Index
This therapy was founded by Sigmund Freud.
Freud believed that people could be cured by making their unconscious thoughts and motivations conscious, thus gaining insight.
Freud lived most of his life in Vienna and died in London in 1939.
He discovered psychoanalysis by synthesizing ideas and information from different theoretical and clinical directions.
A great contribution to the birth of psychoanalysis was the self-analysis to which Freud himself submitted.
Freud was a Jewish neuropathologist and tried to create a psychoanalytic movement with the help of non-Jewish specialists to give more credibility to his guidance.
In this context, he collaborated with prominent personalities such as Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Sandor Ferenczi, Wilhelm Reich, and more.
The psychoanalytic movement started by Freud has experienced many ideological ruptures and difficulties.
Today, it is inherited by a series of national or international societies that disputed its primacy.
Freud’s lexicon has been integrated into the vocabulary of Western society.
The words he introduced through his theories are now used by ordinary people, such as libido, denial, repression, cathartic, Freudian slippage, and neuroticism.
Freud believed that when we explain our behavior to ourselves or to others (conscious mental activity), we rarely give a real explanation for our motivation. This is not because we are deliberately lying.
While human beings are great deceivers of others; they are even more adept at self-deception.
Our rationalizations of our behavior, therefore, disguise the real reasons.
Freud’s life work was dominated by his attempts to find ways to penetrate this often subtle and elaborate camouflage that obscures the hidden structure and processes of the personality.
Psychoanalysis is often referred to as the talking cure.
Typically, Freud encouraged his patients to speak freely (on his famous couch) about their symptoms and describe exactly what they had in mind.
The goal of psychoanalytic therapy is to release repressed emotions and experiences, that is, to make the unconscious conscious.
The multitude and diversity of data sources on psychoanalysis today point to a major problem: psychoanalysis is no longer clearly defined in the eyes of the general public.
Nobody knows today exactly what psychoanalysis is. Unfortunately there is no effort to clarify this.
That is why we must first clarify what psychoanalysis is. Then we will follow the other steps to enter the mystery of this strange discipline.
Definition
Psychoanalysis concomitantly designates three things:
- A method of investigating the mind: especially the unconscious mind.
- A neurosis therapy: inspired by the previous method.
- A new autonomous discipline: based on the knowledge obtained from the application of the research method and clinical experiments.
Therefore, there is nothing confusing in the definition of psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis is a specific technique of investigation of the mind and a therapy inspired by this technique.
We would put therapy at the forefront to make it even clearer that psychoanalysis is not speculative at all, that it is linked more to psychotherapy and less to philosophy, art or culture in general.
The science of psychoanalysis that we mention in the third point comes to the light of Freud’s famous study called Totem and Taboo, in which he is launching a social and anthropological analysis based on the knowledge extracted from the application of psychoanalysis to the therapy of neurosis. .
Psychoanalytic therapy is one of the best known treatment modalities, but it is also one of the most misunderstood by mental health consumers.
This type of therapy is based on the theories and work of Sigmund
Freud, who founded the school of thought known as psychoanalysis.
Assumptions of psychoanalysis
- Psychoanalytic psychologists see psychological problems as rooted in the unconscious mind.
- Overt symptoms are caused by latent (hidden) disturbances.
- Typical causes include unresolved issues during development or repressed trauma.
- Treatment focuses on making the repressed conflict conscious, where the client can handle it.
Psychoanalytic therapy
Psychoanalytic therapy looks at how the unconscious mind influences thoughts and behaviors.
Freud described the unconscious as the repository of wishes, thoughts, and memories that lie beneath the surface of consciousness.
People undergoing psychoanalytic therapy often meet with their therapist at least once a week and may stay in therapy for several weeks, months, or even years.
Through this process, the hope is that people can gain knowledge and awareness of the unconscious forces that contribute to their current state of mind.
History
Psychoanalytic theory grew out of the work of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who began to develop his therapeutic techniques in the late 19th century.
In 1885, Freud began studying and working with Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière in Paris.
Charcot used hypnosis to treat women suffering from what was then known as hysteria.
Symptoms of the disease include partial paralysis , hallucinations, and nervousness.
Freud continued to research hypnotism in treatment, but his work and friendship with his colleague Josef Breuer led to the development of his most famous therapeutic technique.
Breuer described his treatment of a young woman, known in the case history as Anna O., whose symptoms of hysteria were alleviated by talking about her traumatic experiences.
Freud and Breuer collaborated on a book entitled Studies on Hysteria, and Freud continued to develop his use of this ” talk therapy .”
