Psychoanalysis: a creed in decline

Abstract

Psychoanalysis is in decline. Its methods disbar it from serious consideration as a natural science and its claims to therapeutic efficacy are in tatters. The role it performed earlier in the century as part of the narrative knowledge of western culture is in eclipse. Trainees in psychiatry are still, however, on occasion seduced by its faded charms, to their detriment. The time has come to relegate psychoanalysis to its proper place as a moment in the historical development of psychiatry and a ripple in 20th century western culture.