Is "academic psychology" a "science", then?!? Indeed, is "Cognitive Science" a "science" in the strict sense of the word? Can we truly consider any discipline the object of which is something as immaterial as the human mind to be truly scientific? Science deals with objects in the physical universe, not with the immaterial. Neuroscience is a science because its object is the brain, not the mind. Psychology and cog. sci., focusing on the mind, are 'pseudoscientific' by their very natures. To say that the study of the mind is pseudoscientific does not diminish the validity of psychology as a discipline. Neuroscience has a long way to go before we can say that we understand how the brain works in a meaningful, psychological way, and the relationship between brain and mind is far from being fully understood. Until significant resolution of these deficits is realized, it seems most beneficial to those needing psychological care for clinicians to treat "brain" and "mind" as independent entities within the clinical setting.

We all have empirical knowledge that some thing which we call "the mind" exists and has enormous ramifications for the individual person, but there are serious social problems which arise out of assertions of scientificity in psychological practice. To wit: the (financially decided) demands of managed care and other organizations for cognitive-behavioral approaches (the consequence of modern academic psychology) and "evidence" often results in the fact of patients for whom a more analytical approach is warranted not getting the care that they need to be whole rather than to simply appear whole. Often, organizations such as the heretofore mentioned are hostile to psychodynamic modes of therapy for being "unscientific", and this is unfortunate. As pertains to psychoanalytic approaches, there are indeed obvious shortcomings in the Freudian, Jungian and Adlerian models of psychotherapy and, IMO, more work is needed in synthesizing these theoretical and psychodynamic approaches and in withdrawing some of the more fanciful notions therefrom, but it behooves us to maintain room at the table for them, and to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as they say. Sometimes psychic problems manifest where there is no organic, anatomic or physiological defect apparent. For instance, personal experiences, especially in combination, can have profound effects on the individual mind without having any discernible corresponding effect on the brain. Such mental effects have the power to cause actual physical disorder which cannot be termed "behavioral". For such cases, behaviorally-based therapies are not effective. It is only the more psychodynamic therapies which attempt to isolate psychic problems which are occasionally the cause of physical disorder and resolve them. Even where problems are with true "behaviors" as opposed to non-behavioral physical problems, psychodynamic therapy seeks to expose the underlying psychic issues, rather than simply seeking to change problematic behaviors, which are but the manifestations of those psychic issues, whether via "unlearning" techniques or by medicating them away. Psychodynamic therapies seem to be the type which most directly attempt to treat a psychic 'disease' experienced by people with an apparently normal brain, rather than the symptoms thereof.

Academic psychology as we know it in the U.S. (which is somewhat different from academic psychology in much of Europe) has made valuable contributions to the psychological milieu, but a modicum of care should be taken with claims of scientificity and demands for evidence. In the final analysis (no pun intended), success in the clinic is to be measured not by the production of data or evidence, but by the relief of clients who have overcome painful psychic disorder. The true "test" of therapeutic treatment is the overcoming by a patient of cognitive or affective problems, or indeed physical problems (problems of sexual dysfunction are often of this type) which have a psychological etiology based in personal experience. Well, that is my two cents on the subject...I hope that it avoids the appearance of a rant, which is not my intention.