FREUDS TALLY ARGUMENT, PLACEBO CONTROL TREATMENTS, AND THE EVALUATIONOF PSYCHOTHERAPY

In this paper it is suggested that Freud's 'tally argument' (Grunbaum 1954) is not best interpreted as a risky claim concerning the efficacy of psychoanalytic therapy, but as a risky claim concerning the implic ations of theoretical psychoanalytic explanations of the efficacy of p sychoanalytic therapy. Despite the fact that Freud never empirically e stablished that these implications hold, the 'tally argument' does dra w attention to a critical distinction that is too often neglected in c ontemporary empirical studies of psychoanalysis and other forms of psy chotherapy: between empirical evaluations of the efficacy of psychothe rapy and empirical evaluations of theoretical explanations of the effi cacy of psychotherapy, and the different forms of comparative enquiry relevant to each. It is argued that the contemporary neglect of this c ritical distinction, in conjunction with the common negative conceptio n of placebo control treatments in psychotherapy research, has led to the epistemic impoverishment of experimental studies of the various pr ofessional psychotherapies. In consequence, although there is good emp irical evidence for the efficacy of psychoanalysis and other forms of professional psychotherapy, there is no good empirical evidence for th eoretical psychoanalytic explanations of the efficacy of psychoanalysi s, or for traditional theoretical explanations of the efficacy of othe r forms of professional psychotherapy.