Qual è l’oggetto della scienza psicoanalitica attuale?

Abstract

The word “theory” has many different acceptations (five on Collins English Dictionary), which in psychoanalysis are used without any differentiation: a confusion between different epistemological levels may be created. In psychoanalysis this word is often confused with “method” or with “tecnics”, or sometimes with “discover”. This has a negative effect on psychoanalysis scientific image: every science needs a theory in its stricter meaning, to gain a social image. Such a theory has to be correctly understandable to every people. Following acknowledged epistemological criteria, the “object” of a science is determined by its specific method. Nowadays psychoanalytic clinics is quite different from Freud’s time one: the A. argues that, since method has changed, psychoanalysis object can be considered changed too. Psychoanalysis object is no longer the Unconscious, but the consciousness levels which can be succeeded by the analyst and by the patient inside their relationship. The A. underlines the importance of an epistemological correctness in formulating theories, in order to promote psychoanalysis within the general frame of all the other sciences