The editors are pleased to present the first in a periodic series of special science sections of TAP called “Science and Psychoanalysis.” This series is designed to offer the APsaA membership highlights of scientific clinical research that have a direct bearing on the practice of psychoanalysis. In addition to TAP's regular science column, these occasional Science and Psychoanalysis reports will allow prominent psychoanalytic scientists to present their research projects and programs to the APsaA community.
For most of us, it would be daunting to be in the position of the psychoanalytic science writer as he or she tries to explain, briefly and effectively, the rationale and major findings of a research program to an audience composed chiefly of psychoanalytic clinicians. Telling the story of how a social or psychological phenomenon becomes the object of scientific scrutiny, showing how data are construed and collected, and identifying the techniques required to evaluate the truth claim of the hypothesis that guides the inquiry would be challenging under most conditions.
But writing about science for psychoanalysts also means recognizing and addressing the skepticism of many about the value of systematic empirical investigations for clinical practice, psychoanalytic or otherwise. Such “research resistance,” some have argued, can be countered by demonstrating the relevance of the scientific investigation to the treatment process or to the validation or refinement of basic psychoanalytic concepts of motivation, personality development, or psychopathology.
There are undoubtedly many reasons for clinical practitioners' widespread reluctance to make full use of scientific findings. Clinical wisdom is not dependent on scientific knowledge. Empirical studies of the processes and outcomes of treatment have not been a staple of the mainstream psychoanalytic literature. Psychoanalytic foundational concepts like drive and defense, once the object of intense research and lively university debate, are now rarely subjected to scientific inquiry. Rather, conjecture about their value for psychoanalytic treatment is often advanced without reference to evidence or demonstrated truth. For example, random assignment of analyzable patients to treatments of different frequencies is typically not the solution proposed to evaluate whether a progressive psychoanalytic process can be established in fewer than four days per week; whatever else it may be, this is an empirical problem whose resolution demands a scientific evaluation.
“Thee technical language that is presupposed in ordinary scientific writing must be translated into an idiom that helps the psychoanalyst to “get” the science and helps the scientific writer, who frequently is not a psychoanalyst, to appreciate the psychoanalysis. Failure of the research presentation in this regard seems a sure way to reinforce psychoanalysts' skepticism about the value of systematic empirical investigation for psychoanalytic practice.”
Moreover, even though psychoanalytic education bears no manifest antipathy toward science, psychoanalytic institute curricula do not require faculty to teach nor candidates to learn the results of systematic clinical research or the empirical-analytical methods that produce them.
Under these troubling conditions, the psychoanalytic scientist cannot be assured of readers' interest in the research nor their ability to understand it. The technical language that is presupposed in ordinary scientific writing must be translated into an idiom that helps the psychoanalyst to “get” the science and helps the scientific writer, who frequently is not a psychoanalyst, to appreciate the psychoanalysis. Failure of the research presentation in this regard seems a sure way to reinforce psychoanalysts' skepticism about the value of systematic empirical investigation for psychoanalytic practice.
In this edition of “Science and Psychoanalysis,” you will discover in Robert Wallerstein's “Overview of Psychoanalytic Therapy Research” that what has changed in the years since formal evaluations of the effects of psychoanalysis were first introduced are (1) the sophistication of the questions posed about the efficacy of the treatment and (2) the precision of the methods used to find the answers. Wilma Bucci illustrates her belief that research based on her model of a multiple code information processing system will improve our understanding of psychoanalytic theory and the quality of our clinical work. Similarly, Peter Fonagy and Mary Target argue for the critical integration of attachment theory and mainstream psychoanalysis that dilutes neither and leads to a richer research and clinical practice.
Ultimately, the psychoanalytic scientist must work with the psychoanalytic clinician to bring clinical wisdom into line with scientific knowledge and to enhance the “use-value” of scientific research for clinical practice. Once these twin goals are realized, the future of psychoanalysis can be more securely assured.