A Psychoanalyst's Experience as a Patient in an Empirically-Supported Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

There is a growing body of empirical research, mostly in the form of randomized controlled clinical trials, that supports the efficacy and effectiveness of psychoanalytic treatments (Leichsenring & Klein, 2014; Shedler, 2010). The now decades long turn to testing the efficacy and effectiveness of psychoanalytic treatments via empirical research methods has been controversial in some quarters within the psychoanalytic community because some people believe that clinical case studies are the best method to advance psychoanalysis (Hoffman, 2009). Arguments for the case study approach are that it supports the idiosyncrasy of each treatment, the humanity of the experience, and the focus on the individual. Arguments against empirical research are that it proscribes and prescribes treatment and therapeutic technique, eliminating the clinician's freedom and creativity to make new clinical and theoretical discoveries and to offer the best treatment for the individual person who is before them.

Are empirical research and the art and freedom of the clinician that is found in the case study method at odds? Can they co-exist or even be complementary? I am a practicing psychoanalyst and psychoanalytic researcher who has made contributions to the science of psychoanalytic treatments (Gottdiener, 2006; Gottdiener & Suh, 2015) and I am someone who has argued that the case study and empirical research are complementary and not mutually exclusive (Gottdiener & Suh, 2012). I decided to go a step further by going through an empirically-supported psychodynamic treatment, rather than solely rely on making academic arguments, when I recently decided to return to psychotherapy to continue to work on some personal problems. I had several questions about what I might experience in an empirically-supported psychodynamic treatment. Would my therapy follow a lockstep formula based on a treatment manual, lack creativity, humanity, and not offer me anything idiosyncratic that would tailor the treatm