Psychoanalysis in the Halls of Social Work Academe: Can this Patient be Saved?

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, psychoanalytic contributions to our understanding of human development, psychopathology and clinical practice have gradually become marginalized in academic social work. Although this trend is partially rooted in historical tensions within the profession, contemporary issues have also contributed to the widespread failure to acknowledge the salience of psychoanalytic ideas in the instruction of social work graduate students. The influence of managed care, changes in the academy as well as within the profession, and the domination of biological models of causality are among those factors reviewed. This paper also examines specific critiques that have been made against psychoanalytic thought, with detailed attention to two: (1) ‘Psychodynamic ideas cannot be empirically validated,’ and (2) ‘Psychoanalysis is an elite method of treatment.’

Keywords:

• psychoanalysis
• clinical social work
• psychodynamic social work
• psychoanalytic developmental psychology
• psychoanalytic research

Notes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 11th National Conference of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, February, 2009, New York, NY, USA.

^1. Readers are referred to the work of Ornstein and Ganzer (2000) in regard to psychoanalytic thought and the strengths perspective; Saari (2002) vis-à-vis conceptions of ‘environment’ in psychoanalytic theory and Mitchell (1974) in regard to feminist thought and psychoanalysis.