Critics of the Standard Edition claim that Strachey mistranslated or distorted Freud, making him appear as a scientist. A revision or new translation has been proposed. Strachey's translation is defended on technical philological points concerning grammar, vocabulary, and style. Though the Standard Edition is not without faults, the translation has not resulted in major distortions or errors.

At the basis of much of the criticism of Strachey is an anti-scientific view of psychoanalytic theory that wants to claim psychoanalysis as one of the Geisteswissenschaften or 'human sciences'. Various passages are examined in which Freud indicated programmatically that he was developing a natural science of the mind. These passages show clearly that throughout his career he placed psychoanalysis among the Naturwissenschaften or natural sciences.