NOTE: The following papers will be summarized or printed in full for their particular contributions to scientific research methodology, particular research design, its application in the clinic, and its tested theoretical results.
1976
THE APPEARANCE OF VERTIGO IN THE COURSE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY
unpublished
Summary:
A patient suffers attacks of vertigo in and out of sessions, and the clinician manifests an early understanding of a scientific approach to exploration that can lead to sound theoretical understanding.
- A need for hard observational (verbatim) data is emphasized
- A hold is placed on the unproved theoretical assumptions of others (e.g. Fenichel)
- Areas of missing scientific theory are noted
- The experts in physical medicine are consulted and their findings obtained (e.g. many cases are thought to be psychogenic, but there is as-yet no proof)
- Questions for further investigation into identified unknown symptoms are raised
- The nuclei of some ideas for later researches unfold
And the paper is unwittingly written in the inspiring talk-to-the-reader manner that came naturally to Freud.
1977
INVESTIGATION OF PSYCHOGENIC VERTIGO, PART I, PAPER I: CRITIQUE OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC PROCESSES OF SYMPTOM INVESTIGATION AND LITERATURE ACCUMULATION
unpublished
Presented To:
Toronto Psychoanalytic Society, formal discussion.
Summary:
What is expected to be a straightforward piece of scientific investigation becomes something quite otherwise. The pursuit of a series of goals in sequence, typical of the pattern of scientific researches in general, is put to a stop by many problems with the first, i.e. a literature research of known theoretical facts and the unexplained observational data of other workers.
There was no real sequence of papers published, and it was impossible to find summarized conclusions and proceed from there. Thus the focus of this paper took a different turn.
1978
PEER REVIEW – IN SEARCH OF ITS HEALTHY DEVELOPMENT (AN IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION OF INTERPSYCHIC AND INTRAPSYCHIC FACTORS INVOLVED IN TWO DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT FORMS OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS)
unpublished
Key-note Address:
Ontario Medical Association, Psychotherapy Section, Fall Meeting
Summary:
The simplest, testable analytic theories available to date are applied to a socio-psychological type of research.
Among them are the knowledge that:
- Human behaviours problematic to others or society, are often symptoms of unresolved internal conflicts in suppressed and repressed memories from childhood that are still active and influencing the adult
- They are revealed as being underpinned by transferences to the clinician in the analytic clinical situation
- The subjects are unaware of the misperceptions the transferences produce and have no knowledge of the transference phenomenon
- Although current transference theory does not allow complete resolution of such symptoms, analysands do respond to, and benefit from, analyst clarifications of what perceptions of him(her) are, and are not, realistic (i.e. supported by the facts of his behaviours)
- As transferences are not objective perceptions of the analyst, it does not make sense to apply unrealistic standards backed by negative judgements and destructive repercussions aimed at forcing cessation of the behaviours by threat, e.g. (aggressive and menacing, “You better stop that behavior or else!”)
[Note: This last observation, followed by very many consultations and conducted analyses over the years, proved so consistently valid and that it led to the clinical principle “When a judgement (of a thought, feeling, impulse or behavior, e.g. “That is/you are disgusting!”) is applied, the possibility of interest is ended.”]
This thinking was then applied to the Peer Review practices of regulatory bodies in the Psychotherapies. Many of them involved such problematic standards from the start, when little-known, well-developed analytic theory provides new insight into professional misdemeanours that said compassion, interest and exploratory assistance should come first, with the judgments and penalties kept as last resorts.
[Note: It was later interesting to discover how much damage such regulatory practices did to therapies conducted by psychotherapists who came for analyses. The regulatory bodies activated transferences that aroused fears that became distracting, frightening dangers running parallel to engaged clinical sessions and interfering with clinical judgements. And sometimes, at paper presentations, one heard the certainties of future failed treatments as presenters described unwitting therapy-interrupting actions identifiably rooted in such phenomena.]
