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I believe that the psychoanalytic community is faced with a pressing need to significantly increase research on all aspects of psychoanalytic theory, technique, and applications. For the purpose of this paper, I refer to research as systematic observations, under controlled conditions, leading to new knowledge. This—admittedly broad—definition includes historical research, clinical investigation, and naturalistic as well as empirical research.
Empirical research that does not consider fully the complex conceptual issues involving key psychoanalytic concepts runs the risk, in its operational definition of variables, of equivocating the nature of that which is being measured, while failing to do justice to the scope and depth of the relevant psychoanalytic concepts under investigation. Conceptual research, focusing on the historical development, conflictual definitions, and predominant present social usage of certain concepts, runs the risk of sterility unless such study is linked to empirical investigation that may clarify controversies in the conceptual field and the related theories reflected in this concept.
Why this appeal regarding the urgent need for a major increase in psychoanalytic research? In short, the urgency of this task involves, first of all, the scientific need to reassess and advance our knowledge; second, our social responsibility to reassure the public regarding the effectiveness of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytically based psychotherapies we are developing, and to demonstrate our ongoing efforts to increase the range and efficacy of these treatments. All of this should also justify and assure the reimbursement systems for psychoanalysis. Third, we must increase our professional and scientific relationships with boundary sciences and disciplines, and strengthen our relationships with the clinical and the academic world.
Without an ongoing exploration of the efficacy of psychoanalysis and derivative treatments, we run the risk of b