Discussion

Engel's paper raises many important issues pertinent to the current status of psychoanalysis in this country. We are becoming increasingly aware of dissatisfaction with our position in relation to general psychology, psychiatry, and research methodology. Our failure to elicit many applications for research training since the Committee on Training for Research was established has been a matter of increasing concern within the American Psychoanalytic Association. Engel's paper not only is relevant and timely, but will hopefully prove both stimulating and provocative.

Engel addresses himself primarily to the development of analytic investigators who, whatever their personal qualifications, should be using psychoanalytic technique as a major tool of research. It is therefore understandable, though regrettable, that he fails to distinguish clearly between psychoanalysis as a specific technique and the body of knowledge which forms the subject matter of psychoanalysis as a general developmental psychology. While this distinction is in many ways implicit in his argument, it is never made explicit. Although, in addition, he underlines some of the difficulties inherent in research in psychoanalysis, he nevertheless suggests that such problems should in essence be regarded as irrelevant and unimportant. "If the technique of analysis has to be modified, or if the analyst has to use a completely different method in order to gain certain kinds of information, so be it." This statement may well be applicable to research directed toward the general theory. Here the utilization of the