1979
THEORY OF TECHNIQUE: THE METAPSYCHOLOGY OF THE ANALYST’S WORKING MIND, ITS PLACE IN PSYCHOANALYTIC SCIENCE AND POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTION TO THEORY OF TECHNIQUE
unpublished
Awarded:
The Canadian Psychoanalytic Society Miguel Prados National Essay Prize
Presented to:
The Toronto, Quebec East (Montreal) Ottawa Psychoanalytic Societies
1982
A RESEARCH INTO SYMPTOMATIC BEHAVIOURS OCCURRING IN ASSESSMENTS FOR PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPIES
Unpublished
Presented to:
Canadian Psychiatric Association Annual General Meeting 1982
Toronto Psychoanalytic Society 1983
1987
THE POST-GRADUATE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANALYST: REPORT OF AN UNUSUAL, COMPREHENSIVE EXPERIENCE
unpublished
Presented to:
Toronto Psychoanalytic Society
Only a major Self Analysis part of this 115-paper and a book report relevant to that subjects will be listed here with downloads.
THE SELF ANALYSIS OF AN EXPERIENCED PSYCHOANALYST: REPORT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN UNCOMMONLY EFFECTIVE TECHNIQUE AND ITS EVOLUTION INTO A RESEARCH METHOD
SELF-ANALYSIS: Critical Inquiries, Personal Visions by James W. Barron – reviewed in: The Psychoanalytic Review (Anderson, H. 1996)
1987
THE QUESTION OF WHY NO ANALYSIS IS EVER COMPLETE: REPORT OF A METHOD OF INVESTIGATION AND RESULTS OF ITS APPLICATION
unpublished
This paper was an offshoot of the “Post-Graduate Development” paper, and selective of the parts pertinent to this subject.
NOTE: A current (2011-2014) research that successfully pursued the related question, “Why are some analyses so unnecessarily long?” (recommended in Chapter 21, MF Research and the Future of the 2011 book From an Art to a Science of Psychoanalysis) will be reported in this website when the writing has been completed.
1987
IN SEARCH OF A WINDOW INTO THE ARTISTIC CREATIVE PROCESS IN PROGRESS: METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND A CONTRIBUTION TO METHOD
unpublished
This is the complete original paper. A modified version was published as Chapter 20, The Unconscious Sources of Art, in the book From an Art to a Science of Psychoanalysis in 2011.
NOTE: In addition to satisfying the aims of its title, this paper will be of interest for its verbatim, on-the-spot recorded segments of the author’s self analysis.
Presented to:
Group for Applied Psychoanalysis, State University of New York at Buffalo (by invitation) 1987
Fourth International Conference on Literature and Psychology, Kent State University, Ohio, 1987
Western New York Psychoanalytic Society 1988
Toronto Psychoanalytic Society (1990)
Thirteenth Congress of the International Association for Empirical Aesthetics, Montreal, 1994
1988
GOING DEEPER: REPORT OF A RECORDED, SUCCESSFUL SELF ANALYSIS FOLLOWING A PERSONAL ANALYSIS – METHOD, APPLICATION, RESULTS
unpublished
Presented to:
Ontario Psychiatric Association
Summary (Abstract)
[Extracted from the “Self Analysis” part of the “Postgraduate Development of the Analyst” paper above]
A series of clinical interests that arose after an analyst’s training analysis, complemented each other, and converged in their effect to lay the ground-work for an extensive and unusual self analysis. The experience is described. A nine-year self analysis that followed is outlined in terms of method, application and results. Emphasis is given to the method’s unexpected effectiveness. In this context, illustration of its capacity to enable the investigator to reach the deepest levels of psychic organization by a systematic, controllable and reliable process, is provided. Special attention is given to a remarkably-informative path followed by a series of new symptoms that developed in succession and fell away during the course of the analytic work. Uncommonly-illustrative, very-early-infant material that emerged, as effort with the defense components of symptoms was carried out, is also given special attention. The paper’s potential contributions to the theories of psychotherapeutic technique, psychotherapy research methodology, symptom development and early infant development, are cited.
1991 – 1995
METAPSYCHOLOGICAL FORMULATION
unpublished
Presented to:
Department of Psychiatry, North York General Hospital
Toronto Psychoanalytic Society
Ontario Psychiatric Association
NOTE: This was a first presentation of the Metapsychological Formulation Method. The full version follows shortly. See 1995-1998 presentation and note.
