ABSTRACT

This book offers different theoretical approaches about what clinical research is.

Clinical Research in Psychoanalysis is a unique contribution to the attempts to bridge the gap between clinicians and researchers and to create a culture of a more rigorous and systematic inquiry. It provides an innovative experience because for the first time different methods and perspectives were used to analyse one same clinical material. This was done by analysts from different working parties of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), from a range of different schools of psychoanalytic thought. This allows the reader to have a vision of the different methods that are currently being used by some working parties of the IPA and to learn about the strengths of each one for certain situations and types of research. This book revaluates clinical research, intending to make links between the analysts working through the working parties and the different ways of thinking in clinical research. By covering key topics, such as how working parties can facilitate different types of research; the place of metaphor in psychoanalytic research and practice; and the future for psychoanalytic research, this text is a fruitful dialogue between different theoretical conceptions and between clinicians and researchers, that will expand our perspectives on the evidence we find in clinical material and will broaden our views on the patient.

This book offers a unique and invaluable experience to psychologists and psychoanalysts who are trying to improve their clinical practice and bring research evidence into their psychoanalytic practice. It is an invaluable contribution to psychoanalytic training of candidates, teachers, and students.

part I|30 pages

From clinical practice to clinical research

chapter 2|16 pages

What is clinical research in psychoanalysis?

Some comments on its scientific background

part II|85 pages

Different perspectives on clinical research

chapter 4|21 pages

Researching subjectivity

Single-case studies and psychoanalytic knowledge

chapter 7|5 pages

Improving the interface

Comments on Bernardi: Moving from clinical inquiry to clinical research

chapter 8|19 pages

What is ‘clinical research’?

Historical, epistemological, and methodological remarks on the relevance of clinical research in times of theoretical and scientific pluralism

chapter 9|8 pages

Discussion by Bradley S. Peterson

Scientific investigation in psychoanalysis

part III|32 pages

Working with metaphors in psychoanalytic practice

chapter 10|15 pages

Clinical research

The role of metaphors in the analytic process

part IV|65 pages

Working parties as research tools?

chapter 13|10 pages

Opening psychoanalytic space in first interviews

An overview of the aims and findings of the EPF Working Party on Initiating Psychoanalysis

chapter 16|7 pages

Clinical groups on the specificity of psychoanalysis today

A new research method for clinical understanding

chapter 18|12 pages

Developing the capacity for clinical investigation

The Working Party Microscopy of the Analytic Session

part V|68 pages

Working parties in action

part VI|52 pages

Final considerations and questions raised

chapter 25|4 pages

The analyst's perspective

Commonalities and differences of working parties on a clinical material