This approach proposed that simply talking about problems could help alleviate psychological distress.
How does psychoanalytic therapy work?
Psychoanalytic therapists generally spend their time listening to patients talk about their lives, which is why this method is often referred to as “the speech cure.”
The therapy provider will look for significant patterns or events that may play a role in the client’s current difficulties.
Psychoanalysts believe that childhood events and unconscious feelings, thoughts, and motivations play a role in mental illness and maladaptive behaviors.
Psychoanalytic therapy also uses other techniques, such as free association, transference exploration, observation of the patient’s defenses and feelings, which may not be conscious, as well as dream interpretation.
Profits
As with any mental health treatment approach, psychoanalytic therapy can have its advantages and disadvantages.
The degree to which these potential benefits and difficulties influence the choice to use this approach depends on a variety of factors, including individual preferences and the severity of symptoms.
This type of therapy has had critics who claim that psychoanalytic therapy is too time consuming, expensive, and generally ineffective.
The misconceptions of this type of treatment are often related to some of the oldest and most classical Freudian applications of psychoanalytic treatment.
In recent decades, there has been significant research validating the benefits of this approach.
The therapist provides an empathetic and non-judgmental environment in which the client can feel safe in revealing feelings or actions that have caused stress and difficulties in their life.
Often times simply sharing these burdens in the context of a therapeutic relationship can have a beneficial influence.
Additionally, this type of self-examination has been shown to lead to continued emotional growth over time.
What are the drawbacks of psychoanalytic therapy?
As with all treatment methods, there are also potential downsides that need to be considered as well.
Costs are often cited as the biggest drawback of psychoanalytic therapy.
Many clients are in therapy for years, so the financial and time costs associated with this treatment modality can potentially be very high.
Psychoanalytic therapy is just one mental health treatment approach that you may want to consider.
This approach may provide benefits that may be appropriate for your particular situation, but always speak with your doctor or therapist to determine which method of psychotherapy might be the most effective for your individual needs.
How can we understand the unconscious mind?
Remember, psychoanalysis is a therapy as well as a theory.
Psychoanalysis is commonly used to treat depression and anxiety disorders .
In psychoanalysis (therapy), Freud had a patient lie on a couch to relax, and he would sit behind them taking notes as they told him about their childhood dreams and memories.
Psychoanalysis is a process that involves many sessions with the patient.
Because the unconscious has a defense mechanism by nature and is quite inaccessible when searching deep, these psychoanalytic therapies may have to be taken several times a week, and commonly for several years.
This approach assumes that symptom reduction is relatively inconsequential, since if the underlying conflict is not resolved, more neurotic symptoms will simply be replaced.
Usually the analyst is a “blank screen” revealing very little about herself so that the client can use the space in the relationship to work on their unconscious without interference from outside.
The psychoanalyst uses various techniques to encourage the patient to develop ideas about his behavior and the meanings of symptoms, including ink blots, paraphrasing, free association, interpretation (including dream analysis), resistance analysis, and transference analysis.
Rorschach ink spots
The nature of defense mechanisms and the inaccessibility of deterministic forces operating in the unconscious, the inkblot itself means nothing, it is ambiguous (that is, unclear).
It is what you read that is important. Different people will see different things depending on the unconscious connections they make.
The inkblot is known as a projective test because the patient “projects” information from their unconscious mind to interpret the inkblot.
However, behavioral psychologists like BF Skinner have criticized this method as subjective and unscientific.
Freudian slip
Unconscious thoughts and feelings can be transferred to the conscious mind in the form of parapraxes, popularly known as Freudian slips or slips of the tongue.
We reveal what is really on our mind by saying something we did not mean.
For example, a nutritionist giving a lecture pretends to say that we should always demand the best in bread, but instead said bed.
Another example is when a person can call the new partner of a friend with the name of a previous one, who we liked the most.
Freud believed that tongue glides provided insight into the unconscious mind and that there were no accidents, every behavior (including tongue glides) was significant (that is, all behavior was determined).
Free association
A simple psychodynamic therapy technique is free association, in which a patient talks about what comes to mind.
This technique involves a therapist reading a list of words (eg, mother, childhood, etc.) and the patient immediately responds with the first word that comes to mind.
Fragments of repressed memories are expected to emerge in the course of free association.
Free association may not be helpful if the client shows resistance and is reluctant to speak his mind.
On the other hand, the presence of resistance (for example, an excessively long pause) often provides a strong clue that the client is approaching some important idea repressed in their thinking, and that further exploration by the therapist is needed. .
Freud reported that his free association patients occasionally experienced an emotionally intense and vivid memory that almost relived the experience.
