About defending or criticizing Freud?

Do you think that defending or criticising Freud's theories is a matter of dialectics (i.e. to state and defend a point, and establish which position is correct in terms of being more convincing)? Is it finally all about truth or about winning an argument by means of strategic manoeuvering? Don't we finally end up, either way (defending or criticizing Freud) by making use of rhetoric, the manipulative power of language?