The Rationale of the Clinical Process

Abstract

Several issues regarding the rationale that is behind the clinical process are critically examined. Some of
these issues are the following: the transmission of psychoanalytic technique and its misunderstandings, the problem of
truth in psychoanalytic interpretation, measurement and verification in psychotherapy, the gap between theory and
technique in psychotherapy, the role of the therapist’s personality factors, the problem of “classical” psychoanalytic
technique and its “as if” relation with theory, “classical” psychoanalytic technique as a mark of credibility of a social
group, the shift in psychoanalysis from the criterion of “truth of interpretation” (a strong concept) to that of “truth of the
therapeutic frame” (a weak concept), the role of insight and the concept of the “function” of insight, the role of empathy
and of unconscious communication, the conception of Praecoxgefühl (a feeling or experience of the schizophrenic
patient on the part of the therapist) formulated by H.C. Rümke in the 1940s as a threat to classical nosography within
traditional European psychopathology (i.e., the use of a criterion associated with experience and affects has been
employed even in the realm of descriptive objectivity), and so on.