Looking back into the future of psychoanalysis: A second chance

Abstract

During the twentieth century took place a “battle of paradigms” involving all disciplines that inform Psychiatry and Psychology. Basically, the dispute was about the respective contribution of science and hermeneutics in disciplinary paradigms. Psychoanalysis has not been absent from this battle; it is still debated whether psychoanalysis should be considered a scientific discipline or a hermeneutic discipline. In this paper, the author reviews his 40-year career as a university professor of psychiatry and as a psychoanalyst, during which he has been a committed observer and active participant of psychoanalytic and psychiatric disputes. He reflects on how he lived this gap in Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis, and how he sees the future of Psychoanalysis under the light of new emerging epistemological frameworks.