Critical Review: Hornstein (1992) & Heather (1976)

Hornstein’s (1992) ‘The return of the repressed’ examines the effects and influences psychoanalysis had on experimental psychology. Psychologists went to countless efforts to defend their beliefs that psychology was the established science of the mind. However psychoanalysis bought a radically subjective approach in their explanations of the mind. The conflict between psychology and psychoanalysis in defining science caused much mayhem. Psychology renounced subjectivity as unscientific, whilst the analysts believed that method was not related to science. Psychoanalysis was essentially defining science through subjectivity. This meant looking into the unconscious and dealing with personal experience. In defence of this approach to studying the mind, psychologists began to restrict themselves to phenomenon that could only be studied objectively.
As the battle continued the situation began to take a slightly different approach. Two well-known psychologists began incorporating psyc...