Models, Theory, and Research Strategies: Toward the Evolution of New Paradigms

This paper will describe how the communicative approach to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy has become an investigative research strategy — not only a valid basis for quantitative characterization of moment-to-moment transactions in the therapeutic context, but a means of understanding the principles by which we, in the broadest sense, process and adapt to emotionally changed information. The communicative approach is very much an outgrowth of psychoanalysis and has evolved by means of its emphasis on one particular dimension of psychoanalytic theory. But the approach has also been derived from my own clinical experience and ideas, so its history is entwined with my own. This paper will therefore reflect aspects of both personal and professional evolution. I intend to chart the development of the communicative approach from the first clinical paper written from that particular view point (Langs, 1971) to its present function as an instrument of investigative research.

My working assumption as a communicative therapist is that the moment-to-moment transactions between therapist and patient take place within a field whose parameters are concrete and essentially structure the kind of dyad possible. By concrete parameters I mean time, place, fee, matters of confidentiality, a