In the current worldwide debate about which remedial action will assure a psychoanalytic future, both individual and organizational attention is being focused increasingly on how to implement the demand for practical demonstration of the therapeutic value of psychoanalytic treatment propositions. At the national and international levels, analysts of varying persuasions are recognizing the importance of committing economic and institutional support to empirical research endeavors whose results could inform both the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. In his presidential address at the forty-first international congress of the IPA in Santiago, Chile, Otto Kernberg clearly communicated his belief:
In the long run, our future depends on the development of scientific research that maintains and expands the fundamental position of psychoanalysis in the mental health sciences. … Research evaluating the effectiveness of psychoanalytic treatment and derived psychotherapeutic modalities is a key ingredient of this long-range research thrust. [Italics added.]
Similarly, last May, the Ad Hoc Strategic Task Force on Psychoanalytic Science urged the leadership of the American Psychoanalytic Association to produce and disseminate information about the progress of psychoanalytic science to secure a place for psychoanalytic practice among subsequent generations: “If psychoanalysis is to remain a form of treatment for emotional, psychological illness, we must produce much more evidence for its efficacy, and let ourselves, our students and the public know more about the efficacy data that already exist.”
Both communications share the belief that the future of psychoanalysis is intimately associated with the progress of psychoanalytic science. Both, in their entirety, advocate the transmission of scientific findings to members of the psychoanalytic community.
The editorial board of The American Psychoanalyst has decided to endorse these ideas by creating a forum for the dissemination and analysis of clinically and educationally relevant research data in the form of a regular feature called “Psychoanalytic Science for the Clinical Psychoanalyst.” In so doing, we hope to stimulate an active interest in and support for psychoanalytic research among clinical psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic candidates, and psychoanalytic institutes on the one hand, and to encourage the development of psychoanalytically significant research presented in a clinically useful way on the other. Look to this column for summaries and critical synopses of clinically relevant research findings as well as commentary on important scientific issues.
Stephen H. Portuges, Ph.D., is a member of the editorial board of TAP, president of the Psychoanalytic Research Society (Section VI of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association), Director of Research of the Los Angeles Center for Psychoanalytic Research, a faculty member of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute, and a psychoanalyst in independent practice. Long active in public education, for fifteen years he produced and moderated a biweekly radio program, “Psychology for the People,” on the Pacifica Foundation Radio Network in Los Angeles. To let him know of interesting research, e-mail him at .