Some remarks on psychoanalytic research and universities

In 1995 a seminal paper by Howard Shevrin classified four conceptions of psychoanalysis: first as a human enterprise such as governing and teaching second as a science sui generis that does not require any additional empirical research third as a clinical science that focuses on psychotherapy research and fourth as a science tout court that is of course expected to validate its basic assumptions on the mind. Fifteen years later, Shevrin's classification has remained illuminating. All kinds of research are welcomed in psychoanalysis, but it is also true that, in the current debate on research in psychoanalysis, the interest in testing its assumptions on the mind is no longer a topic. But it is precisely this which is crucial in a time when the sciences of the cognitive field, such as neurobiology and the cognitive sciences, seem to be tentatively cooperating with psychoanalysis in a few studies, but overwhelmingly absorbing many psychoanalytic assumptions without mentioning psychoanalysis. In order to exist and survive as a science in the long run within universities, academies of sciences, and other scientific research institutions, the psychoanalytic community has to face the challenge and prepare itself not only for prospective dialogue, but also for confrontation.