Science Confirms Psychoanalytic Theory: Commentary on Howard Shevrin's Paper

Howard Shevrin's paper has enabled me to overcome my skepticism regarding the possibility of a scientific validation of psychoanalysis. He has done so by focusing on the fundamentals of psychoanalytic theory, primarily Freud's theory of unconscious process. When I was skeptical regarding the possibility of scientific validation of psychoanalysis, I was thinking of the enormous difficulties encountered if one applies scientific methodology to the clinical setting, to the psychoanalytic process itself. What I had not considered, and what Shevrin's paper demonstrates, is that science can validate the theory of the Freudian unconscious. The theory of primary and secondary process is true whether or not Freud's contribution is acknowledged by the investigator from other disciplines. Shevrin is on the mark when he decries the artificial categories established by some cognitive scientists who separate the “cognitive” unconscious from the dynamic unconscious. As we know, at this time it is politically incorrect in some quarters to acknowledge Freud. As Shevrin notes, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who is credited with revolutionizing economic theory, makes much use of Freud's theory of the primary and secondary process. But Shevrin did not comment on the fact that Kahneman hides his indebtedness to Freud's theory of the primary and secondary process by referring instead to “System 1” and System 2.” In his review of Kahneman's book Thinking, Fast and Slow in the New York Review of Books, the distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson (2011) acknowledges Freud's contribution