There are Some Things I Don't Want to Know: Leichsenring and Rabung's Long Road to the 2008 JAMA Report

Abstract

Psychodynamic practitioners have been slow to evaluate their outcomes empirically and to disseminate these findings publicly. This historic stance is changing, with psychoanalytic leaders now calling for more empirical research and with important, recent contributions. This response lauds the JAMA paper as a developmental achievement among dynamic theorists, and as an example of the kind of interdisciplinary scholarship which is needed. The author offers a critique and raises questions about what constitutes the treatment in these quite disparate treatments, spanning 25 years. It compares their findings to those of a current, clinic-based longitudinal study (N = 1,050), and asks if this latter study's findings might challenge or at least complicate some of the strong assertions Leichsenring and Rabung make. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.