ABSTRACT
The fact that psycho-analysis commenced by investigating clinical symptoms and subsequently developed as a special therapeutic method has fostered the tradition amongst psycho-analysts that research is largely a matter of establishing etiological formulae for different disorders and so adding point and efficiency to therapeutic endeavour. This is far from being the case. The main concern of psycho-analytic research is to establish the nature and order of mental development. In psycho-analysis more than in any other medical science it is true that discoveries cannot be made by examination of data selected at random from random practice. To turn now to the dynamic aspects of psycho-analytic theory, it is not difficult to indicate the direction in which exhaustive research is called for. Nevertheless, the research energies of the psycho-analytical practitioner are constantly frittered away by the random selection of clinical material incident to consulting practice.
