Includes indexes

Bibliography: p. 287-296

Introduction: Critique of the hermeneutic conception of psychoanalytic theory and therapy -- The exegetical legend of "scientistic self-misunderstanding" -- Critique of Habermas's philosophy of psychoanalysis -- Critique of Ricoeur's philosophy of psychoanalysis -- Are repressed motives reasons but not causes of human thought and conduct? -- Critique of George S. Klein's version of hermeneutic psychoanalysis -- The collapse of the scientophobic reconstruction of Freud's theory

Part I: The clinical method of psychoanalytic investigation: pathfinder or pitfall? -- Is Freud's theory empirically testable? -- Did Freud vindicate his method of clinical investigation? -- Part II: The cornerstone of the psychoanalytic edifice: is the Freudian theory of repression well founded? -- Appraisal of Freud's arguments for the repression etiology of the psychoneuroses -- Examination of the psychoanalytic theory of slips -- of memory, the tongue, ear, and pen -- Repressed infantile wishes as instigators of all dreams: critical scrutiny of the compromise model of manifest dream content -- Appraisal of Freud's further arguments for the emergence of unadulterated repressions under "free" association -- Remarks on post-Freudian defenses of the fundamental tenets of psychoanalysis -- Can the repression etiology of psychoneurosis be tested retrospectively?

Part III: Epilogue -- The method of free association and the future appraisal of psychoanalysis -- Critique of Freud's final defense of the probative value of data from the couch: the pseudo-convergence of clinical findings -- Coda on exegetical myth-making in Karl Popper's indictment of the clinical validation of psychoanalysis