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Dear Sirs,
In replying to Szajnberg's comment I confine myself to five items.
Szajnberg leaves the reader in doubt as to whether he considers psychoanalysis to be a science or a belief. As he equates ‘correctness’ with ‘usefulness’, his criteria for a science are equally relevant for religious beliefs. Islam, for instance, is accurate, in its structure consistent with other beliefs, has a broad scope, is simple, is useful,
fruitful, and gives orders. Yet the crucial criterion of any science is not specifically mentioned, namely that its knowledge is—or at least attempts to be—in accord with reality. This is the criterion which distinguishes science from belief.
I agree with Szajnberg that one cannot take judgement on a theory's value by mere argumentation. However, he ignores the fact that—as Laudan (1977, p. 74) has pointed out—Kuhn fails to assess the decisive importance of conceptual problems in scientific research, and that conceptual clarity is vital in psychoanalytic research. If a theory is conceptually inconsistent—as psychoanalysis would be if it were infiltrated by attachment theory concepts—it can neither be useful nor can it inform psychoanalytic therapy or be empirically tested. Supposing there was not a consensual, conceptual definition of what is meant by ‘psychoanalytic process’, any empirical testing of the efficacy of psychoanalytic therapies would be impossible (see Gray, 2002).
Apparently, Szajnberg believes that observations are possible without any theory. Yet, prior to empirical investigation, any object of study has to be defined using categories. These categories belong to the theory used and connect the objects to be investigated in a specific manner. Otherwise we would not know what we have to look for. Or, borrowed in somewhat altered form from a famous statement of Kant: ‘Empirical investigation without theory is blind.’
Szajnberg simply trusts that, in clinical practice, some common ground for psychoanalysis and attachment theory can be fo