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Adolf Grünbaum has been writing philosophical critiques of psychoanalysis as science since 1977. His two focal concerns are its epistemological status, and the validity of its therapeutic claims. He brings to these critiques a positivist stance which includes the premise of unified science (physics is the premier exemplar and ideal), and an implicit adherence to the medical model. In carrying out his program he concentrates on topics such as the formulation and testing (validating/disconfirming) of hypotheses, the rigor and logical soundness of inferences drawn from data to theory and vice versa, the soundness of causal arguments, problems associated with epistemological “contaminants” of the clinical process (suggestion, placebos, spontaneous remissions), and the design and control of properly conducted extraclinical research (epidemiological studies, randomized trials—Grünbaum, 1986, p. 228).
The new book consists primarily of edited or revised papers that were presented within a few years of the publication of his earlier book, The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984), a work which brought Grünbaum a good deal of attention, even notoriety. Nine of the ten chapters originated between 1980 and 1987; the last chapter, “two new major difficulties for Freud's theory of dreams,” first was given as a paper in 1990.
Although Grünbaum says that “over half of this Monograph is a sequel to” the earlier book (p. ix), it seems more like an elaborate appendix, in the sense that it presents mostly elaborations, revisions, or corrections to previous work. Examples are further critical points made about Freud's dream theory, hermeneutic approaches, placebo effects, Popper's critique of psychoanalysis, and