ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses five types of answers as regards research in psychoanalysis or on psychoanalysis, following a distinction suggested by Daniel Widlòcher. It agrees to call "research in psychoanalysis" any work that aims to know better what happens during the treatment and "research on psychoanalysis" any approach towards psychoanalysis from the outside or from its borders—work on treatment indications, on the outcome, on therapeutic techniques, on the functioning of institutions, and so on—but also, within a broader scope, critical analyses of concepts and hypotheses, hermeneutics of Freud's writings, studies on the history of psychoanalysis, and so forth. The chapter highlights that research in psychoanalysis can be performed only by a practising psychoanalyst who has been well trained for this specific task; research on psychoanalysis can be done by somebody who is not a psychoanalyst, the condition being that he works in close association with psychoanalysts.
