Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis was first devised in Vienna in the 1890s by Sigmund Freud, a doctor interested in finding an effective treatment for patients with neurotic or hysterical symptoms. As a result of talking with these patients Freud came to believe that their problems stemmed from culturally unacceptable, thus repressed and unconscious desires and fantasies of a sexual nature. Since Freud's day psychoanalysis has developed in many ways, and there are various different schools as well.

The basic method of psychoanalysis is the transference and resistance analysis of free association. The patient, in a relaxed posture, is directed to say whatever comes to mind. Dreams, hopes, wishes, and fantasies are of interest, as are recollections of early family life. Generally the analyst simply listens, making comments only when, in his or her professional judgment, an opportunity for insight on the part of the patient arises. In listening, the analyst attempts to maintain an attitude of empathic neutrality , a nonjudgmental stance designed to create a safe environment. The analyst asks that the analysand speak with utter honesty about whatever comes to awareness while interpreting the patterns and inhibitions that appear in the patient's speech and other behavior.

Although psychoanalytic techniques have been used in a few cases to successfully treat psychosis (with great effort and major sacrifice on the part of the analyst), psychoanalysis is generally thought by analysts to be useful as a method in cases of neurosis and with character or personality problems. Psychoanalysis is most useful in dealing with ingrained problems of intimacy and relationship and for those problems in which established patterns of life are problematic. As a therapeutic treatment, psychoanalysis generally takes three to five meetings a week and requires the amount of time for natural or normal maturational change (three to seven years).

Psychoanalysis is:

• A therapeutic technique for the treatment of neurosis.
• A technique used to train psychoanalysts. A basic requirement of psychoanalytic training is to undergo a successful analysis.
• A scientific technique of critical observation. The successors and contemporaries of Freud — Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Wilhelm Reich, Melanie Klein, Wilfred Bion, Jacques Lacan, and many others — have refined Freud's theories and advanced new theories using the basic method of quiet critical observation and study of individual patients and other events.
• A body of knowledge so acquired.
• A clinical theory. See, for example, http://www.sdp.org/sdp/papers/wynn_ess.html
• A movement, particularly as led by Freud, to secure and defend acceptance of the theories and techniques.

See also

• Defence mechanism
• Erik H. Erikson
• Psychoanalytic theory
• Important publications in psychoanalysis & psychotherapy;