Interests as Object Relations

Broadly speaking, there are at least three main routes by which empirical evidence has been brought to bear in evaluating psychoanalytic hypotheses and formulations. One is the case report, which has the advantage of being close to the clinical psychoanalytic situation and the disadvantages of being non-systematic, nonrigorous, and possibly biased in data collection and reporting. The second is the experimental study designed to test specific psychoanalytic hypotheses (the studies reported in Fisher and Greenberg [1978] are illustrative here). This approach has the advantage of rigor and the disadvantage of often being unconvincing in the degree to which it is, in fact, relevant to the psychoanalytic proposition it is designed to test. A third route entails drawing on the extant evidence from a variety of different sources (e.g., physiological, experimental, anecdotal, sociological) in explaining a behavior or aspect of personality of particular importance to psychoanalytic theory. This approach is exemplified by Bowlby's (1969, 1973) efforts to explicate the nature of the affectional bond between infant and mother by appealing to clinical, ethological, and epidemiological data; and by attempts to understand dreams and dreaming