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Debates over whether the single case study can provide a scientific method have not yet been resolved. While the usefulness of the theory of the unconscious has not been seriously questioned, philosophers of science and many psychoanalysts have criticized claims that the past can be reliably reconstructed from transference or, more important, that we can demonstrate our core constructs (Grunbaum, 1993).
This essay will not argue with this point. I will not consider research based on a reconstruction of the past or studies of the effectiveness of psychoanalytic treatment based on outcomes.
The questions tobe considered in this paper are: Can we reliably examine events in the psychoanalytic session? Can we follow patients down the byways of the natural process with which they function when they are free to direct their attention according to internal demands? In so doing, can we uncover motives with the power to direct the psychic functions? Can we conduct research based on an assumption of the existence of an unconscious that directs human functioning? Can we accet that our basic theoretical concepts are assumed and cannot be observed, as is true in other natural sciences and instead use them, as other sciences do, to explain what we observe?