Research Aspects of Psychoanalysis

The revived interest of psychoanalysts in research is probably not due to newly won security or acceptability of psychoanalysis, nor is it an attempt to catch up with the contemporary status of research in the various fields of pure or applied science. The oldest and most comprehensive definition of psychoanalysis is that it is a therapy, a body of knowledge, and a method of research (10). The contemporary renewed interest in psychoanalytic investigation is thus mainly the revival of a basic function of the discipline—a function which had waned, had been taken for granted, or had been embarrassedly concealed. However, this revival of interest in research differs from that of the pioneering generation in one important respect: whereas in the earlier days psychoanalysis had an almost fanatic zeal to be on its own and a defensive disdain of contacts with other sciences, the newer policy eagerly seeks not only to establish such contacts, but also to adopt the methods of other scientific disciplines, thus subjecting psychoanalytic research to the dicta and requirements specifically designed for research in fields other than psychoanalysis.

We have thus increasingly become accustomed to hearing many loud and quite learned voices that charge psychoanalysis with flagrant violations of scientific method as practiced by all the well-established disciplines of human knowledge. These criticisms range from the alleged tendency of psychoanalysis as a science to neglect the general principles of science, to the uselessness of psychoanalysis as a therapy in the severe forms of mental disorders, and the waste in employing it for the milder complaints. From the writings of psychoanalysts themselves,