Psychotherapy and Research: An Uneasy Relationship

Abstract

In the related fields of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and counselling, the interconnections between clinical practice and research have often been problematic. Clinicians feel frequently' that the findings of research projects have little practical use to offer them, while researchers feel that their hard-won results are ignored by the practitioners whose work they are intended to support. Clinicians are inclined to dismiss research findings as either over-elaborate or over-simplified: researchers see these dismissive responses as impressionistic and arbitrary. This article examines the continuing debate at the core of their differences, about the scientific status of therapy, in reference to which researchers and practitioners can often be seen to occupy opposing positions.