title: What kind of research in psychoanalytic science?
abstract: The kind of science that psychoanalysis is (can be), and the kind of research appropriate to it, qualitative and/or quantitative, have been divisive issues from the very inception of the discipline. I explore in detail the complexity of these issues, definitional and semantic, as well as methodological and substantive. A plea is made for the application of qualitative (idiographic)and quantitative (nomothetic) research methods, each to the extent that is appropriate, separately or in conjunction, across the entire spectrum of research domains in psychoanalysis, empirical, clinical, conceptual, historical, and interdisciplinary.
authors.affiliation: University of California, San Francisco, California, USA 290 Beach Road, Beldevere, California, 94920, USA. judywall@comcast.net
authors.forename: Robert S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Wallerstein
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000379:methods*; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods; D012107:Research Design; D012586:Science