Psychoanalytic Perspectives Flashcards
conflict and psychic structure (ego, id etc)
ego struggles to control the id (unconscious drives)
superego also challenges ego to observe moral values
3 compromises: dreams, neurotic symptoms, defence mechanisms
example of neurotic symptom
Phobia
Little Hans, or analysis of a phobia in a 5 yr old boy (1909)
Fear of horses following cart accident
Mostly based on father’s notes (only on actual meeting)
other defence mechanisms - 7
Identified by Anna Freud (1936)
Regression, e.g. fixating on past
Reaction formation: do opposite, e.g. bullying to protect against inferiority
Denial: more discursive, but may convince self of its truth (or mitigate, e.g. ‘I’m only violent if provoked’)
Projection: to other, or attribution of repressed characteristic
Displacement: from actual object to other. “Taking it out on the cat”
Sublimation: channelling pent-up energy into something positive
Identification with aggressor: e.g. Stockholm syndrome. Allows self-blame
Little Hans defence mechanisms
Hans’s therapy mostly conducted by father
Repression: ‘real’ anxiety around father and arrival of sister
Projection of anger on to father
Displacement on to ‘safe target’ (horses)
Dora: example of dream analysis
18 yr old Ida Bauer: ‘hysterical’ symptoms, inc. cough and voice loss
Interpreted as arising from complex network of relationships involving father and family friends
‘Dora’ abandoned analysis after 11 weeks
Freud saw this as ‘failure’
The aims of psychoanalysis
Make the unconscious conscious
Undo unsatisfactory defences
Re-experience repressed feelings (‘therapeutic regression’)
Insight allows patient to explore solutions
The role of the analyst
Freud (1912): like a mirror (“to show [patient] nothing but what is shown to him”)
This allows ‘analysand’ to project repressed feelings on to analyst
Analyst remains out of sight (hence, couch)
interpretation
- what is psychoanalysis
How do we know when someone is telling the truth?
Psychoanalysis looks behind the words, to uncover their “latent meaning”
Technique of free association
The analyst makes the client aware of this (whether correct or not)
Lacanian psychoanalysis
Jacques Lacan, French theorist (1950s/60s)
Reworked some Freudian concepts
Particular focus on language
Opposed idea of ‘truth’: analyst merely interrupts client’s ideas
Transference
Unresolved feelings from past relationships(s) re-emerge in new ones
May explain ‘relationship style’
E.g. problems with authority stem from relationship with father
Or, tendency to sexualise encounters with particular people
‘Inner’ model of relationships
Built up over life from various relationship experience
Bullying father leads to girl’s fear of men
Caring teacher counters this, and creates a more open-minded view of men
But, if model too rigid, may see teacher as either
Patronising or pitying
Or, not a ‘real man’
These attributions can lead to damaging or dysfunctional adult relationships
Transference in therapy
Encouraged by (Freudian) analyst: allows client to mistake the analyst for the original object (DM of displacement)
Bring this into awareness and allow ego to be strengthened (weaken the DM)
Kleinian variant: not displacement but projection
Analyst as a ‘container’ for disintegrated aspects of the client that can be worked on in therapy
counter-transference
Analyst a real person with own ‘inner’ model of relationships
So should be capable of their own transference to the patient
CT from “unresolved unconscious elements in analyst’s thinking”
May result in resistance
When to stop the therapy?
Classic psychoanalysis is intensive
Ideally, 3-5 weekly sessions over several years
Psychoanalysts have to undergo therapy themselves in training
It is usually private: not the cheap option!
Lacan: therapy ends when client realises that there is no answer (truth and authority are illusory)
Adaptations: brief therapy
Brief focal therapy (Malan, 1976): one weekly session over 30 weeks
Focus on one area (e.g. a relationship)
Less emphasis on past
Analyst in full view
Interpersonal psychodynamic therapy (Klerman, 1984)
Focus on current relationships
Addresses communication and social skills
Similar outcomes to CBT for depression (Davison et al, 2004)
