Jakub Kuchař

Jakub Kuchař, Ph.D.
— Professional profile and academic interests

Alongside my clinical practice, I serve as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University. In my academic and research work, I engage with questions at the intersection of clinical psychotherapy and contemporary psychoanalysis.

My work addresses issues related to clinical judgment, its potential and limitations, and the role of the therapist’s subjectivity in the context of current demands for empirical support in clinical practice. Particular attention is given to the epistemic status of knowledge that emerges within the therapeutic encounter and to its relevance for understanding patients and their subjective experience.

Another area of my scholarly interest concerns the impact of contemporary technologies on psychotherapy. I examine how patients’ use of large language models (LLMs) enters the psychotherapeutic process and shapes the therapeutic relationship, including transference and countertransference dynamics. I also attend to how particular modes of clinical reasoning and implicit theoretical assumptions are discursively reflected in psychoanalytic case studies.

Education and Professional Qualifications

  • Ph.D. in Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University

  • M.A. in Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc

  • Board Certification in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education (IPVZ)

  • Comprehensive Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Czech Psychoanalytic Society

Main Areas of Academic and Research Interest

Psychotherapy and Artificial Intelligence
I examine the implications of artificial intelligence in psychotherapeutic contexts, with particular attention to how patients’ engagement with AI affects the therapeutic relationship and transference–countertransference dynamics. In parallel, I explore the use of large language models (LLMs) in the qualitative analysis of psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytic case material.

Conceptual Research and the Epistemology of Clinical Practice
My work in this area focuses on the examination of key psychoanalytic concepts, their implicit meanings, and the possibilities and limits of their operationalization. I am interested in the relationship between the richness of clinical understanding and the demands of evidence-based approaches, as well as in the role of therapist subjectivity, the reliability of clinical judgment, and its inherent limitations.

Ethics, Moral Competence, and Clinical Decision-Making
As part of interdisciplinary research teams, I contribute to studies on moral judgment among medical and psychology students, focusing on the influence of situational factors on ethical decision-making and on questions concerning the valid assessment and development of moral competence in the helping professions.

Current Research Projects and Grants

Adaptation and Pilot Validation of the Psychodiagnostic Chart-3 (PDC-3)
I am the Principal Investigator of a project supported by the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA Research Grant, 2025–2026). The project aims to adapt and pilot-validate the PDC-3 for the Czech clinical context, supporting psychodynamic diagnostic approaches sensitive to deep personality structure.

Implicit Theories in Psychoanalysis
In an independent research project, I conduct a methodological analysis of a corpus of published psychoanalytic case studies using large language models. The aim is to identify implicit theories that therapists often draw on in clinical work, frequently outside explicit theoretical awareness. This project was selected for presentation at the 27th IPA Research Training Programme (Buenos Aires, 2025), where I was awarded Selected Research Fellow status.

Moral Competence in Helping Professions
I participate in research on moral judgment among medical and psychology students, focusing on how test format and situational variables influence assessment outcomes.

Selected Publications

Kuchař, J. (2026). Patient Use of AI and its Implications for Transference–Countertransference Dynamics. International Forum of Psychoanalysis.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2025.2588288 [Accepted manuscript (PDF)]

Zielina, M., … Kuchař, J. et al. (2025). Assessing moral competence in medical and psychology students: Effects on anxiety and test duration in online versus paper-based testing. BMC Medical Education.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-025-08237-w

Kuchař, J. (2024). A Letter to the Czech Psychoanalytic Society. In H. Agrawal (Ed.), Dear Institute: Candid Commentaries from Candidates in Psychoanalytic Training. Routledge.

Kuchař, J. (2023). The Relationship Between Psychoanalysis and the Scientific Method. Psychoterapie, 16(2), 217–226. [PDF]

Kuchař, J. (2016). Paul Wachtel on Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Psychiatria – Psychoterapia – Psychosomatika, 23(1–2), 51–53.

Kuchař, J. (2015). The Integration of Psychoanalytic Theories According to Stephen A. Mitchell. Psychoterapie, 9(3), 163–170.