Psychoanalytic Therapy

Psychoanalytic Goals

- To make the unconscious --> conscious

- To reconstruct the basic personality

- To assist clients in reliving earlier experiences and working through repressed conflicts (focus on the past)

- To achieve intellectual and emotional awareness

Psychoanalytic therapeutic relationship

- The counselor remains anonymous (a mirror for the client to project true feelings)

- The focus is on reducing the resistances that develop in working with transference and on establishing more rational control

- Clients undergo long term analysis, free association to uncover unconscious conflicts and gain insight by talking

- The counselor interprets to teach client the meaning of current behavior in relation to their past.

- Contemporary psychoanalytic therapy = the therapeutic relationship is central and emphasis is given to here and now dimensions of this relationship

Psychoanalytic Techniques

Interpretation

Dream Analysis

Free Association

Analysis of resistance

Analysis of transference

Countertransference

- used to help clients gain access to their unconscious conflicts, which leads to insight and eventual assimilation of new material by the ego.

Applications of Psychoanalytic Approach

Those who want analytic therapy include prof. who want to become therapists, people who have had other intensive therapy and want more and those in psychological pain

*not recommended for people who are self centered and impulsive or for people with psychotic disorders. Can be individual or via group therapy

Freud

Austrian neurologist who originated psychoanalysis

*INCLUDE MORE HERE*

Psychoanalytic and Multiculturalism

Focus on family dynamic makes it applicable to many cultural groups

Therapists formality appeals to clients who expect professional distance

Notion of ego defense is helpful in understanding inner dynamics and dealing with environmental stress


Limitations: focus on insight and long-term treatment is often not valued by clients who want to learn coping skills for dealing with pressing daily concerns; internal focus is often in conflict with cultural values that stress an interpersonal and environmental focus

Contributions of Psychoanalytic Approach

Generated the most controversy/exploation but lead to further thinking and development of therapy ---> building blocks.

Provided detail and comprehensive description of personality structure and functioning.

Focus on unconscious as a determinant factor of behavior and the role of trauma during the first 6 years of life

Led to the development of several techniques for tapping the unconscious and shed light on the dynamics of transference/countertransference, resistance, anxiety, and the mechanisms of the ego defense

Limitations of Psychoanalytic

Requires lengthy training for therapists and clients (also pricey)

Model stresses biological and instinctual factors and neglects SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND INTERPERSONAL ONES

Methods are less applicable for solving specific daily life problems of clients and may not work with some cultural or ethic groups.

Many clients lack the degree of ego strength needed for regressive and reconstructive therapy ---> may be inapropriate for certain counseling settings.