San Francisco Psychotherapy Research

San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Project

The San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Project (SFPRP) was a prospective comparative outcome study conducted in the James Goodrich Whitney Clinic of the San Francisco Jung Institute, beginning in 1993 and ending on August 1st, 2004.

A copy of the manuscript is available for review in the library of the San Francisco Jung Institute and here:

“Analyzing the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Project”, Dr. Seth Isaiah Rubin, Ph.D., FPPR, Nancy Powers, Ph.D., November 2005

Data were collected at four measurement occasions:

1. First therapy session
2. Termination
3. One-year follow-up
4. Five-year follow-up

Analysts, candidates, and psychology interns and their Clinic patients served on a voluntary basis as participants in the study. From 2002 through 2004, we collaborated with Robert S. Wallerstein, M.D., Connie Milbrath, Ph.D., and Kathy Dewitt, Ph.D., who have developed a semi-structured interview for assessing 17 Psychological Capacities within a psychoanalytic framework. We have created 4 additional Psychological Capacities that pertain to Jungian analysis: 1. Capacity to Symbolize, 2. Capacity to Imagine, 3. Capacity to Tolerate Complexity, and 4. Capacity to Not Know. With the extensive editorial help of John Beebe, M.D., we have prepared a manuscript for publication and submitted it to the Journal of Analytical Psychology.

Jungian Individuation

Individuating into Death: Preparations on the Path to the Ultimate Personal Mystery

This research project makes use of an alchemical hermeneutic re-search method as described by Robert D. Romanyshyn, Ph.D. in his book The Wounded Researcher: Research with Soul in Mind ( published by Spring Journal Books in 2007).

Several Extended Education presentations are included in this research project, such as Depth Psychological Approaches to Death and Beyond, Circumambulating The Red Heifer, and Extending Winnicott’s Ideas About The Transitional Object. This research project will result in a more extensive book, with the title Preparing for the Mystery of Death, which I am aiming to finish in 2014.