Readers' reactions

Last week in The THES... ...Joseph Schwartz argued that psychoanalysis merits academic and scientific attention.

David Livingstone Smith

Goldsmiths College

There can be little doubt that psychoanalysis deserves more extensive representation within academe. In spite of its often grotesque shortcomings, psychoanalysis remains the most sustained attempt to scientifically study emotional cognition and its ramifications for human life.

There is a growing interface between psychoanalytic thinking, cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. The new journal Neuropsychoanalysis is a rare forum for this sort of discussion. The near total absence of academic courses concerned with psychoanalytic science discourages potentially valuable research.