Psychodynamic Psychotherapies

Question 1

Psychodynamic Therapies

Answer 1

human bx is motivated by unconscious processes

early development has a profound effect on adult functioning

universal principles explain personality dvlpment and bx

incsight into unconscious processes is key component of psychotherapy

Question 2

1. Freudian Psychoanalysis

Answer 2

**Structural Theory: **

1. id, ego, and superego
2. id: at birth and consists of the person’s life and death instincts which is source of all psychic energy
   
   1. Pleasure Principal: seeks immediate gratification of its instinctual drives and needs in order to avoid tension.
3. ego: at 6 months in response to the id’s inability to gratify all of its needs and operates on the basis of the reality principal: defers gratification of the id’s instincts until an appropriate object is available in reality and employs secondary process of thinking, and planning.
   
   1. primary task of the ego is to mediate the often conflicting demands of the id and reality and the superego.
4. superego: emerges when a child is between 4-5 yo and is the internalization of society’s values and standards as conveyed by parents via rewards and punishments.
   
   1. The superego attemps to permanently block the id’s socially unacceptable impulses.

Question 3

1.1 Freud’s Developmental Theory

Answer 3

Freudian Developmental theory: emphasizes the sexual drives of the id and proposes that an individual’s personality is formed during childhood as a result of the experiences during 5 predetermined psychosexual stages of develpment:

oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

Id’s libido (sexual energy) is centered in different area of the body: as a result of over- or undergratification of a person’s sexual needs during each stage is associated with a different personality outcome.

Question 4

1.2

Freudian Anxiety

Answer 4

1. Anxiety: unpleasant feeling linked with excitement of the autonomic nervous system and functions to alert the ego of impending internal or external threat.
2. When ego is unable to ward off danger via rational, realistic means, it may resort to one of its:
3. defense mechanisms:
   
   1. unconscious level and serve to deny or distort reality.
   2. repression: most basic and underlies all other defense mechanisms and occurs when the id’s drives and needs are excluded from conscious awareness by maintaining them in the unconscious.
   3. reaction formation: avoiding anxiety evoking impulse by expressing its opposite
   4. projections: threatening impulse is attributed to another person or source
      
      1. adaptive as they reduce anxiety, but lead to dysfunctional bx when they become the ego’s habitual way of dealing with danger.

Question 5

1.3

Freudian View of Maladaptive Bx

Therapy Goals/Techniques

Answer 5

1. unconscious, unresolved conflicts that occur during childhood lead to psychopathology.
2. Goal is to reduce or eliminate patholigical symptoms by bringing the unconscious into conscious awareness and
   
   1. integrating previously repressed material into the personality.
3. Technique: Analysis: using free associations, dreams, resistances, and transferences.
4. Psychic Determinism: all bx are meaningful and serve some psychological function.
   
   1. slips of tongue (parapraxes) express unconscious motives.

Question 6

1.4

Freudian Analysis

Answer 6

1. Confrontation: statements that help the client see bx in a new way
2. Clarification: clarifying the client’s feelings and restating their remarks in clearer terms.
3. Interpretation: more explicitly connnecting current bx and unconscious processes.
4. Catharsis: emotional release from recall of unconscious material
5. Insight: client’s relationship between unconscious processes and current behavior.
6. Working Through: allows the client to gradually assimilate new insights into their personality.

Question 7

1.6

Current Status of Freud

Answer 7

1. more collaborative, egalitarian approach to relationship
2. Transference: some say it is not a distortion but instead the patient’s response to the therapist’s actual behavior and an attempt to imbue the bx with persoanl meaning.
3. CounterTrans: viewed not just as the therapist’s distorted response to the patienct but when recognized and managed, a potential source of information about the patient and part of the curative process.

Brief Psychodynamic Therapy:

1. time-limited, target specific interpersonal problems id’ed in the first session, interpretation is used early, and emphasize the development of strong working allience.
   
   1. positive transference is seen as more important than negative transference b/c it promotes a positive therapeutic relationship and maximizes motivation to achieve therapeutic goals, and reduces the likelihood of the development of full-scale transference neurosis.

Question 8

2.0

ADLER’s Individual Psychology

Answer 8

Teological Approach:

1. behavior is purposeful
2. behavior motived by a person’s furture goals rather than past events (very unFreudian).
3. social factors in personality development emphasized

**Individual Psychology: **

1. Inferiority feelings, striving for superiority, style of life and social interest are key
2. Inferiority feelings dvelp in childhood–>striving for surperiority is an inherent tendency toward “perfect completion”
3. way we choose to compensate for inferiority and achieve superiority determine style of life.
   
   1. Healthy style of life: goals reflect optimism, confidence and concern for others.
   2. Mistaken Style of life: goals reflect self-centeredness, competitiveness, striving for personal power.
   3. Pampered children do not develop social feelings while neglected children are sominated by need for revenge.

Maladaptive Behavior: mistaken style of life, maladaptive attemps to compensate for feelings of inferiority and preoccupation with achieving persoanl power and lack of social interest.

Therapy Goals/Techniques: lifestyle invenstigation to yield information about client’s family constellation, fictional (hidden) goals, and basic mistakes (distorted beliefs/attitudes).

Systematic Training For Effective Teaching (STET): behavior is goal-directed and purposeful.

Misbehaving children: seek either attention, power, revenge, or to display deficiency. All seeking to belong.

Question 9

3.0

JUNG

Answer 9

**JUNG’s Analytical Psychotherapy: **

1. libido as general psychic energy
2. behavior determined not only by past events but also by future goals and aspirations.
3. conscious factors: towards external world, ego driven, thoughts, ideas, feelings, sensory and memories.
4. ** unconscious factors**: personal unconscious and the collective unconscious.
   
   1. archetypes: primordial images; self strives for unity of the different parts of the personality, personal (public mask), the shadow (dark side), and the anima/animus (male and female).
   2. Extraversion/Interoversion
   3. 4 basic psych functions: thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting.

Individuation: integraion of the conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche that leads to the development of wisdom, occurs later years when interests turn towards spiritual and philosophical issues.

Therapy Goals/Techniques: rebridge the gap between the unconsious and personal and collective unconscious.

interpretations to help become aware of inner world

dreams and dreamwork are key as unconscious messages to the individual that is revealed in a symbolic form.

transferences: projection of the personal and collective unconscious and the analysis of transference is key.

optimistic view of human nature and emphasizes the healthy aspects of the personality, the here- and-now, and info from the past only if it will help the client understand the present.

Question 10

4.0

Object Relations Theory

Answer 10

Object-seeking relationships with others are basic, in-born drive

1. child’s early relationjships with objects, especially internalized representations (introjects) of objects and object relations that become part of the self and influence interactions with others in the furture.
2. Klein, Fairbairn, Mahler, Kernberg

Mahler:

1. Phases: First: normal infantile autism;
   
   1. Second: normal symbiotic phase (id mom/me:not-me),
2. separation-individuation: actual object relations occures at about 4-5 months: differentiation, practicing, reapproachement, and object constancy.
   
   1. explore sensation, actual physical exploration, conflict of independence and dependence manifested as separationanxiety.
   2. 3yo: permant sense of self and object constancy and can perceive others as both separate and related.

Maladaptive Bx: abnormalities in early object relations.

Goals: restore clients ability to relate to others in meaningful and realistic ways.

• maladaptive unconscious relationship dynamics into consciousness so dysfunctional internalized object representations can be replaced with more appropriate ones.
• splitting (borderline personality dx), projective identification and other defense mechanisms that maintain pathological object relations.