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<span style="text-align:center; font-size:1.4em; display:block;">'''Ruling on "Pseudoscience"'''</span>
The [[WP:ARB|Arbitration Committee]] has issued [[Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Arbitration_cases|several rulings]] on guidelines for the presentation of material that might be labeled "pseudoscience". Relevant to this article:
* '''[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Questionable_science|Questionable science]]:''' Theories which have a substantial following, such as [[psychoanalysis]], but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.
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== Lede Paragraph ==

It looks like the lede paragraph was cut down to a fraction of its original length a few months ago in [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Psychoanalysis&diff=next&oldid=1247846451 this edit] by [[User:Psychology-Interesst|Psychology-Interesst]].  I know I am a bit late here, but I thought the previous version of the lede was really excellent and am not sure what the rationale was for this change. ⇌ [[User talk:Jake Wartenberg|Jake Wartenberg]] 14:59, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

:I've restored the lede to the version from the linked revision. ⇌ [[User talk:Jake Wartenberg|Jake Wartenberg]] 16:04, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
:I think this lead is far too long. The lead should briefly summarise key points of the rest of the article, but this lead is more than 100 words longer than the lead of the article for [[humans]], one of the broadest and most important topics there is; this article's lead is not sufficiently brief at all.
:A lot of this information seems quite unnecessary to talk about with this level of specificity in the lead - e.g. Jacques Lacan and his ideas (especially in the first paragraph), the entire second half of the third paragraph (everything past the mention of transference), or the entire bracketed section of the fourth paragraph.
:It feels like the text has some flourishes that are either unnecessary or un-encyclopaedic in tone, like "all his thoughts, all secrets and dreams", or "This includes not least the fact that".
:I also don't particularly like how the tone of the text seems to accept everything in the theory as flatly true and factual, when psychoanalysis' factuality is very much questionable. [[User:Drywalling|Drywalling]] ([[User talk:Drywalling|talk]]) 11:57, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
::The fact that this article - which is literally used as an example of something that constitutes 'questionable science' - has only half of a sentence in its lead dedicated to criticism of its ideas is very bad, I feel. It's not at all presenting a balanced view on the subject, especially with how vague the criticisms are presented, and how the sentence immediately backpedals by presenting the reader with a positive of the theory (that it was influential). [[User:Drywalling|Drywalling]] ([[User talk:Drywalling|talk]]) 12:08, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
:::I agree with removing the bracketed section of the fourth paragraph, but not the stuff about Lacan or transference.  It's important to discuss how these ideas have evolved and to give an overview of the entire field/theory.  Let's think about ways that this can be trimmed down while still summarizing the whole article.
:::I added back your sentence discussing Popper's criticism.  I agree that the lede should include specific criticisms of psychoanalysis, and that it is too vague as currently written.  But, it also needs to reflect that these criticisms are controversial.  There's a link to a relevant arbitration committee ruling at the top of this page. ⇌ [[User talk:Jake Wartenberg|Jake Wartenberg]] 15:28, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

== Proposed summary for technical prose ==

I've been using Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental [[large language model]] to create summaries for the most popular articles with {{tl|Technical}} templates. This article, Psychoanalysis, has such a template above the entire article. Here is the paragraph summary at grade 5 reading level which Gemini 2.5 Pro suggested:

:Psychoanalysis is a way of thinking about the mind and helping people with problems, started by Sigmund Freud long ago. It's based on the idea that hidden thoughts and feelings we don't even know we have (called the unconscious mind), especially from childhood, affect how we act and feel. In therapy, people talk freely about their thoughts, dreams, and memories while a helper listens to understand hidden conflicts and help solve problems. While others later changed his ideas, and people today disagree if it's truly science or how well it works, psychoanalysis has still influenced how we understand the mind.

