Psychoanalysis & Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Chapter 8 Part 2

Psychoanalytic Themes

• behavior and emotion are shaped by unconscious processes

• early relationships form the blueprint for current ones

• therapeutic relationship serves as a window into the client’s inner world

• insight and emotional understanding lead to change

Freud’s Theory of Personalty and Psychopathology

behavior and behavior problems are caused largely by unconscious conflicts among id, ego, and superego

• defense mechanisms are unconscious mental strategies or routines that the ego employs to ward off the anxiety produced by intrapsychic conflicts

Anna O

• Early case of hysteria with no clear physical cause

• Symptoms: anxiety, panic, dizziness, vomiting, cough, difficulty swallowing

  • Treated with hypnosis / free association (“talking cure”)

• Key trauma: caring for dying father (TB); repressed distress

  • Breakthrough when recalling disturbing memory (dog drinking from glass)

• Catharsis → emotional insight led to symptom relief

• Introduced idea of chimney sweeping (cleansing the mind)

• Foundation of modern psychotherapy / psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis Goals

• help clients gain conscious, emotional insight into underlying causes of problems

• work through the implications of those insights for everyday life

• strengthen the ego’s control over the id and the superego and thereby reduce conflict

Therapist Role

maintain a neutral (“analytic incognito”) stance to help clients explore their unconscious conflicts, impulses and fantasies

• techniques

  • analysis of everyday behavior, dreams, transference, and resistance

  • hypnosis and catharsis

  • client free association

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

• focus on expression of emotion

• exploration of attempts to avoid distressing thoughts and feelings

• identification of recurring themes and patterns

• emphasis on past/developmental perspective

• focus on therapy relations and therapy relationship

• exploration of wishes and fantasies

Current Status of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

more popular than classical psychoanalysis

• on the rise

• empirical support for the efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy is increasing

• less ideological and combine psychodynamic techniques with cognitive behavioral features