Research to the Rescue? Introduction to a Discussion

Ever since Freud posited clinical psychoanalysis as a mode of research, psychoanalysts have argued about the usefulness of empirical research outside the psychoanalytic situation. As psychoanalysis has increasingly been challenged by other treatment modalities, the call for more empirical research as an antidote to criticism and marginalizing of psychoanalytic treatment approaches has intensified. Some have seen empirical research as privileged in status among sources of new psychoanalytic knowledge and as the major strategy for improving the success of psychoanalytic treatment in the mental health market place. A plenary address by Irwin Z. Hoffman, published in JAPA 57/5, taking up the legitimacy of this privileged status, stimulated heated response, including the Morris Eagle and David Wolitsky paper in JAPA 59/4, challenging many of Hoffman's assertions. In this section, “Psychoanalysis and Empirical Research: A Discussion,” Hoffman responds. He is followed by Jeanine M. Vivona, C. Seth Warren, and Gary Walls, who address these controversies from a variety of angles, filling in perspectives that are sure to accompany the debate about psychoanalysis and research in the future. Eagle and Wolitzky then comment.