While I have read and may have made some modifications to that summary, I am not going to add it to the article because I want other editors to review, revise if appropriate, and add it instead. This is an experiment with a few dozen articles initially to see how these suggestions are received, and after a week or two, I will decide how to proceed. Thank you for your consideration. [[User:Cramulator|Cramulator]] ([[User talk:Cramulator|talk]]) 12:45, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I am retracting this and the other LLM-generated suggestions due to clear negative consensus [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)&oldid=1283927858#I_boldly_put_LLM-generated_summary_suggestions_on_the_talk_pages_of_the_68_most_popular_articles_with_Technical_templates  at the Village Pump]. I will be posting a thorough postmortem report in mid-April to the [[User:Cramulator/Summaries_source_code|source code release page]]. Thanks to all who commented on the suggestions both negatively and positively, and especially to those editors who have manually addressed the overly technical cleanup issue on six, so far, of the 68 articles where suggestions were posted. [[User:Cramulator|Cramulator]] ([[User talk:Cramulator|talk]]) 23:59, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

== The lede ==

{{ping|L'durre vital}} {{tq|"Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and techniques of research that examine the unconscious in order to integrate the discovered content into consciousness. Based on dream interpretation, psychoanalysis is also a method for the treatment of mental disorders."}} Does not follow MOS, has numerous weasel words, and text is hard to understand and "integrate the discovered content into consciousness" isn't a good description. [[User:Des Vallee|Des Vallee]] ([[User talk:Des Vallee|talk]]) 00:43, 5 May 2025 (UTC)
:{{ping|L'durre vital}} Psychoanalysis is not used in neuroscience and isn't used in that field, and it's assumptions particularly about sexuality and behavior has been used to justify things such as conversion therapy (such as human sexuality being taught). The vast majority of neuroscientists have found it's assumptions on the unconscious to be false, and it's claims about adolescent development as not reality. One source does outweigh the massive consensus of neuroscientists. [[User:Des Vallee|Des Vallee]] ([[User talk:Des Vallee|talk]]) 14:48, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
::The field of ‘neuro-psychoanalysis’ is certainly not a suitable example for the field of neurology. Since you mention the majority of neurologists (how they think about Freud) : Do you have a decent source? [[User:Wondertreetime|Wondertreetime]] ([[User talk:Wondertreetime|talk]]) 15:56, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
:::{{ping|Wondertreetime}} (Sánchez, professor of Neuroscience) {{tq|The three neuroscience journals with higher impact factor are Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Nature Neuroscience and Annual Review of Neuroscience. No article on neuropsychoanalysis has ever been published in any of the aforementioned journals. Papers on neuropsychoanalysis are rarely published in general journals of psychology or neuroscience. Works on the matter are usually found in a single journal: Neuropsychoanalysis.}} and [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17244565/ the case against neuropsychoanalysis] a peer reviewed paper providing detailed examples of it failing to be obtain results. [[User:Des Vallee|Des Vallee]] ([[User talk:Des Vallee|talk]]) 19:30, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
::::{{ping|Des Vallee}} What is ONE of the "providing detailed examples"? According to Freud, consciousness cannot be ‘explained’ from physiological contexts; he settled the mind-body problem by describing mind and body as the ‘two end points of our knowledge’, between which anything can be inserted. At least neuro-psychoanalysis should be mentioned, because it deals with mind-body problem (refered to Freud) AND have proven his neurlogical theses that imprinting takes place in specialised parts of brain, inserted this finding between the two "endpoints". --[[User:L&#39;durre vital|L&#39;durre vital]] ([[User talk:L&#39;durre vital|talk]]) 21:51, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
:::: The paper you linked promises a thorough discussion of important arguments ‘for’ and ‘against’, so this should also be included as a source in the introduction.--[[User:L&#39;durre vital|L&#39;durre vital]] ([[User talk:L&#39;durre vital|talk]]) 21:59, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
:::::The full article found that neuropsychoanalysis predictions and usefulness in neuroscience didn't align with brain function, or were not provable. Freud did not solve the [[mind-body problem]], partially because it intersects with philosophy does not have correct answer and also because papers on the subject are still written today, with other proposals. [[User:Des Vallee|Des Vallee]] ([[User talk:Des Vallee|talk]]) 22:46, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
::::The [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17244565/ case against neuropsychoanalyse] therefore aims to compile a series of arguments against this field of research in order to prevent, and ideally reverse, its increasing spread. In your opinion, what is the central argument of neurpsychoanalysis? What does the author of the paper put forward against? [[User:Wondertreetime|Wondertreetime]] ([[User talk:Wondertreetime|talk]]) 14:07, 19 May 2025 (UTC)
Since neurology has discovered areas in the brain that store experience by means of neuronal imprinting, it has proven Freud's thesis in this regard. I don't understand why you claim the opposite. --[[User:L&#39;durre vital|L&#39;durre vital]] ([[User talk:L&#39;durre vital|talk]]) 23:39, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
:Freud was not the first person to propose imprinting. moreover Freud's concept of imprinting has never been proven, the "Id," "Ego" and "Superego" has never been shown to have never been shown to have specific brain regions that activate, or tangible physiology. Imprinting wasn't first described by Freud, it was [[Konrad Lorenz]] who did so. [[User:Des Vallee|Des Vallee]] ([[User talk:Des Vallee|talk]]) 13:47, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
::‘Freud was not the first to propose imprinting.’ 
::Of course not; the concept is as old as Plato's idea of 'writing on tabula rasa'. However, Freud was the first to think about it in the context of brain neurology; his idea of ‘how’ the neurons store experience (through "a permanent change after an event") has been proven. By Lorenz you mean the imprinting experiments of the chick superego, which he undertook at Freud's suggestion. --[[User:L&#39;durre vital|L&#39;durre vital]] ([[User talk:L&#39;durre vital|talk]]) 17:43, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
:::You saying this doesn't go and show psychoanalysis has ever been accepted widely in neuroscience. Neuron activation, and neuron rewiring isn't based off permanent change, neurons are constantly rewiring and can be rewired in completely novel ways at any time, and Freud's model of the brain isn't how it is wired. The superego has never been demonstrated to exist in the brain. And Lorenz was not a psychoanalysist, nor psychologist. Unless you have sources demonstrating against this, this statement is mute. [[User:Des Vallee|Des Vallee]] ([[User talk:Des Vallee|talk]]) 22:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

