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My first association to the topic of the nature and value of analytic case material (Blass, 2013, p. 1129-34) was that it should be discussed from two distinct approaches: (a) the value of analytic case material in illustrating a point of view or understanding, especially when conveyed as a lively experience for both author and reader of the paper; and (b) the value of the clinical material as evidence to confirm or reject new hypotheses or psychoanalytical theories - for the readers of a journal and for the scientific community of psychoanalysts.
It must be stated that my comments are those of an analyst who often reads and writes papers published in psychoanalytic journals and not of an epistemologist dealing with the complex matter of what can be considered scientific evidence acceptable by the community of psychoanalysts. (For an in-depth epistemologist approach, I suggest the recent book by Jorge Ahumada (2011), Insight: Essays on Psychoanalytic Knowing).
On beginning my reflection on the subject, it spontaneously occurred to me that the analyst-author writing a paper faces a paradox - one already pointed out by André Green (1992). He wants to communicate and convince, think critically and be right, all at the same time. This thought relates to the first approach, that of the value of the case material as illustrative. Then I recalled something which Jorge Ahumada had said with much humour in a presentation at the British Society: “The trouble with evidences is that they are not evident”, followed by another assertion of his, that this is the “reason why psychoanalysis needs to stick to the method” (Ahumada, 2011, p. 17). Ahumada was emphasizing that the search for evidence requires hard methodological work, is not self-evident and is dependent on the psychoanalytic method itself. This concerns the problem of evidence - the second issue under consideration in the study of the value of case material.