The Tragedy of Psychoanalysis on Trial in the Courtroom

When reading a review in Kompas (May 29, 2026) about the risk of judges being misled through defendant personality profiles, an intellectual unease immediately grips our consciousness. We are seemingly invited to witness an epistemological trial where psychoanalysis is placed in the dock, accused of being a manipulative instrument threatening the purity of justice. Concerns about psychological narrative manipulation in courtrooms are certainly valid and warrant heightened vigilance. However, examining this line of reasoning through a clear critical psychology lens reveals a hidden irony. Attempts to prevent misinformation in courtrooms are built on a foundation of oversimplification that, essentially, risks further misleading public understanding. It is here we must address this fundamental issue clearly. Courtrooms often operate as narrative battlegrounds where truth is reduced to mere persuasive argumentation. Psychology, when forcibly dragged into this arena, is prone to being twisted into mere rhetorical tool. The fatal failure to distinguish between the true complexity of psychological science and its misuse in legal rhetoric is what causes critiques of psychoanalysis to often miss the mark and lose analytical depth. The article critiquing personality profiles fundamentally misrepresents psychoanalysis by equating it solely with Sigmund Freud. This is a historically unfounded leap. History clearly shows that since the early 20th century, classical Freudian dogma has been subjected to rigorous internal deconstruction. Karen Horney rejected sexual determinism, replacing it with a relational framework based on social anxiety. Erich Fromm integrated political-economic dimensions into character formation, while Jacques Lacan redefined the unconscious as a linguistic structure entirely distinct from archaic biological models. Viewing psychoanalysis as a monolithic, outdated relic is an epistemic reduction that blinds us to contemporary methodological advancements.