Karl Popper's criticisms to psychoanalysis

Abstract

This article compares Popper's notion that psychoanalysis is pseudoscientific with the position that psychoanalysis, in its several branches, is a valuable and rational discipline, regardless of its scientific status. It is supported that the frame concept criteria by Popper between what is science and what is not, applied to psychoanalysis and taken as an assumption, is basically correct: psychoanalysis indeed difers from Newton's or Einstein's theories. Nevertheless, Popper's frame concept criteria is criticized due to its narrowness and extremely rigid idea of rationality. The concept of practical rationality or Aristhotelic phrónesis, is taken as the method adopted by psychoanalysis.