The inadvisability of admixing psychoanalysis with other forms of psychotherapy

Abstract

Current opinion overwhelmingly favors eclectic and/or integrative mergers of the various schools of psychotherapy, including psychoanalysis. A review of the empirical literature concerning therapeutic techniques, however, reveals that the quest for eclectic and/or integrative technique definitions seriously impairs the relevance of research for theory and practice, especially as concerns the technique of interpretation in psychotherapy. In addition, recent work in the history and philosophy of science provides an additional warning against the one-sided pursuit of eclecticism and/or integrationism, for it is the clash between, and not the merger of, distinct theories and practices that serves to advance science and objectivity. In concluding, a critical pluralist perspective is recommended as the preferred orientation in the scientific study of psychoanalysis and other forms of psychotherapy.