This is like a “flashback” to a war or rape experience.
A memory so stressful, so real that it seems like it is happening again, is called an aberration.
If such an upsetting memory occurred in therapy or with a supportive friend and one felt better, relieved, or purified, it would later be called catharsis.
These intense emotional experiences often provided Freud with valuable insight into the patient’s problems.
Dream analysis
According to Freud, dream analysis is “the royal road to the unconscious.”
He argued that the conscious mind is like a censor, but is less vigilant when we are asleep.
As a result, repressed ideas surface, although what we remember may well have been altered during the dream process.
As a result, we need to distinguish between the manifest content and the latent content of a dream.
The first is what we really remember. And the latter represents what it really means.
Freud believed that very often the real meaning of a dream had a sexual meaning and in his theory of sexual symbolism, he speculates on the underlying meaning of common dream themes.
Clinical applications
Psychoanalysis (along with Rogerian humanistic counseling) is an example of global therapy that aims to help patients achieve a major change in their entire outlook on life.
This is based on the assumption that the current maladjustment perspective is tied to deep-seated personality factors.
Global therapies are in contrast to approaches that focus primarily on symptom reduction, such as cognitive and behavioral approaches, so-called problem-based therapies.
Anxiety disorders such as phobias, panic attacks , obsessive-compulsive disorders, and post- traumatic stress disorder are obvious areas in which psychoanalysis can be assumed to work.
The aim is to help the patient to accept his own identification impulses or to recognize the origin of his current anxiety in childhood relationships that are relived in adulthood.
Svartberg and Stiles (1991) and Prochaska and DiClemente (1984) point out that the evidence for its effectiveness is equivocal.
Salzman (1980) suggests that psychodynamic therapies are generally of little help for clients with specific anxiety disorders, such as phobias or OCD, but may be most helpful with general anxiety disorders.
In fact, Salzman expresses concern that psychoanalysis may increase OCD symptoms due to the tendency of such clients to worry too much about their actions and to reflect on their plight.
Depression can be treated with a psychoanalytic approach to some extent.
Psychoanalysts link depression to the loss each child experiences as they realize our separation from our parents in early childhood.
The inability to accept this can leave the person prone to depression or depressive episodes in later life.
Treatment involves encouraging the client to remember that early experience and untangling the fixations that have built up around them.
Special care is taken with transference when working with depressed clients due to their overwhelming need to depend on others.
The goal is for clients to become less dependent and develop a more functional way of understanding and accepting loss, rejection, and change in their lives.
Shapiro and Emde report that psychodynamic therapies have been successful only occasionally.
One reason could be that depressed people may be too inactive or unmotivated to participate in the session.
In such cases, a more directive and challenging approach could be beneficial.
Another reason could be that depressives can expect a quick cure and since psychoanalysis does not offer this, the client may abandon or become too involved in the design of strategies to maintain a dependent transference relationship with the analyst.
Critical evaluation
It is important to keep the following in mind when starting psychoanalysis therapy:
- Therapy is time consuming and unlikely to provide answers quickly.
- People must be prepared to invest a lot of time and money in therapy; they must be motivated.
- They might discover some painful and unpleasant memories that had been suppressed, causing them more distress.
- This type of therapy does not work for all people and all types of disorders.
- The nature of psychoanalysis creates an imbalance of power between therapist and client that could raise ethical issues.
Fisher and Greenberg in a review, conclude that psychoanalytic theory cannot be accepted or rejected as a package, it is a complete structure consisting of many parts, some of which must be accepted, others rejected and the others at least partially reformed.
Freud’s theory questions the very basis of a rationalistic and scientific approach, and could be seen as a critique of science, rather than as a science that rejects psychoanalysis because it is not susceptible to refutation.
The case study method is criticized as it is doubtful that the generalizations can be valid as the method is open to many types of bias.
However, psychoanalysis is concerned with offering interpretations to the current client, rather than designing dehumanized abstract principles.
Anthony Storr, the well-known psychoanalyst holds the view that while a great deal of psychoanalysts have a great deal of “data” available to their cases, these observations are linked to being tainted with subjective personal opinion and should not be considered scientific.
Psychoanalysis has become extremely familiar today to the general public (of the West) after a long time being rejected or adulterated.
Psychoanalysis has spread everywhere not only because of the interest generated by psychoanalytic therapy.
We could even say that therapy was overshadowed by the virtues of applied psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis applied in literature, sociology, anthropology and ethnology, in religion and mythology has aroused the interest of an audience that had no vocation in the clinical sphere.
