ABSTRACT
Is psychoanalysis knowledge? Is psychoanalysis a science, or is it hermeneutics? Can clinical material be considered research data?
Psychoanalysis is ambiguous about whether it is about meaning or about truth, and the relations between these two compelling experiences. Psychoanalysts often think of their work as closer to the humanities than to medical and natural science. The wider the gap between science and psychoanalysis appears, the more psychoanalysts feel pulled to something that respects subjectivity, the humanity of their patients themselves, and move away from the procedures of natural science.
Research on the Couch is a relevant and timely contribution to the current debate about both the nature and validity of psychoanalysis and its body of knowledge. Freud always regarded his clinical material as his research data. In this book R.D. Hinshelwood aims to explore that view and defend Freud's claim whilst acknowledging the criticisms of single case studies and the inevitable problems for research into human subjectivity and personal experience. To this end the book reviews Freud’s own methods of disseminating his discoveries, discusses the problem of evaluating different claims to psychoanalytic knowledge, and presents a cogent logical model for testing psychoanalytic theories clinically.
This book evolves a model for the generation and justification of psychoanalytic knowledge, a 'parascience' just as rigorous as natural science, and one that addresses the subjectivity of meaning. Research on the Couch will be of interest to psychoanalysts of all schools, academics, clinicians, students and those keen to further their knowledge of psychoanalytic studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |34 pages
Introduction
chapter |6 pages
Holding the Centre
chapter |21 pages
Research Off the Couch
chapter |3 pages
Possibilities
part |66 pages
Basics
chapter |6 pages
Feeling Convinced
chapter |8 pages
What is Knowledge?
chapter |7 pages
The Scientific Model of Knowledge-Production
chapter |5 pages
Freud's Claims
chapter |8 pages
What About Hermeneutics?
chapter |6 pages
Is there a Post-Modern Approach?
chapter |6 pages
Inference and Occurrences
chapter |3 pages
So Far … Concluding Part II
part |47 pages
Justifying Psychoanalytic Knowledge
chapter |5 pages
Causal Theories and Hermeneutic Theories
chapter |9 pages
Theories and Meaning Occurrences
chapter |5 pages
Change Sequence as Evidence
part |30 pages
Testing the Test