Psychoanalytic Therapy — Quick Notes

Conscious and Unconscious

  • Consciousness is a thin slice of the total mind

  • Like the iceberg; larger part below awareness

  • Unconscious stores experiences, memories, and repressed material; root of neurotic symptoms

  • Pre-conscious: content not actively conscious but can be brought to awareness easily

Structure of Personality

  • ID: The Demanding Child; pleasure principle

  • EGO: The Traffic Cop; reality principle

  • SUPEREGO: The Judge; moral principle

Freud’s Evidence for the Unconscious

  • Dreams

  • Slips of the tongue

  • Posthypnotic suggestions

  • Material from free-association techniques

  • Material from projective techniques

  • Symbolic content of psychotic symptoms

View of Human Nature

  • Life instincts – Libido or Eros; survival of the individual and the human race

  • Death instincts – Thanatos; unconscious wish to die or to hurt themselves or others

Anxiety

  • Feeling of dread from repressed feelings, memories, and desires

  • Develops from conflict among the id, ego, and superego to control psychic energy

  • Motivates action

  • Types: Reality Anxiety (external danger), Neurotic Anxiety (fear of punishment), Moral Anxiety (guilt)

Ego-Defense Mechanisms

  • Help cope with anxiety; normal if they do not avoid facing reality

  • Deny or distort reality; operate unconsciously

Ego-Defense Mechanisms (Continued)

  • Repression – bury painful thoughts away from conscious

  • Denial – pretending a threat doesn’t exist

  • Reaction Formation – behaving opposite to impulse

  • Projection – attributing own faults to others

  • Displacement – redirecting feelings

  • Rationalization – justifying behaviors with logic

Ego-Defense Mechanisms (Continued)

  • Sublimation – divert energy into acceptable outlets

  • Regression – childlike behavior under stress

  • Introjection – adopting others’ values

  • Identification – joining a group to feel less inferior

  • Compensation – emphasizing strengths to hide weaknesses

Development of Personality: Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

  • Oral stage — First year

  • Anal stage — Ages 1-3

  • Phallic stage — Ages 3-6

  • Latency stage — Ages 6-12

  • Genital stage — Ages 12+

Development of Personality: Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages

  • Infancy — Trust vs Mistrust

  • Early Childhood — Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt

  • Preschool — Initiative vs Guilt

  • School Age — Industry vs Inferiority

  • Adolescence — Identity vs Role Confusion

  • Young adulthood — Intimacy vs Isolation

  • Middle age — Generativity vs Stagnation

  • Later life — Integrity vs Despair

The Therapeutic Process

  • Goal: make the unconscious conscious and strengthen the ego so behavior is based on reality

  • Increase adaptive functioning; reduce symptoms; resolve conflicts

  • Not limited to solving problems; achieving insight (not just intellectual understanding)

Therapist’s Function and Role

  • Blank-screen approach; anonymous nonjudgmental stance; fosters transference

  • Transference: client’s view of the therapist shaped by past caregivers and significant figures

Relationship Between Therapist and Client

  • Transference: unconscious shifting of feelings to the analyst

  • Working-through: repetitive explorations of unconscious material from early childhood

  • Countertransference: therapist loses objectivity due to own conflicts

Therapeutic Techniques and Procedures

  • Maintaining the Analytic Framework: anonymity and consistent meetings

  • Free Association: say whatever comes to mind

  • Interpretation: explain meanings of behavior

Dream Analysis and Resistance

  • Dream Analysis: royal road to the unconscious

  • Resistance: blocks progress; hinders access to unconscious material

  • Transference Interpretation: meanings revealed through analysis of transference

Jung’s Analytical Psychology

  • Elaborate integration of history, mythology, anthropology, and religion

  • Individuation: integration of conscious and unconscious

  • Shadow: accept the dark side; dreams aim for integration

  • Archetypes (collective unconscious): persona, anima/animus, shadow

Contemporary Trends

  • Object Relations — Melanie Klein: attachment and separation

  • Self Psychology — Heinz Kohut: self objects; empathy and nonjudgmental acceptance

  • Relational Psychoanalysis — Stephen Mitchell: interactive client–therapist process

  • Brief Psychodynamic Therapy: 10–25 sessions for selective disorders

Contributions of the Classical Psychoanalytic Approach

  • Helps understand resistances (e.g., canceled appointments, avoiding self-exploration)

  • Unfinished business can be resolved to provide a new ending

  • Value of transference; understanding ego defenses

Contributions of Contemporary Psychoanalytic Approach

  • Empirical literature on attachment, emotion, defenses, personality

  • Validates concepts: unconscious motivation, early development, transference, countertransference, resistance

Limitations and Criticisms

  • May not fit all cultures or socioeconomic groups

  • Deterministic; underemphasizes current behavior and environment

  • Requires subjective interpretation

  • Relies on client fantasy

  • Lengthy and not always practical or affordable