Psychoanalytic Therapy

Psychoanalytic Theory

A theory developed by Freud that attempts to explain personality, motivation, and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious determinants of behavior

View of Human Nature

• Largely deterministic 

  • Personality is deep and embedded; genes determine how you are going to be 

• Behavior is largely driven by unconscious forces

Theory of personality

• Psychological qualities that 

  • Bring continuity to an individual’s behavior 

  • Across different situations and times

Strong consensus that psychoanalysis is…

the most comprehensive theory of therapy

Three aspects of Personality

• id

• ego

• superego

id

• primitive, unconscious part of the personality 

  • Basic drives 

  • Ruled by pleasure principle

    • Id wants what it wants

  • Illogical, immoral - driven to satisfy needs

Pleasure principle

aimed at reducing tension, avoiding pain, and

gaining pleasure,

ego

• conscious, rational part of the personality 

  • Decision making component of personality 

  • bridles impulses of id by devises realistic strategies that are socially appropriate 

Reality principle

the ego does realistic and logical thinking and formulates plans of action for satisfying needs

superego

• internalized values and codes of right and wrong 

  • Is the action moral and appropriate?

    • Usually taught by society and parents 

unconscious

• Key driver of behavior 

• Stores all experiences, memories, repressions 

  • Is the storehouse 

• Unconscious processes are root of therapy

Talking Cure

• Unconscious can be made conscious - then analyzed, interpreted, and reconstructed 

• Psychoanalysis: interpretation of unconscious is important

• It is up to the therapist to decode the unconscious

reality anxiety

fear of danger from the external world, and the level of such anxiety is proportionate to the degree of real threat

Neurotic Anxiety

the fear that the instincts will get out of hand and cause the person to do something for which she or he will be punished

Moral anxiety

fear of one’s own conscienc

Ego Defense Mechanisms

• Largely unconscious mental strategies aimed to reduce the experience of anxiety or conflict 

• Protect us from being overwhelmed

Denial

• ignoring truths 

• psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities

Repression

• pretending nothing is happening; things are “locked away”

• excludes unacceptable thoughts and feelings from awareness and memory

Regression

going back to earlier developmental stages

Projection

 put thoughts onto others

Psychosexual stages

Freudian chronological phases of development, beginning in infancy

Oral stage

deals with the inability to trust oneself and others, resulting in the fear of loving and forming close relationships and low self-esteem.

Anal stage

deals with the inability to recognize and express anger, leading to the denial of one’s own power as a person and the lack of a sense of autonom

Phallic stage

deals with the inability to fully accept one’s sexuality and sexual feelings, and also to difficulty in accepting oneself as a man or woman. 

Role of Psychoanalytic Therapist

to be a "blank-slate" in order to foster a transference relationship with the client

Goal of Freudian Psychoanalytic Therapy

make the unconscious conscious and to strengthen the ego so that behavior is based more on reality and less on instinctual cravings or irrational guilt. 

Transference

• Client makes projections onto the therapist

• the transfer of feelings originally experienced in early relationship(s) to other important people in a person's present environment

Interventions of Psychoanalysis

• Free association 

• Interpreting Transference

• Dream analysis

Free Association

•  unedited story telling 

  • Discuss feelings, memories, associations, fantasies 

  • Working through old patterns in the safety of the relationship

• the therapist’s task is to identify the repressed

  material that is locked in the unconscious.

Slip of Tongue (Free Association)

Thought to be an unconscious way for someone to share their thoughts and feelings

Interpreting Transference

• Feelings originally experienced with other significant people

• to expand the client's consciousness and help their ego

Resistance

a concept fundamental to the practice of psychoanalysis, is anything that works against the progress of therapy and prevents the client from producing a`previously unconscious material.

Dream Analysis

• “Royal Road”

• a technique used by psychoanalysts procedure that uncover unconscious material and gives client insight into areas of unresolved problems. The idea is during sleep, defenses are lowered, and repressed feelings surface

latent content

consists of hidden, symbolic, and unconscious motives, wishes, and fears.

manifest content

how the dream appears to the dreamer

Psychoanalysis

• focus is on the client's childhood/upbringing

• offers more interpretations

• multiple sessions a week (can be life-long)

• aimed at restructuring one's personality and working with fantasy material

• blank-slate approach

Psychodynamic Theory

• contemporary adaptation of psychoanalysis

• briefer, shorter duration of treatment (10 to 25 sessions)

• explores both the past AND present

• less interpretations, has more focus on emotional and behavioral change

• limited objectives for therapy rather than being aimed at restructuring one's personality.

• more allowance for therapist self-disclosure

• focus is on practical concerns rather than working thru fantasy material

Freud view of determinism holds that behavior is determined by …

irrational forces, unconscious motivations, and biological/instinctual drives