Empirical Studies on Clinical Inference: Similarities and Differences in the Clinical Work of Psychotherapists with Different Theoretical Approaches and Levels of Experience

LEIBOVICH DE DUARTE, ADELA; HUERÍN, VANINA; ROUSSOS, ANDRES; RUTSZTEIN, GUILLERMINA; TORRICELLI, FLAVIA

An Open Door Review of Outcome Studies in Psychoanalysis. Second Revised Edition

International Psychoanalytic Association

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2002; p. 286 - 288

Clinical inference is, perhaps, the central activity of psychotherapists in the context of the psychotherapeutic situation. However, there are few systematic empirical studies dealing with the ways in which psychotherapists work with and construct their hypotheses about the material offered by their patients. Several studies have been conducted to explore similarities and differences in the clinical work of psychotherapists with different theoretical approaches and levels of experience. The first (Leibovich de Duarte et al., 1998) studied the similarities and differences of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysts both senior (more than 20 years of clinical experience) and junior (less than 10 years of clinical experience). A second study, still in progress, (Leibovich de Duarte et al., 2000), investigates the same topic comparing psychoanalysts, cognitive and systemic psychotherapists. It explores which authors constitute the therapists’ theoretical framework, the nature of the goals they set for their clinical practice, and it also has inquired into whether they use technical resources other than those proposed by their theory. In addition, possible connections between the moments in the patient’s discourse from which the therapists select cues to elaborate their clinical inferences and CRA patterns (Mergenthaler & Bucci, 1999) that characterize the patient’s discourse are explored.