Human experience is complex. Everyone and certainly anyone interested in having an analysis can testify to that. Its not surprising therefore that research into the workings of the mind is not simple either. Freud himself thought of psychoanalysis as not only a theory of the mind, but also a process of research into the mind, the main tool of which is the analytic session itself. So the practice of psychoanalysis and research go hand in hand and always have done.

These days, in many ways the process of researching the mind is a process of compromise between detail and generalisability. Often, the more detailed an understanding, the less generalisable it is. What is true for one person may greatly overlap with many others but may also have different emphases for that individual. Central principles may be the same but their manifestation may be different. Then for example, there is the question of experience and empiricism in the form of numbers. Being able to quantify an experience or degree of a symptom would allow comparison both between people and across time but might not capture the detail of one person’s experience alongside another’s. Different research methods address these questions in different ways. Does a study adopt a single case approach, or a group comparison in which case how do you chose the sample of people to study, how similar are they, and how many do you need, and how do you ethically allocate someone to a treatment condition that might not benefit them? How do you measure what you might be interested in assuming that what presents itself initially is the actual problem. If you use empirical measures, which ones, how were they developed, are they considered valid and reliable? Over how long would you conduct the study, especially given that an analysis can take several years of five times weekly sessions. And what about the outcome? How do you conceptualise that, describe or measure it, and will there be a follow up and if so how long after the end of treatment? Will the outcome be in terms of the presence or absence of certain symptoms or a difference in the style of relating the patient has to him/herself?  And, by the way, how will any of this be funded and for how long?

These struggles are known to psychoanalyst and indeed all researchers. In fact the struggles of conducting psychoanalytic research are well described by psychoanalyst Peter Fonagy in his paper “Grasping the Nettle: Or Why Psychoanalytic Research is Such an Irritant” (here). Analyst colleagues response to the paper enrich this debate and those by Ronald Britton (here) and Phil Richardson (here) illustrate the interesting and ongoing debate.  

So research is complicated and, given the above, there are no absolute answers. However, there is a growing body of research into the effectiveness of psychoanalytic work.

This body of knowledge began with Freud’s own case studies, a reading of which is highly recommended. The body of work of psychoanalysis includes a huge number of case studies such as those by Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and Donald Winnicott available in their respective publications. These and case reports by analysts around the globe regarding both adult and child psychoanalytic work are available at Psychoanalytic Electronic Publications (PEP-WEB) and may cases have been published by colleagues and are available in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP) or for purchase in book form here.    

Research findings and methodology are in no way perfect or may indeed sometimes be far away from the complexity of human experience. However, the Institute of Psychoanalysis considers that there is a profound body of work and research in support of psychoanalysis. As Patrick Luyten (Professor at University of Leuven, Belgium, University College London and the Anna Freud Centre, London) stated in 2024, there is quite a bit of research evidence for the spectrum of psychoanalytic therapies whilst at the same time there is a lot to think and re-think. In his view, this is exactly what research needs to do and is no different than what we [clinicians and researchers] do for a living: we question things. In fact, just as Freud initially stated, clinical work and research continue together, each encouraging and questioning the other.