Another Kind of Evidence

In our current professional climate, with calls for 'evidenced-based treatment', and in light of the prestige accorded to this emblem, we can ask: for what purpose do we seek evidence? For our students? For the public at large? For an inner sense of feeling supported by science? Most disciplines are concerned with cumulative knowledge, aimed toward self-affirmation and self-definition, that is, establishing a sense of legitimacy. The three parts of this volume are directed toward the goal of affirming a public and private sense of the legitimacy of psychoanalysis, thereby shaping professional identity. In each contribution we adhere to the precepts of 'scientific inquiry', with a commitment to affirming or disconfirming clinical propositions, utilizing consensually agreed upon methods of observation, and arriving at inferences that are persuasive and have the potential to move the field forward. Beyond this, each part of this book describes distinct methodologies that generate evidence pertaining to public health policy, the persuasiveness and integrity of our psychoanalytic concepts, and phenomena encountered in daily clinical practice.

Norbert Freedman, Ph.D. (1922 - 2011) was a Training and Supervising Analyst and former President at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR). He was an Adjunct Clinical Professor and Supervising Analyst at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and former Director of Clinical Psychology, SUNY Downstate Medical Center. He was the author of numerous publications on the clinical and empirical study of symbolization and transformations in the psychoanalytic process. Jesse D. Geller, Ph.D., is a Clinical Professor of Psychology at Columbia University, Teachers College, and Associate Clinical Professor at Yale University School of Medicine. He is a Fellow of the Division of Psychotherapy of the American Psychological Association, a member of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, and an honorary member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR). He is the author of more than seventy clinical, theoretical, and empirical publications about psychotherapy, and has produced two films to educate prospective patients about how to use psychotherapy for personal benefit. He currently maintains a private practice in New Haven, Connecticut. Joan Hoffenberg, Ph.D., FIPA, is Training and Supervising Analyst and current President of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) and past Director of the IPTAR Clinical Center (ICC). She has taught at several psychoanalytic institutes in New York. She is co-editor of the book Terrorism in the Psychoanalytic Space. Her research interests include the effectiveness of psychotherapy, and the distinction between grief and depression. She is in private practice in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Marvin Hurvich, Ph.D., DP, ABPP, FIPA, is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR), The New York Freudian Society, and the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He is Professor of Psychology at Long Island University, Brooklyn Center. He is co-author with L. Bellak and H. Gediman, of 'Ego Functions in Schizophrenics, Neurotics and Normals' and his current writings are on theoretical, clinical, and empirical aspects of annihilation anxieties. Rhonda Ward, LCSW, FIPA, is an Associate Adjunct Professor at the New York University School of Social Work. She is a member at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) as well as the New York Freudian Society, where she is currently chair of progression. She is faculty member and research associate at the IPTAR Program of Research in Psychoanalysis, and is faculty member of IPTAR's Respecialization Program. She is the co-author of 'The Upward Slope: a Study of Psychoanalytic Transformations'. She is in private practice in New York City.