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In recent years there has been increasing recognition on the part of clinicians that if psychoanalysis is to survive and flourish, a way must be found to communicate its basic data of observation to both analyst and nonanalyst alike; that is, the clinical data generated in the psychoanalytic situation, whether this is presented in vignette form, or by the publication of complete case histories.
This has always been recognized as a basic scientific task by psychoanalysts. However, the urgent, if not the emergent, aspect of the task has only lately been recognized, both because of the dwindling number of patients actually in analysis and also because of the proliferation of theoretical viewpoints. This is a paradoxical situation, but one not unknown in the history of science: the less data, the more theory. One might almost coin a gaseous theorem: abstract theorizing expands in inverse proportion to the availability of concrete evidence.
Hence there is a currently felt need for the publication of psychoanalytic clinical material, both to offer analysts an opportunity to broaden their own clinical experience, and to make available to analyst and nonanalyst alike a data base against which to test the validity of the rapidly proliferating divergent “theoretical schools.” It is in response to this need that the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis has recently devoted an entire issue to the publication of clinical case histories (Volume 72, Part 3, 1991); a volume devoted to four case histories with discussions has been published (Sholevar and Glenn, 1991); last but not least, this Journal has been created to provide an ongoing response to the need for clinical data.