Worldmaking in the Consulting Room: Why Psychoanalysis's “Problem” Is Actually Its Promise

The longstanding debate over whether psychoanalysis constitutes a science or belongs to the humanities rests on a false dichotomy that misunderstands both knowledge creation and psychoanalysis itself. This article applies Nelson Goodman's philosophical framework of “worldmaking” and symbol systems to reconceptualize psychoanalysis as a sophisticated integration of scientific and humanistic approaches. Drawing on Goodman's analysis of how different disciplines construct rather than discover their realities, the article demonstrates that psychoanalysis employs multiple symbolic modes—from quasinotational diagnostic categories to dense metaphorical interpretations—each appropriate to different aspects of psychological complexity. The plurality of psychoanalytic schools (e.g., Freudian, Kleinian, self psychology, relational, Lacanian) represents not prescientific confusion but epistemological maturity, paralleling theoretical diversity in physics. Goodman's concept of projectibility offers a more relevant epistemic standard than Popper's falsifiability, while his irrealist stance reframes Grünbaum's contamination critique by showing all observation is theory-laden. Rather than defending psychoanalysis as failed science or retreating to pure hermeneutics, this reconceptualization positions it as a pioneering human science that models how systematic knowledge can emerge from integrating multiple ways of understanding. The implications extend beyond psychoanalysis, suggesting how human sciences generally can achieve rigor without reductionism.