You are lying down on a soft couch with a pillow under your head. A psychoanalyst is sitting in a chair behind you, taking notes as you talk. It feels weird to say whatever pops into your head to this person you barely know. For whatever reason, after talking about some of your thoughts and feelings about the past that you have been holding in for so long, you feel relieved!
- What is psychoanalytic therapy?
- What are techniques used in psychoanalytic therapy?
- Is psychoanalytic therapy effective?
Definition of Psychoanalytic Therapy
Freud's methods are not universally accepted in psychology today, but his work was the beginning of therapy as we know it nowadays. So what is psychoanalytic therapy? What is psychoanalysis?
Psychoanalysis is based on Freud's theory of the unconscious mind and involves techniques to bring unconscious material into conscious awareness.
Psychoanalytic therapy incorporates psychoanalysis into the interactions between the counselor and client to help the client gain insight into unconscious thoughts, feelings, and desires.
Freud believed that mental health struggles are due to unconscious conflicts. Psychoanalysis was designed to help clients recognize, express, and overcome these conflicts. Some of these conflicts are related to Freud's psychosexual stages of development, and some to his psychoanalytic theory of personality.
According to Freud, the mind of every person is made up of three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. That's not the most surprising part of his theory, though; he also believed that the id, ego, and superego are mostly unconscious. If most of our personality is unconscious, how do we know who we are and how to live?
Freud's theory of the mind, StudySmarter Original
The Purpose of Psychoanalytic Therapy
As stated earlier, psychoanalytic theory helps us release the energy developed from any conflicts within our id-ego-superego. Freud developed this therapy thinking that we do not know ourselves well and that there are things about life and ourselves that we do not know or deny.
Psychoanalytic therapy aims to bring unconscious material in mind into conscious awareness.
Freud hoped to help his patients reach toward their repressed or "disowned" feelings so that there was a conscious awakening to them. Once these feelings were brought to the surface, the client's mental health struggles could be better understood. Freud wanted to help resolve conflicting emotions so that the client could better handle life's problems and reduce the amount of distress the client was experiencing.
Psychoanalytic Therapy Techniques
Sigmund Freud, pixabay.com
How does a psychoanalyst help a client discover repressed, unconscious memories, thoughts, and feelings? Talking about the client's childhood and connecting it to the client's life now is a basic technique of psychoanalysis. Many forms of therapy practice talking about your childhood, though. What makes psychoanalysis different?
Free Association
Free association is openly and freely sharing thoughts and feelings as they occur in the present moment. The idea is for the client to hold nothing back and tell the therapist whatever pops up in their mind. Psychoanalysts often use free association during therapy sessions.
Psychoanalysts want clients to free associate to experience catharsis: a sense of relief from expressing repressed thoughts and feelings. If the client does not freely share thoughts and feelings at any point in the therapy session, this would be considered a sign of resistance and would be an area of interest to the psychoanalyst.
Interpreting Resistance
Resistance signals to the psychoanalyst that the client may be experiencing anxiety or defensiveness toward something in their mind. The psychoanalyst will listen closely to the client and encourage them to keep sharing freely. They might explore some of the client's dreams and memories so that the psychoanalyst can provide an interpretation of them.
In psychoanalytic therapy, the therapist is the expert who explains what thoughts, feelings, dreams, and memories mean for the client's life. If a client resists talking about something, the psychoanalyst encourages them to push past their discomfort and share any underlying ideas, beliefs, feelings, and fears. Remember the main goal of psychoanalysis? Resistance keeps unconscious material from becoming conscious.
Transference
As time progresses, the psychoanalyst may begin to notice transference patterns in the client.
Transference is a relationship dynamic where the client begins treating the therapist like they are someone from the client's past or current life. The client-therapist relationship might start to take on the emotional connections and patterns of other relationships in the client's life (like with close family and friends).
Transference is not unique to psychoanalysis, but Freud was the first to notice it and talk about it. The therapist becomes such an important person in the client's life that the client begins feeling and treating the therapist in the same way as their mother, father, or another individual. This often happens without the client realizing it. It is up to the therapist to pick up on these relationship dynamics and draw the client's attention to them.
Benefits and Effectiveness of Psychoanalytic Therapy
While many aspects of Freud's theories and ideas have been discarded or updated by other theorists, there are still aspects that are used today. As in other kinds of therapy, psychoanalysis provides a safe place for clients to share and revisit past traumas and experiences. By practicing free association and experiencing transference, the client develops a stronger sense of self-awareness and may discover solutions to problems.
Is this type of therapy beneficial for clients? Research studies show that clients seem to improve after receiving psychoanalysis. Clients struggling with anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and eating disorders reported that long-term psychoanalytic therapy was beneficial. However, this form of therapy is not more effective than others.
Psychodynamic Therapy and Psychoanalytic Therapy
In the United States, few therapists practice psychoanalysis the same way that Freud and other early therapists did. Over time, the principles behind psychoanalysis were transferred to a new form called psychodynamic therapy. As the name implies, psychodynamic therapy is all about the psychological dynamics of the mind.
The parts of Freud's ideas supported by research inform psychodynamic therapy sessions. The therapist and client still talk about childhood memories and experiences, primary relationships, dreams, transference, and internal resistance. The key difference is that psychodynamic therapy focuses more on current thoughts and feelings. The point of talking about the past is to connect it to what the client is experiencing in the present. The primary goal of psychodynamic therapy is to develop self-awareness and self-insight to improve the client's relationships and ability to function in life.
Humanistic Therapies and Psychoanalytic Therapies
Humanistic therapy approaches are based on different basic ideas and principles than psychoanalysis. The main humanistic therapy approach is client-centered therapy. One of the biggest differences between psychoanalysis and humanistic therapies is the therapist's role. Remember how the psychoanalyst is the expert in the relationship? Well, humanistic therapists consider the client to be the expert.
Humanistic therapy focuses on individual self-worth and self-fulfillment as the main issues facing each client. Rather than focusing on the past and trying to uncover hidden thoughts or feelings in the unconscious, humanistic therapists focus on the conscious mind and personal responsibility and control over current thoughts, feelings, and actions. Humanistic therapies are positive and affirming.
Psychoanalytic Therapies - Key takeaways
- Psychoanalysis is based on Freud's theory of the unconscious mind and involves techniques to bring unconscious material into conscious awareness.
- Psychoanalytic therapy incorporates psychoanalysis into the interactions between the counselor and client to help the client gain insight into unconscious thoughts, feelings, and desires.
- Free association is openly and freely sharing thoughts and feelings as they occur in the present moment.
- Catharsis is a sense of relief experienced by the client through expressing repressed thoughts and feelings.
- In psychoanalytic therapy, the therapist is the expert who provides interpretations of the client's thoughts and feelings.
- Transference is a relationship dynamic in which the client begins treating the therapist like they are someone from the client's past or current life.
- The primary goal of psychodynamic therapy is to develop self-awareness and self-insight to improve the client's relationships and ability to function in life.
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