1993
THE GENESIS OF NEUROTIC SYMPTOMS – A NEW THEORY
unpublished
This paper has been replaced by a short part of a chapter in an unpublished book (From Disappointing Art to Desirable Science in the Psychoanalytic Domain) from which it was excerpted for presentation. The book is described in the “Publications” section of this website.
1995
TOWARDS A NEW BREED OF PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOANALYSTS: DESIRABLE NEW DIRECTIONS IN INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE, RESEARCH, EDUCATION, TRAINING AND PRACTICE
unpublished
Presented to:
International Federation for Psychoanalytic Education, Toronto
1995
The EXPERIMENT, 1995
unpublished
1995-1998
METAPSYCHOLOGICAL FORMULATION: A NEW SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF PSYCHOANALYTIC CLINICAL RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
unpublished
Presented to:
Society for Psychotherapy Research Annual Meeting, Vancouver, 1995
American Psychoanalytic Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, 1998
NOTE: This paper provides the first full description of the M.F. method as developed at the time of writing.
1997
A SUBSECTION OF THE METAPSYCHOLOGICAL FORMULATION THEORY OF THE AGGRESSIVE DRIVE (CATEGORIZATION OF THE DRIVE’S PHENOMENOLOGICAL FORMS)
unpublished
Presented to:
Professor Keith Oatley’s Research Group, Centre for Applied Cognitive Science, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Continued (Private) Discussion of the Metapsychological Formulation Theory of the Aggressive Drive: With Professors K. Oatley, J. Johnson, and Dr. Laurette Larocque, 1998)
NOTE: M.F. researches made it very clear that the Aggressive Drive is the drive that features throughout analyses from the start of consultation to near the end of the work. Then the Libidinal Drive emerges, and, when conflicts involving it have been completely dismantled, the treatments are finished.
Because of its importance and the extent to which systematic research into its complexity has been lacking, a large (94 page) part of the book, From an Art to a Science of Psychoanalysis; The Metapsychological Formulation Method, has been devoted to it – in Chapter 11, The Drives, Part 2, The Aggressive Drive).
A brief introduction from the book is included here.
(COPYRIGHT APPLIES)
THE AGGRESSIVE DRIVE
Introduction
Its dominant position in the clinical situation
This drive has a chapter of its own because: (a) it is enormously important in the clinical situation; (b) to my knowledge, there has never been a scientifically-developed and tested theory of it there; (c) the work to be described here has corrected that problem. The theory it spawned emerged without warning during the unplanned, naturally-evolving series of studies that began to characterize the M.F. method’s approach to clinical research, and it allows pin-pointed formulative work in this key symptom-process area that has been closed to such.
The aggressive drive is the only drive that the consultant-analyst will encounter in the transference for the greater part of his(her) formulative-interventive effort. It will appear in general categories that are much defended, then in subcategories that are further covered in APSC[1] defenses. As the clinician systematically identifies transference-of-defense resistances (ROT/TDs[2]), and the consultee dismantles them, healthy forms (sub-categories) of the drive that are being crushed by internal, incorporating objects will be recovered. They will then become essential parts of newly-developed, effective-defense capabilities that are available for constructive use in the course of everyday life.
The freeing process initially takes place in the transferences that derive from the conflicts responsible for the consultee’s chief character symptoms. And when it is completed, expressions of aggression that were once regarded as impossibly dangerous are released at the transference-determined analyst until all of the drive’s categories and subtypes are restored. As each one appears in succession, the fact of its transference origin is set aside, and the SiC[3] practises its expression in response to the incorporating analyst until it becomes available at a finger’s touch when required. And when all such forms are close to being reclaimed and the character symptoms are waning to a point of near-disappearance, if symptom-neurotic symptoms have also been part of the analysand’s suffering, the more-extreme forms of the drive they have been binding come to the surface to be accepted as understandable.
Then, when that task has been accomplished, the analysis moves through stages to the very beginning of the symptom-development chain, and libidinal drive elements that the object first rejected and forced into defense emerge for expression to the analyst. And after the analysand enjoys and savours the fruits of a drive-expressive freedom never experienced before, he(she) ends the work in a state of satisfaction with a job well done.
