Foundations for Conceptual Research in Psychoanalysis

Anna Ursula Dreher trained as a psychoanalyst in the German Psychoanalytic Association. After working at the Social Psychological Research Centre of the University of Saarbrucken, she spent six years at the Sigmund Freud Institute, Frankfurt, and was involved in research on psychoanalytic concepts. She is now in private practice in Frankfurt, and lectures in psychoanalysis and psychology at the universities of Hanover and Giessen.

'An incisive and persuasive argument - the "concept-reflecting discourse" - that should undergird empirical research into the nature of psychoanalytic processes (and therapy), and for the essential co-equal status of conceptual research alongside empirical research in psychoanalysis, in mutually vital enhancement of the overarching goal, the advancement of psychoanalytic knowledge. Essential reading for those interested in the nature of psychoanalytic knowledge, in the status of psychoanalysis as science, and in the place of psychoanalytic research - conceptual and empirical - in the continued growth of psychoanalysis as science.'- Robert S. Wallerstein, M.D., Past-President, International Psychoanalytical Association, 1985-89'Dreher has written an extraordinary, timely, gem of a book. As the psychoanalytic community has recognized the pressing need for an expanded and sophisticated analytic research enterprise, we urgently need help to better understand the past difficulties and new opportunities for psychoanalytic research. In clear language and with an extraordinary depth of scholarship, Dreher describes the history of psychoanalytic research and dissects the structures of empirical and conceptual research endeavors, demonstrating their interrelationship, methodology and mutual necessity. She provides profound philosophical understanding of the development of ideas and theories in psychoanalysis and compelling illustrations of how psychoanalytic research may be conducted. This volume can play a critical role in helping to shape our analytic future. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in doing or understanding psychoanalytic research - i.e., all of us.'- Arnold Cooper

• Introduction , Preliminary methodological reflections , About the Freudian “Junktim” , Research with and without numbers , Conceptual research in the Hampstead Index Project , Conceptual research in the Trauma Project , Concluding methodological reflections