Discussion of Brenner: Reflections on Psychoanalysis—Pluralism, Science, and Methodology

Psychoanalysis has certainly entered a world of pluralism. Where once the structural model reined supreme, today a wide range of diverse psychoanalytic models and theories are flourishing. Some psychoanalysts see this as a productive development, a move away from authoritarian orthodoxy toward new intellectual vistas—an opportunity to find a common ground in the many diverse models that have long been present though relatively isolated from one another—while others see it as a lack of clinical and intellectual rigor, or worse. Charles Brenner, long the champion of a scientific perspective on Freud's heritage, asks what are we to do? How are we to determine which among the many often competing and contradictory theories are valid? Not surprisingly, he tells us the issues can only be resolved scientifically. What does he mean?

To Brenner, the subject matter of science is nature, and science is best defined by impartial and questioning attitudes toward observation. Human nature (i.e., the human mind) can be studied scientifically if one maintains an impartial, questioning attitude toward the marshaling of inference and evidence with the aim of distinguishing between plausible alternative hypotheses. Science is a matter of attitude and its aim is to develop theories that are logical, rational, parsimonious, supported by the data of observation, and compatible with other accepted scientific knowledge, that is, to provide “the best