Reviving Freud's vision of a psychoanalytic science: Implications for clinical training and education

Traditional assumptions about the analytic encounter have contributed to th e detachment of psychoanalytic psychotherapy fr om the empirical movement t hat has dominated mainstream academic clinical psychology. However, recent research findings on the process and mechanisms of change within psychoanal ytic forms of treatment now provide much needed empirical support for some of the basic tenets of psychoanalytic theory and practice, challenge long-s tanding notions regarding the link between therapeutic technique and clinic al improvement, and suggest that factors once believed to be unique to psyc hoanalytic psychotherapy might be playing a crucial role in the promotion o f change in other therapeutic modalities. The implications of these process research findings for the present state and future of clinical training an d education are provided.