ABSTRACT
Researchers and clinicians alike are seeking new knowledge about improving outcomes in psychotherapy. Neuroscientists have increasingly realized that the human brain, to be understood, must be studied in its social context, not in isolation. Brain structure exists as a result of adaptive functioning that has occurred over evolutionary time and during ontogeny and is wired to be social. Psychoanalytic therapy itself takes place over time and is oriented not only for understanding the past and helping with processes of adaptation in the present but, vitally, also for healthy adaptation in the future–again, outside of the consultation room and beyond the periods of treatment. Assessments of outcome for psychotherapy require longitudinal study, to see if there are changes among the patient’s adaptive experiences involving connections and meaning.
