Chapter2 Flashcards
Basic principles psychoanalytic perspective
- unconsciousness
- awareness
- defenses
- ambivalence
- therapeutic relationship
- understanding
Basic concepts psychoanalytic therapy
Unconscious
Fantasy
Primary + secondary processes
Defenses
Transference
One-vs two-person psychologies
Examples of defenses
- intellectualisation
- projection
- reaction formation
- splitting
Defenses
Function to avoid emotional pain by pushing thoughts, wishes, feelings, fantasies out of awareness
Intellectualization
Talking about something threatening while keeping up an emotional distance to it
Projection
Attributing a threatening feeling or motive one is experiencing to another person
Reaction formation
Denying a threatening feeling + claiming to feel the opposite
Splitting
When one is unable to integrate ambivalent feelings about a person into one‘s view, 2 separate representations of the person form
-> can make stable relationships more difficult to maintain
Transference
Transferring template of significant figure from one‘s childhood onto another person
One-person psychology
Idea that it is possible to understand clients defense processes without consideration for therapist own ongoing contributions to the interaction
Two person psychology
Idea that assumes that both the therapist + client contribute to everything that takes place in a therapeutic relationship
Reasons for the declining influence of psychoanalysis
- increasing biologising of psychiatry
- rise of CBT + emphasis on evidence-based treatment
- arrogance of psychoanalysts being regarded negatively in the public
- psychoanalysts not being receptive to valid criticism
Object relations theory
Internal objects/representations shape how people choose relationships to create + how they shape them based on perceptions and actions of others
Attachment theory
Idea that all humans have innate tendency to develop strong affectional bonds and that threats to these bonds result in psychopathology
Internal working models
Process of developing internal representations of relationships with others that shape our ongoing experience + actions
Developmental arrest model
Models that theorise that psychological problems emerge as a result of the failure of caregivers to provide a sufficient or optimal environment
Psychodynamic psychotherapy
Forms of treatment that are based on psychoanalytic theory but lack some of the defining characteristics of psychoanalysis
False self
(Developmental arrest model)
If the mother is too unresponsive or her needs impinge too much on the infant‘s, then the infant will become overadapted to the needs of the other and develop a false self-> allows the infant to maintain relatedness with the other as well as protect self
Optimal disillusionment
If process by which infant‘s sense of omnipotence is frustrated is sufficiently gradual, then the infant can come to accept the limitations of the other without being traumatised
Psychoanalysis is characterised by specific therapeutic stance that involves
- emphasis on helping clients to become aware of their unconscious motivation
- refraining from giving client advice or being overly directive
- attempting to avoid influencing the client by introducing ones own belief and values
- maintaining certain degree of anonymity by reducing amount of info one provides about personal life/ feelings + reactions
- attempting to maintain stance of neutral + objective observer
- seating arrangement
Intersubjectivity
Ability to hold onto one‘s own experience while at the same time beginning to experience the other as an independent center of subjectivity
Enactment
An interaction between client + therapist shaped by both partner‘s unconscious contributions.
Exploring + working through enactments can be important mechanism of change
Interpretation
Therapists attempt to help clients become aware of aspects of their intrapsychich experience + rationally patterns that are unconscious
Containment
Process of attending to our own emotions when working with clients & tolerating + processing painful or disturbing feelings non-defensively
