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What comes out of the consulting‐room? The reporting of clinical material
Author(s) -
Wharton Barbara
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of analytical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.285
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1468-5922
pISSN - 0021-8774
DOI - 10.1111/1465-5922.00021
Subject(s) - confidentiality , feeling , context (archaeology) , publishing , anxiety , psychology , reflexive pronoun , process (computing) , epistemology , social psychology , psychiatry , computer science , law , philosophy , history , political science , archaeology , operating system
The author addresses the difficulties inherent in reporting clinical material. These fall into two main categories, the ethical problem of upholding confidentiality, and the technical problems which include the definition of analytical data, and the numerous ways in which truth can be distorted in the analytic context. It is advocated that consent be obtained from patients before publishing their material. It is also suggested that clinical reports should contain enough detail of the analytic interaction, including the analyst's thoughts and feelings, to convey the analytic process, and to enable the listener/reader to consider the evidence for himself and to draw his own conclusions. It is concluded that an analyst's anxiety about exposing a patient might obscure an anxiety about exposing himself.