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It seems to me fairly clear that the description in terms of meaning and in terms of causal relationships are not alternative and competing, but complementary modes of description [Rubinstein, 1980, p. 508].
Thus the distinction between the natural sciences and historical sciences is not that they use a different method of obtaining knowledge, but that the problems that they strive to understand and the criteria they adopt are quite different. One is concerned with formulating laws in terms of probabilities, the other to understand singular specific events in as much detail as possible [Bowlby, 1988, p. 75].
Current emphasis on the interpretative and interactive nature of the psychoanalytic process has come to question the nature of what we know and what can be known by the psychoanalytic method. There is a wide diversity of opinion regarding these matters. One position, represented by the philosopher Adolph Grünbaum, believes that the psychoanalytic method lacks the epistemic resources to validate its clinical theories. Another view, from analysts who share a hermeneutic
I thank Neil Altman, Marco Bacciagaluppi, Barbara Lenkerd, Michael Maccoby, Jon Frederikson, Alan Sroufe, Mary Main, Morris Eagle, and Lester Luborsky for their helpful comments. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the fall 1997 scientific meeting of the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy, Bethesda, MD, and at the 1998 annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, Toronto, Canada.
and constructivist perspective, believes that the main task of psychoanalysis is to expand meaning and purpose. Because meaning is subjective and open to multiple interpretations, the ideal of scientific objectivity and the search for causality are seen as irrelevant to the task of the psychoanalyst. I use prospective and retrospective research informed by attachment theory to address these questions. From a longitudinal perspective, it is possible to discover robust causal connections between the past and the present if the level of analysis is the person's total functioning within specific developmental contexts rather than simple linear continuities in behavior. Retrospective research using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) shows that the meaning adults extract from their relationship with their parents also has lawlike qualities. Individuals who are classified secure in the AAI provide more objective evaluations of their relationship with their parents. Their ability to reflect on their experience allows a certain degree of decentering from it, which produces more coherent narratives. In contrast, individuals who are insecure in the AAI produce less coherent, more confused, and contradictory narratives by becoming too preoccupied with their experience or too detached from it. In either case, they show less capacity for reflection. In short, this body or research supports the view that understanding meaning and understanding causal connections are conjunctive rather that disjunctive approaches to knowledge.