[1] An automatic triad of defense parts prominent in transferences to the analyst, the Anticipate-and-Prevent-by-Self Constriction defense.
[2] A Resistance of the Operative Transference/Transference of Defense type.
[3] The Self-in-Contact, i.e. the self that is engaging the analyst in sessions.
2003 – 2009
TRANSFERENCES IN OPERATION IN THE FIRST MOMENTS OF THE CONSULTATIVE CONTACT FOR THE PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPIES: THE IMPORTANCE OF A SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF SYSTEMATIC IDENTIFICATION, FORMULATION AND INTERVENTION
unpublished
Presented to:
Ontario Psychiatric Association Annual General Meeting, Toronto, 2003
North American Chapter of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, Newport, Rhode Island, 2003
British Psychological Society Annual General Meeting, Combined with the North and South Irish Psychological Societies, Dublin, Ireland, 2009
NOTE:
The 2003 long version of this paper to the above “SPR” was a formal presentation with overheads not covered in this format, and the following 2008 version, a shorter Power Point type in Workshop format, will be provided in its place.
It will be of interest as an example of how mental processes involved in symptom development can be described by diagrams (used in this website for the first time).
2008
BRITISH PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY WORKSHOP PRESENTATION
2009
Abstract
REVENGE IN THE PSYCHOANALYTIC CLINIC AS REVEALED BY A NEW SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF RESEARCH
This paper presents part of the results of a thirty-year, systematic, scientific, study of the symptoms of the psychoanalytic domain during which the aggressive drive became prominent. When its many in-session presentations were identified and defined in concrete terms, they separated into four discrete categories, in one of which revenge featured. The categories and subtypes were then subjected to a research method that revealed their developmental origins and structural and dynamic complexities. Then all findings were extensively tested for their predictive capabilities.
Symptoms in child selves that seek analytic treatment as adults, develop when unsolved conflicts in their caretaker objects press them to reverse the normal roles of server-servee and decommission the natural aggressive responses to their actions. There are twelve to thirteen phases of the process, each of which can be described in detail and illustrated with diagrams. The result is an adult self in which the healthy aggressive drive forms of Categories I and II are unavailable for effective defense when needed, and only a largely-inhibited form of the revenge subtype of Category III has been left expressible.
When that self begins an analytic consultation, it does so in that end phase, and the situation is immediately identifiable in the form of three transferences layered over a transference-of-impulse under which the original, uninhibited revenge lies. The analytic work begins at that point, and as the surface transferences are successively identified and dismantled, the drive is released in undefended form. It can then be studied in contextual detail as it is constructively discharged at the transference-transformed analyst object that had been forcing it out of commission.
The above aspects of the drive form will be described with excerpts and examples from a complete report of the research in the forthcoming book, From an Art to a Science of Psychoanalysis.
2011-2015
A RESEARCH INTO WHY SOME ANALYSES BECOME STALLED FOR LONG PERIODS, LAST MUCH LONGER THAN NECESSARY, AND NEVER GO TO COMPLETION
This paper serves as an Addendum To Chapter 21, MF Research and the Future, in the 2011 Book, From An Art To A Science Of Psychoanalysis.
In that chapter, the author said:
“Over the past two years I have been collecting data bearing on the time analysands take to reach successful endings. I have been particularly attentive to the markers of those in whom the lengthy durations are not explained by the metapsychological structure-processes inherent in the chief symptoms. My age will likely preclude the possibility of my pursuing the work to an endpoint, but I will speak to what I have discovered for those who wish to continue the development of this important area of analytic theory.”
Fortunately, and happy for him and his inveterate curiosity, he was able to continue his clinical work, discover the Basic and Applied theories that answered the question, and test his application with immediate, repeated, astounding results. The research process, findings and test results from March, 2011 to June 30, 2015 are described in four sequentially-developing phases.
The paper is under Copyright Law and considered to be an addition to the book.
When interest in the goals of this website is established, and a group desire to explore the “moments” in its “Clinical Puzzles” section becomes firm, the scientific principles in the depths of surface symptoms will emerge to view and move to later points in therapies at which this research will become understandable. And if parts of it are appropriate at the time, they will be provided.
