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The editors probably would have sold more copies of their book if they had changed its title, dropping the term “Research” and changing the title to Process, Development, Outcome in Psychoanalysis: Implications for Psychoanalytic Technique. Almost all the potential readers of this book are psychoanalytic clinicians, and clinicians' lack of interest
in research findings remains a substantial problem for psychoanalysis. The clinician's point of view is stated baldly by Jacob Arlow. First, in traditional analytic style, the researcher's motivation is “analyzed.” Research is seen as “evidence of persistent doubt concerning the ‘truth’ of psychoanalytic findings, and … interest in such research represents an effort on the part of the researchers to repudiate some unacceptable knowledge about their own motivation, conscious or unconscious. In addition, there are special features of the analyst's inner experience while he is at work processing the patient's material that tend to render issues of empirical confirmation irrelevant or at least peripheral to his interests” (p. 143). Theodore Shapiro seconds this theme, questioning the relevance of research findings for his practice. Donald Spence takes the researchers to task: “Until the research literature begins to include more traditional clinical language and speaks to present-day clinical concerns, there is no reason why even the more curious clinician would want to read it” (p. 141).
Actually, the book contains implications for psychoanalytic practice that are substantial and perhaps even profound, but it fails to highlight these for the clinician. There are several negative implications concerning the shibboleth of psychoanalysis, transference. Several studies (Luborsky) document empirically what is obvious to analysts in case discussions and study groups: that analysts cannot agree on transference interpretations and that transference interpretations cannot be made reliably (excluding Luborsky's CCRT). Further, in hig