''''The fact that you say this is not proof that psychoanalysis has ever been widely accepted in the neurosciences.'''' 
Of course not; neuroscientists study neurons, not dreams per fre associations. 
''''neurons are constantly rewiring and can be rewired in completely novel ways at any time''''
What you say applies to the neuronal activity of conscious thought (including the unconscious preliminary stages of processing sensory stimuli), but not, for example, to early childhood imprinting. These are hard-wired. If it were as you think, there would be no learning, no imprinting, no MEMORY. 
''''Lorenz was not a psychoanalysist, nor psychologist.'''' Right. But a connoisseur and admirer of Freud. What do you actually want? We hav no problem in the article, is'nt it?--[[User:L&#39;durre vital|L&#39;durre vital]] ([[User talk:L&#39;durre vital|talk]]) 01:55, 17 May 2025 (UTC)
:Unless you have sources that can back up psychoanalysis is used in neurology, linking isn't [[WP:DUE]]. [[User:Des Vallee|Des Vallee]] ([[User talk:Des Vallee|talk]]) 02:45, 18 May 2025 (UTC)
::Don't know any use in neurology; was never my intention. Known is that Freud was Neurologist, use findings of this kind, and had startet to create a neurological hypothese of how memory could work. But this is already documented. Ok, so far. [[User:L&#39;durre vital|L&#39;durre vital]] ([[User talk:L&#39;durre vital|talk]]) 05:35, 18 May 2025 (UTC)
:::Sources then should be shown here. [[User:Des Vallee|Des Vallee]] ([[User talk:Des Vallee|talk]]) 23:06, 21 May 2025 (UTC)