Hard science, thin air and unexpected guests: a pluralistic model of rationality, knowledge and conjecture in child psychotherapy research

Abstract

Psychoanalysis and child psychotherapy have traditionally sought to describe their relationship to science in a variety of ways. As a consequence, different strands of the research programme are underpinned by divergent methodological and epistemic assumptions. The perceived incommensurability of these positions sometimes hinders the development of an integrated research programme. This paper examines possibilities for redescribing child psychotherapy research in terms of a broad and pluralistic framework where clinical, empirical, conceptual and interdisciplinary research are aspects of a dynamic whole, and where rationality emerges from discursive processes that take place not only within but between traditions of investigation. The potential merits of this redescription are discussed with reference to the truth status of psychoanalytic knowledge, the characteristics of the child psychotherapy research terrain, the role of metaphor in a creative research culture, and the nature of grounds for theory choice.