... Definitions In order to discuss this question effectively, it would be useful to consider some definitions of the terms used in the title. Psychoanalysis has been defined as the form of psychotherapy that Freud created (Gross, 1999). Freud considered psychoanalysis a science from within his own contextual understanding of science; Freud based his theory of the human personality as constituted of an energy system on Helmholz's principle of the conservation of energy; that it cannot be destroyed, only transformed. Freud considered the functioning of a psychodynamic person to obey the same physical laws which "regulate the soap bubble and the movement of the planets" (Hall in Pervin, 1993: 69). However, modernacademic thought has developed since Freud's time. This essay will assume a positivist definition of science by which to judge psychoanalysis on. "According to positivist theories of knowledge, all knowledge is ultimately based on sense-experience. There cannot be different ...

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