1st Edition

Psychoanalytic Theory and Clinical Relevance What Makes a Theory Consequential for Practice?

By Louis S. Berger Copyright 1985
224 Pages
by Routledge

213 Pages
by Routledge

213 Pages
by Routledge

In this provocative contribution to both psychoanalytic theory and the philosophy of science, Louis Berger grapples with the nature of "consequential" theorizing, i.e., theorizing that is relevant to what transpires in clinical practice.  By examining analysis as a genre of "state process formalism" - the standard format of scientific theories - Berger demonstrates why contemporary... Read more
1. Introduction  2. Logical Entailment  3. Science, State Process, and the Life World  4. Theoretical Discourse  5. The Focus of Theorizing  6. Clinical Pragmatism  7. Speculations and Generalizations 

Biography

Louis S. Berger's rich professional career spans the fields of electrical engineering (B.S.), music (M.M.), physics (M.S.), and clinical psychology (Ph.D.).  A former cellist with the Boston Symphony, he has served as Senior Research Scientist with the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, and a teacher of statistics and a number of other mathematical and nonmathematical subjects.  Following graduate training in clinical psychology in the early 1970s and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences in 1974, he established a clinical practice in Houston.  On relocating to Kentucky, he became Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Louisville School of Medicine.  His journal publications encompass a range of disciplines and topics: psychoanalytic theory, forensic psychology, psychoacoustics, general semantics, applied physics, computerized test construction, cross-disciplinary communication, and the statistical theory of communication.  He is the author of Introductory Statistics: A New Approach for the Behavioral Sciences (1981).  

"Few will be able to read this well-documented book without being stretched and challenged. Berger has asked some very penetrating and important questions."

- Journal of Psychology and Theology