In this essay I consider the claims concerning the epistemological status of psychoanalysis put forward by Jürgen Habermas and the criticism of those claims by Adolf Grünbaum. I argue that Grünbaum misreads Habermas. He thinks Habermas is providing a hermeneutic construal of psychoanalysis, when in fact he characterizes psychoanalysis as an emancipatory praxis. I go on to contend that (a) psychoanalysis can usefully be viewed as an emancipatory praxis, but also that (b) Habermas' epistemological categories require substantial modification. I attempt such a reformulation, and conclude by discussing a clinical example in these revised Habermasian terms.