generated but in the support that they received from independent and objective methods. Neuropsychology, which makes extensive use of the single case (Shallice, 1979), strengthens its conclusions through neuropsychological testing, brain imagery and extensive replication. `@?aL#">+*&,#@)+)+L& Second, many psychoanalysts, particularly those trained by Institutes where psychoanalysis had limited involvement with the delivery of mental health care, may appear to be at a disadvantage in this new framework for psychoanalytic epistemology. Importantly, many extremely talented clinicians in these societies come to psychoanalysis from disciplines other than psychiatry or psychology – the arts, philosophy, or education. They have contributed enormously to the richness of the discipline with giants such as Erik Erikson, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein and current key figures such as Kit Bollas, Charles Hanly, and many others. They joined a mental health profession appropriately opened by Freud to all-comers (Freud, 1926). The fact that no science background was necessary to practise psychoanalysis in the early decades of the century, does not, however imply, that this remains the case. Societies that train individuals without mental health backgrounds normally ensure that these individuals acquire mental health experience. A similar case could be made for ensuring that those practising psychoanalysis and therefore in a position to develop the subject have adequate grounding in pertinent biological and social sciences. This is perhaps less important than a concerted initiative to identify and cherish a special group of psychoanalytic practitioners who will pursue the development of psychoanalytic science within the framework of the new sciences (Kernberg, 1993). 1-%&*)@B%?,)?&M%,=%%+&:#%(%#<)+L&,-%&:>#),A&@+*&%+-@+?)+L&,-%&]>@B),A&"!&"M(%#<@,)"+& Roger Perron (2001) implicitly invokes the important dialectic between the imperative of making reliable observations and, in so doing, distorting the phenomena to a point where meaningful observation is no longer possible. His commentary is carefully restricted to the study of psychoanalytic process – the patient in intensive psychotherapy. Basically, I agree with Dr Perron in his analysis, even if not in his conclusions. Audio recordings entail the risk that what is observed is no longer psychoanalysis in much the same way that comparative psychology has found laboratory conditions to constrain the range of animal behaviours which could be subjected to scientific scrutiny (Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973). I, however, struggle with the prescriptive tone of Perron’s analysis and the certainty which it implies. I do not believe that we know to what extent audio-taping might or might not interfere with the psychoanalytic process. We anticipate that it might, but this does not mean that it will. Even if it does, it is not certain that it will do so in ways which would prevent the study of certain key aspects of the process. What we can be reasonably categorical about is that narrative reports, however carefully crafted, are necessarily selective in ways which clearly undermine their scientific usefulness (Brown, Scheflin, & Hammond, 1998). A core element of our theory concerns non-conscious aspects of psychic functions. Our theory tells us that we cannot and should not expect any participant of an interpersonal interchange to be unbiased, to be random in the errors and omissions they make in their report. I do not think that any psychoanalyst could seriously defend the claim that the mere fact of having participated in an analytic process themselves guarantees lack of bias in their observations. Far more important than bias, however, is the degree to which any of us can claim to acquire insight into the detail of interpersonal interaction between patient and analyst, purely from participant observation. We know that for the most part such interactions are governed by non-conscious mechanisms, quite opaque to introspection. There are quite dramatic illustrations of this – but some of the most striking are Rainer Krause’s (1997) studies of facial expressions of affect in face-to-face psychotherapy and Beatrice Beebe’s et al. (1997) and Ed Tronik’s (1989) work on mother-infant interaction.
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