not be true in the sense in which the correspondence theory defines “truth”, de Robertis' and Tricoli's paper still urged me to scrutinize my own standpoint concerning truth in my clinical work. I ended up with thoughts which differ to some extent from those expressed by the authors of the paper. Below is a short presentation of my approach to truth in psychoanalytic treatment.

It seems to me that in psychoanalytical work two philosophical theories of truth supplement yet, on occassions, compete with each other. The correspondence theory affirms that a statement about a matter which corresponds to that matter is true. The theory of coherence, again, affirms that a statement is true if it is consistent in its whole and significant in terms of its parts.

When analysands tell me about experiences and events in their life histories, my point of departure in judging the truth of what they tell me is correspondence. I listen in a trustful way to the words of my patients, believing that their experience of the external world corresponds to reality: whatever reality may be, a reality which human beings could largely agree upon. However, analytic treatment would be pointless