There are two questions about psychoanalysis. The first one has been answered pretty decisively. The second one has not been answered yet and needs to be explored much more than it has been.
1. What validity does psychoanalysis have? Answer: "[P]sychonalysis [is] a mistake that grew into an imposture." Frederick C. Crews, Preface to _Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend_, ed. Frederick Crews (New York: Viking, 1998), p. ix. 2. Why does so obvious a mistake and imposture continue to exercise so much influence on both conservative and progresive thought, particularly among humanists and the general public? Perhaps some Gibbon of the future can look back and write a six volume account of this mystery. Carrol
