Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy. Introduction
Freudian psychoanalysis is the first therapy method used dsucessfully for treatment of psychiatric disorders. It is also the first method emphasizes the role of the unconciuos and the hidden conflicts casing the symptoms.
The therapeutic approaches grounded in psychoanalysis changed during the previous century. Practitioners of psychotherapy categorize techniques drawn from psychoanalysis as “psychoanalytical therapy,” “psychodynamic therapy,” or “in-depth psychotherapy.” Conversely, behavioural psychotherapy falls on the other end.
Though derived from Sigmund Freud’s discoveries, psychoanalytical approaches have changed dramatically. In the classical psychoanalysis, the therapist sitts behind the patient and mads sporadically comments. C.G. Jung made the first major changes to the psychoanalysis. In Jung’s own method called “psychoanalytical psychotherapy” the therapist participats actively with the patient. Jung abandoned the sofa. Here, the therapist and patient are seated next to one another which creates a position of “equality” with the therapist.
The other modification of Freud’s procedures also introduced by Jung are the less frequent sessions. Freud used to see his patients five to six times a week. Today’s frequency of sessions has dropped to once a week or even less.
The Freudian Concept of the Psyche
According to Freud, the mind is made up of three elements: the Id, the Ego, and the Super-Ego. Acting as a pleasure centre, the Id stands for needs and wishes disregarding any bondaries. By contrast, the Ego determines our conscious view and regulates impulses by interacting with the outside environment.
The Super-Ego, the “moral institution,” regulats our consciousness as well as our unconscious level of thinking, emotions, and behaviour. It supervises the Id, protecting the Ego by using the so-called “defence mechanism.”
Scopes of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Despite some technical differences all methods of the psychodynamic psychotherapy aim to increase patients’ awareness of their inner world. While creating the inisight into the “lumbur room ” of the psyche with its hidden contents, creating connections to the concioussness and alliavating the destructive tension created by the conflicts. Such approach facilitates deep-seated changes in personality and inner growth.
Psychodynamic psychotherapies offer an effective treatment for a variety of psychological problems improving patients’ mental and physical health, and capacity to manage more successfully their life. Psychodynamic psychotherapy can assist people suffering from severe psychiatric problems like depression, anxiety, OCD and more.
Aiming for deeper levels of patient’s personality, psychodynamic psychotherapy on average, runs longer than cognitive behaviour therapy, lasting for months to even few years. Time, money, and emotional energy invested into understanding peaple’s own agenda yield major benefits in terms of better relationships, creativity, career and social advancement.
The Therapist in the Analytical Process
The therapy depends much on the interaction with the therapist. The therapist provides a quiet and confidential environment. He assists the patients through the therapy process helping them undestand the unconscious patterns of their inner world. This method enables patients to progressively recognise their problem, and, once aware of them, to grow in ability to comprehend and apply the adjustments.
Defense Mechanisms in Psychodynamic Psychology
In the 19th century, psychoanalysis’s founder, Freud, started the research of defence mechanisms. He saw the defence mechanism as unconscious protection balancing the equilibrium between the Id and the Super-Ego.
People automatically use defences to protect their favourable self-image. The defense mechanisms reduce the tension that a conflict generates subconsciously – sometimes semi-consciously, but always outside of our conscious control. The people are not even aware when the defence mechanisms become active.
The first scientifically based evidence of their existence was presented byC.G.Jung in his word association experiment, supporting Freud’s psychoanalytical theory.
Primitive, Moderate and Mature Defense Mechanisms
Defense mechanisms are acquired behaviours shaped during early childhood and early adolescence. Along with the changing and demanding life events, the defence system may survive, regress, or adapt over the journey from childhood to adolescence and finally into adulthood.
Defense mechanisms are arranged according to degree of complexity. The neurotic defences offer a reasonable degree of adaptability.
Defensive mechanisms also abound in “normal” people. But they have a great degree of maturity, which enables the best degree of adaptability by encouraging the interaction of ideas with emotions.
Primitive Defense Strategies
Typical children and people with personality problems use so-called “primitive defence mechanisms”. The manifestations of primitive defence mechanisms are image distortion, denial, and immature behaviour.
The term “primitive” used to describe the defence systems does not imply that those in whom such mechanisms function are less intelligent. However, the nature of the system itself is simple (“primitive”), hence the person stays ignorant about when and how the defence mechanism turns on. Individuals using them were not able to develop more complex defensive mechanisms due to some deficits during their socialisation period. Greater reliance on these immature defences suggests poor understanding of cognitive and emotional components of internal conflicts. These systems protect the person from supposed dangers by filtering out undesired ideas, feelings, and behaviours.
Neurotic Defense Mechanisms
Comprising neurotic and obsessional defences, the neurotic defensive group is midway in terms of adaptability. These shields let people handle one by one the emotional or cognitive elements of internal or external pressures. Keeping the disagreement out of awareness helps this defensive system prevent individuals from experiencing overwhelming anxiety.
Mature Defense Mechanisms
Comprising the most successful defence mechanisms functioning in “normal” people, the mature defensive category reflects a high-adaptive level. Encouragement of the employment of mature defences helps people to combine and partially accept their emotions, ideas, thoughts, and sensations connected to internal conflicts. Using them alleviates psychological adaptability while reducing psychological discomfort by combining emotions with ideas.
Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy. Summary
The use of a particular psychotherapy method depends on a number of elements, including personal inclination. Before deciding whether psychoanalytic psychotherapy is suitable, one or more first visits with a qualified psychotherapist might be necessary. Today, traditional Freudian psychoanalysis with the patient reclining on a sofa and the therapist out of sight is rarely used. Also, the frequency of psychoanalytical sessions is lower than in standard Freudian psychoanalysis.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy’s primary goal is to raise consciousness of the struggle beneath the protective systems of defence mechanisms. The defence system mostly serves to safeguard the Ego. It shields our good self-image from negative emotions and ideas. However, the use of defence mechanisms, especially the primitive ones, creates symptoms that jeopardize normal psychological functioning. Psychodynamic psychotherapy helps the person reach the psychological “lumber room,” buried in the unconscious. The conflict will be progressively resolved, creating an insight into its nature and rendering the defence mechanisms useless.
Psychoanalytical psychotherapy is a good therapy choice for people with psychological problems or who are looking for more insight and fulfilment in life. It improves patients self-awareness and helps them make conscious decisions about their actions.