2012
A TESTED AND PROVEN METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC CLINICAL RESEARCH
It is quite possible to carry out psychoanalytic/psychotherapy research that tests existing theories and discovers new ones by means of the scientific method, i.e. multiple logical hypotheses, validation criteria, tests for predictive capability, repeated tests, replication by others. Therapists can do so in parallel with their treatment work if certain principles rooted in already-proven clinical, technical theory are understood before requests for consultation are commenced.
They must establish in detail what the clinical process can realistically do, who is served and who serves, the specific roles and functions of each participant, and the process elements that are essential to a successful progress and outcome.
They must then define their observational field in terms that, though eminently pertinent, have never before been scientifically considered and clarified. They must also be prepared to work exclusively with objectively-perceived patient material and formulate such by the exclusive use of their conscious, cognitive-emotional mental functions. Transferences, countertransferences and other subjective responses in the therapist must be set aside for self analysis.
The presentation will provide details and a clinical example.
2013
ABSTRACT
A UNIQUELY SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF THE SYMPTOMS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC DOMAIN FILLS A GAP IN APPLICABLE SOCIAL THEORY BEYOND THE CLINIC
In the everyday world of interacting individuals (in marriages, families, groups, organizations, situations of misplaced aggression, international conflicts), operative transferences in unwitting selves and others produce suffering and destruction of huge proportions. And while lay people have scientific theories that allow the identification and solution of many everyday problems, there is a complete lack of such in these areas.
Logic would direct researchers to psychoanalysis, but a powerful resistance to science in its clinicians, theorists and critics has nullified that possibility. In the moments of an acted out transference, the symptomatic mind is a complex of surfaces, layers and multiple objects, only one element of which is accessible to positive input, and the unscientific theories of the analytic “schools” do not permit its identification. However, in the course of forty years of real scientific clinical research, a method for systematically identifying, formulating and addressing successive surface transferences was developed, and one part of the work proved relevant to the above deficiency.
Adult analysands were provided with theories tested for predictive capability from the start to the finish of their treatments. Transferences became tools that revealed internal-objects incorporating their young and adult selves into service to their neuroses, and when identified on appearance, the real analyst became increasingly objectively perceived. He then provided further theory that guided them through successive layers of defense and drive to internal objects and the bedrock roots of their symptoms. Then more theory was used to permanently dismantle the tangles of objects and conflicts there and, after that a new theory emerged without warning.
The clinician-researcher observed that his analysands were spontaneously, correctly, systematically and constructively using the principles acquired in treatment to identify and address transferences from significant external others! A teachable, learnable and reliable new social theory, applied by non-analysts to selves not seeking treatment, was emerging from the findings. The human being’s cognitive-emotional ability to assess and garner validated theories for the benefit of self and others was coming into the spotlight [See Note]. And genuinely-scientific theories of the symptoms of the psychoanalytic domain had been the cornerstones of the discovery.
The theory will be described in detail and concrete examples in and out of the clinic will be provided.
———-
Note: This finding is pertinent to a discussion in the 1987 Self Analysis paper download earlier in this website section. In the following example, one of several similar author assertions, I pointed out that:
“Ticho (1967 p.309 bottom right) also speaks of the importance of “identification” with the methods of the training analyst in developing a capacity for self analysis. My record of the process shows that this is not what took place for me. ……… A cognitive learning process was most certainly at work. I think that analysis places too much emphasis on the operation of psychological mechanisms in its efforts to understand the processes by which it helps to effect change. By the same token, I think that it gives too little credence to the presence of an adult self and its ego in the analysand. Such a self is rooted in the skepticism that a traumatized infant (later child, adult) develops for the ubiquity of logic in the conduct of human affairs. It has an enormous range of interest in cognitively apprehending serviceable information, and a ruthless disposition to discriminate about what it takes in. It also has a strong psychic economic disposition to learn.”
The above aspects of the drive form will be described with excerpts and examples from a complete report of the research in the forthcoming book, From an Art to a Science of Psychoanalysis.
2015
PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC THEORIES DEVELOPED BY MEANS OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD: And an Unknown Clinical Phenomenon that Destroys Treatments at the Start