Psychoanalytic Therapy Research: Its Coming of Age

I discuss the sweep of articles in this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, which together encompass a representative range of cutting-edge programs in psychoanalytic therapy research. Among the issues I deal with are (a) the characteristics and the potentials of the array of outcome measures, from those that reflect symptom and manifest behavior changes to those geared to underlying structural change in personality; (b) the reach and the limitations of prescriptive manuals for deployment of the range of psychoanalytic therapies; (c) the diversity of methods, instruments, and conceptual frameworks that characterizes the burgeoning spread of both process and outcome current psychotherapy researches; and (d) the prospects for coalescence of research strategies and conceptions in the direction of process-outcome “Problem-Treatment-Outcome (PTO) Congruence.” Altogether, psychotherapy research today is in a state of vibrant health.