Introduction or preface

- After having stated that the notion of validation is wider than the notion of empirical verification, the Author stresses that psychotherapy research, though epistemologically necessary, in principle and for factual reasons cannot work as a substitute of all the particularities of clinical experience. This detailed critical analysis is not aimed at condemning empirical research, but at sharpening research methods and techniques, especially considering the dimensions of subjectivity, in order to integrate research with clinical experience. Nevertheless, the programmatic choice of empirical research to use - for reasons of "scientific objectivity" - a point of view which is external to the therapeutic relationship proposes again the gap between an empirical-objective approach (the world how it is) and a phenomenologicalsubjective approach (the world how I feel it and experience it).KEY WORDS: psychotherapy research, epistemology, integration, phenomenological approach, clinical experience