Knowing What Psychoanalysts Do and Doing What Psychoanalysts Know; A Talk by David Tuckett

David Tuckett will describe ideas that are the outcome of a twenty-year international research project inspired by the realisation that when psychoanalysts share what they do, which many are reluctant to do, they have difficulty knowing what they do sufficiently clearly to describe it even to another psychoanalyst. They also have great difficulty with being clear about and learning from the different ways other psychoanalysts work, particularly if they are separated by geography or culture.

“Knowing What Psychoanalysts Do and Doing What Psychoanalysts Know,” published in February 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, contains an in-depth discussion of sixteen clinical cases of psychoanalysis, and tries to answer the question of what psychoanalysts do when they are practicing psychoanalysis. The Comparative Clinical Methods author team, led by David Tuckett, collaborated with over a thousand colleagues worldwide over twenty years to collect a unique dataset of everyday clinical sessions, using a new workshop discussion method designed to reveal differences. Faced with diversity and wanting to surface and understand it, they had to evolve a new theoretical framework. This framework covers different approaches to the analytic situation (using the metaphors of cinema, dramatic monologue, theater, and immersive theater): different sources of data to infer unconscious content; differences in the troubles patients unconsciously experience and how to approach them; and differences in when, about what, and how a psychoanalyst should talk. Taking the form of eleven very practical questions for psychoanalysts to ask of each session they conduct, the framework helps experienced psychoanalysts and students alike determine their intention and independently assess their progress.

BIOGRAPHY

David Tuckett is a Distinguished Fellow and Training Analyst of the British Psychoanalytic Society as well as Emeritus Professor of Decision-Making and Director of the Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty at University College London (UCL). For 2024-5 he is also a Robert Schuman Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He founded the New Library of Psychoanalysis (1987), was Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (1988-2001) and President of the European Psychoanalytic Federation (1999-2004). The author of books and journal articles in psychoanalysis, economics, finance and sociology, he received the IPA Training Award (2004) and the Sigourney Award for distinguished contributions to the field of psychoanalysis once in 2007 and again (as a CEO of Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing, PEP) in 2018. His most recent work, the book Knowing What Psychoanalysts Do and Doing What Psychoanalysts Know, is the outcome of a 20-year European project that used a newly created workshop method to collect and analyse the largest number of ordinary psychoanalytic sessions yet attempted. It was published in February 2024. It develops a new theoretical framework for asking how different psychoanalysts work. With colleagues he researches psychoanalytic practice and training and how to apply the fruits of psychoanalytic understanding to strategic decision-making and economic and finance understanding and policy. He has spoken at the Davos meetings and other occasions and is the author of Minding the Markets: An Emotional Finance View of Financial Instability as well as many academic papers. He is the principal architect of Conviction Narrative Theory – a new approach to the foundations of decision-making under uncertainty, published in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 2022.

REVIEWS AND ENDORSEMENTS OF "KNOWING WHAT PSYCHOANALYSTS DO AND DOING WHAT PSYCHOANALYSTS KNOW"

An admirable, heroic, rigorous, sustained, effort that gives us access to information well beyond surmise, the only other approach to find out what analysts do, and even more valuably what they think and what they unknowingly believe they are doing and why. The book is very stimulating and I hope our fellow practitioners appreciate it.

Ron Britton, training analyst and fellow, British Psychoanalytic Society

I thank David Tuckett for the deep experience reading his book has evoked in me. It is a profound, comprehensive analysis of the present crisis in the theory and practice of psychoanalytic technique. The penetrating, objective, and fair description of the dominant alternative models of psychoanalytic interventions upgrades the very level of the respective controversial discussions.

Otto F. Kernberg, director, Personality Disorders Institute, Cornell Medical Center; past president, International Psychoanalytical Association

The largest collection of psychoanalytic clinical material ever assembled, this book presents a glorious vista of the richness of contemporary clinical thinking by analysts and (perhaps for the first time since Freud) identifies the precious common core of psychoanalytic clinical thought. This breath-taking brilliant insight filled undertaking will be a landmark in the history of psychoanalysis and vital reading for anyone practicing psychoanalytically informed psychological therapy. A giant contribution to clinical understanding and practice.

Peter Fonagy, OBE, FMedSci, FBA, FAcSS, head of the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, UCL; CEO, Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families

In this ground-breaking book, David Tuckett et al. show how their sophisticated, nuanced research model applied to the clinical material from the long-standing Comparative Clinical Methods Working Party allows them to present a sophisticated comparison of different psychoanalytic methods. It is beautifully written with numerous clinical examples that are discussed in an unbiased way. Every psychoanalyst can benefit from reading this book.

Fred Busch, PhD, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute

A ground-breaking exploration of psychoanalytic practice. Through their meticulous research, analysis of workshop discussions, and psychoanalytical writings, the authors offer a shared theoretical framework for self-enquiry. I participated in the work that led to this book and the one that preceded it, always gaining a better understanding of the models with which my colleagues worked and the model I used myself. This book challenges and guides psychoanalysts to reflect on their practice, fostering a deeper understanding of the analytic situation, recognition of the unconscious, and transformative interventions. A must-read for professionals seeking to enhance their therapeutic approach and contribute to the evolution of psychoanalysis.

Antonino Ferro, MD, past president, Italian Psychoanalytic Society

In terms of the history of science, the Comparative Clinical Method project has the great merit of having led psychoanalysis from the time of ideological struggles between different psychoanalytic schools into the time of plurality in psychoanalysis. A treasure of clinical case material as well as sophisticated conceptual thinking.

Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber, German Psychoanalytic Association and senior scientist

This pioneering work from the Comparative Clinical Methods project accomplishes Freud’s wished-for Junktim of practice and theory—elaborating the traditional case study into a research method with group validation of findings. Using case reports of well-known analysts, the CCM team develops and demonstrates a new theoretical frame that all clinicians will find illuminating.

William Glover, PhD, past president, American Psychoanalytic Association

We are invited to follow the creative work of an international group of psychoanalysts researching the different basic modes of doing analysis, leading up to the identification of those significant moments when the unconscious maximally reveals itself in the disturbing phenomena which occur unexpectedly. A unique and fascinating book.

Dana Birksted Breed, PhD, training and supervising analyst, British Psychoanalytic Society; former editor, International Journal of Psychoanalysis and the New Library of Psychoanalysis

Extraordinarily astute, this book represents a milestone. The authors create a framework both for unity in diversity in the international cooperation of psychoanalysts and for self-reflection based on conceptual empiricism for the everyday work of each individual clinician. The knowledgeable re-translation of some of Freud's central terms correct some previously common misconceptions. A gift to all international psychoanalysts, including psychoanalysts-in-training.

Heribert Blass, MD, German Psychoanalytic Association, EPF President, IPA President-elect