On Sun, 17 Sep 2000 00:05:27 EDT JKSCHW at aol.com writes:
> In a message dated 9/16/00 2:16:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> dhenwood at panix.com writes:
>
> << Ever seen an analytically oriented shrink? Ineffective is not a
> word
> I'd use to describe the experience. >>
I suppose one can cite the case of Woody Allen as a testimonial to the effectivenss of psychoanalysis. -:)
>
> I was interested in this years ago, and have forgotten the
> references, except
> for Adolf Grunbaum's Founations of Psychoanalysis. However, I do
> recall that
> statitsical clinical studies showed pretty consistently that the
> rate of
> recovery of people teated by psychoanalysis was no greater than the
> control
> group, i.e., that there wasn't persuasive evidence that
> psychoanalysis made a
> statistically measurable difference.
As I recall it was Hans Eyesenck who first published such studies back in the late 1940s. It is said that British psychoanalysts organized pickets to protest his claims.
>I recall discuss this with one
> of my
> phil science teachers, Larry Sklar at Michigan, a very hard headed
> philosopher of physics who was also being treated by a
> psychoanalyst. He said
> that he avoided reading about that sort of thing because he thought
> it might
> have a bad effect on his own analysis. --jks
The behaviorist John B. Watson in his book *Behaviorism*, after debunking the mentalist assumptions upon which psychoanalysis is built and in general casting doubt on psychoanalysis' scientific basis, nevertheless, admitted that there situations in which he would consider consulting a psychoanalyst. Of course at the time that he wrote that book (1930s) there were not too many viable alternatives to psychoanalytic therapy.
Jim F. ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.