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In the last issue of the journal, I wrote a short piece reflecting on my understanding of the place of research in the clinical setting (Hinshelwood, 2018). Three responses - from Anna Ursula Dreher, Stephen Briggs and Ann Scott in the same issue - did me the honour of engaging with my reflections.1 The Journal invited me to make a further response to these. So, I shall try to match their courtesy by taking as thoughtful a position as I can on their remarks.
As I understand it, Dreher was very much in agreement with an investigation of how much psychoanalysis can appeal to arguments similar to those in the ‘hard’ sciences. My previous work has tried to show that it is possible to shape a methodology that is at least science-like, even if it is not quite the ‘real’ thing. I used the word ‘parascience’ in my book Research on the Couch (Hinshelwood, 2013; see also Hinshelwood, 2018). But I also wonder if we should think of our work as knowledge-production, rather than claiming a full place at table with the physical sciences. There is no way around the fact that psychoanalysis2 is not a physical science. It may have a scientificity, but it is not a science of physical matter, and in that lies much of our troubles when we take our place amongst the other psychologies. The pieces I have written on this topic (Hinshelwood, 2008, 2013, 2018) have respected the headline alert that our ‘material’ is immaterial (Caper, 1988), it is subjective experience. As expressed in the quote from Glen Gabbard in my reflections in the last issue, our interest is the unique subjectivity of each individual person we see. It would seem appropriate to prioritize a research methodology that can preserve that subjectivity. So, when Dreher doubts our ability to match Karl Popper's model of natural science (Popper, 1959), I agree fundamentally with that doubt.
Nevertheless, my claim is that we should investigate whether a methodology that is science-like could be evolved - either along the lines I