Why case studies are the gossip columns of psychology

Fascinating? Yes. Generalisable? Not so much.

Case studies are the deep-dives of psychological research. They're rich, detailed, and often unforgettable — think Freud’s analysis of Little Hans, or Clive Wearing’s memory loss due to brain damage.

They give us insights that large-scale experiments sometimes can’t. In Clive Wearing’s case, we learned about the role of the hippocampus in memory. With HM, we learned that different types of memory (procedural vs. declarative) are stored differently in the brain.

But let’s talk limitations.

Case studies often focus on one individual, so findings may not apply to the wider population. They’re low in population validity. Plus, they’re usually retrospective and subject to researcher bias – especially when psychoanalysts like Freud are interpreting dreams and phobias.

Still, don’t write them off. Case studies are great for generating hypotheses, exploring rare conditions, and sparking further research.

So yes, they’re the gossip columns of psychology — rich in story, full of insight, but not always reliable enough to print on the front page of science.