In 1950, L.R. Hubbard, which would become later the founding father of Scientology, published a book claiming to have found a new science of the human mind, superior to psychology and psychiatry, called ‘Dianetics’. These claims have been the origin of a heated controversy on the scientific status of Dianetics which continues in one form or the other until the present day. Using a social constructionist and discourse analytic approach (e.g. Potter Potter, 1996; Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Edwards & Potter, 1992) the present study analyses some instances of text related to the debate on Dianetics. In the face of the contested nature of Dianetics, it focuses on how truth claims and scientific status are constructed. In particular, it analyses in detail how factual accounts and descriptions are worked up in discourse through the rhetoric of utility, authority, heroism and novelty and the employment of rhetorical devices such as empiricist rhetoric, contingent rhetoric, category entitlement, alignment and the way in which these accounts construct Dianetics as lying within or outside the boundaries of psychology and science. Given the importance of scientific status to Psychology, and the absence of a clear demarcation between science and other bodies of knowledge, the present study joins other scholars (e.g. Lamont 2007, McKinlay & Potter, 1987) who argue for recognising the need to examine more closely the processes that lead to bodies of psychological knowledge ‘becoming’ scientific