The British Journal of Psychiatry (2009) 195: 483-487. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.109.064451
© 2009 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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IN DEBATE

There is no place for the psychoanalytic case report in the British Journal of Psychiatry

Lewis Wolpert, FRS, Emeritus Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine

Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. Email: l.wolpert{at}ucl.ac.uk

Peter Fonagy, PhD, FBA, Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis and Head of the Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology

University College London, Gower Street London WC1E 6BT, UK. Email: p.fonagy{at}ucl.ac.uk

Declaration of interest

L.W.: none / P.F.: none.

As evidence-based mental health and the randomised controlled trial come to dominate the content of major psychiatric journals, the status and clinical utility of single case reports have been increasingly questioned. Arguably, owing to their subjective, anecdotal nature and unsuitability for rigorous scientific testing, this is particularly true of psychoanalytic case studies. Professor Peter Fonagy and Professor Lewis Wolpert debate here whether or not there is a place for such case reports in the British Journal of Psychiatry.


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