There is a challenge to psychoanalysis as a science in the concept of “sublimation”.

All sciences are based on the possibility of repeating observations or reproducing certain phenomena experimentally. Freud's theories on “repetition compulsion” and “transference” attempt to fit mental facts into a framework that will at least allow them to be observed repeatedly, in the same way as events in astronomy and all other phenomena determined by natural, predictable laws, even if they cannot be reproduced experimentally. With sublimation, on the other hand, we are treading on ground where nothing is predictable.

Cultural or artistic products are in no way predictable and resist any attempt at reproduction. Their value lies in their uniqueness, since what they communicate is a specific style of thought, which can only be imitated in its exterior, superficial aspects, through the making of “forgeries”. On the contrary, the more “imitators” scientific knowledge has, the more its status is enhanced.