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Block 2 Unit 1 Psychoanalysis, Psychodynamic and Psychotherapy

1. What is Psychotherapy? What are its essentials?

• Psychotherapy is a broad term for psychologically based treatments that trained practitioners use to help people with psychological problems. It can also be referred to as talk therapy.
• Essentials of Psychotherapy:
  • Systematic Interaction: It involves a structured interaction between a client and a therapist. This interaction is guided by a theoretical viewpoint and an understanding of the client's background.
  • Psychological Principles: Psychotherapy is based on psychological theory and research in areas like personality, learning, and abnormal behaviour.
  • Focus on Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviours: It aims to influence a client’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
  • Addresses Various Issues: It is used for psychological disorders, adjustment problems, and personal growth.

2. What is Psychoanalysis? Discuss the phases in its evolution.

• Psychoanalysis is a method of analysing psychic phenomena and treating emotional disorders through sessions where clients are encouraged to talk freely about their experiences, particularly those from early childhood and dreams. It is both a theory of mental functioning and a specific type of psychological treatment.
• Phases in the Evolution of Psychoanalysis
  • First Phase: Freud focused on the unconscious mind, which he accessed through dreams, fantasies, jokes, slips of the tongue, hypnosis, and free association.
  • Second Phase: Freud discarded hypnosis and emphasised free association, allowing unconscious material to emerge voluntarily. He also developed specific techniques like dream analysis.
  • Third Phase: Freud further developed his dream analysis technique, describing primary (illogical, pleasure-driven, associated with the id) and secondary (logical, reality-based, associated with the ego) processes. After this phase, other analysts like Jung and Adler modified Freud's psychoanalysis.

3. Discuss the role of Dream Analysis in Psychoanalysis.

• Dream Analysis is a key technique in psychoanalysis, considered the first scientific approach to studying dreams.
• It provides access to the unconscious mind, as dreams express unconscious wish fulfillment and deepest conflicts and desires.
• Freud believed that unacceptable desires and impulses are expressed through dreams, allowing for gratification of thoughts repressed during the day.
• The therapist analyzes two aspects of the dream: Manifest Content (obvious meaning) and Latent Content (hidden but true meaning). By analysing these, the therapist helps the client understand their unconscious thoughts and motivations.

4. Explain the techniques used by Psychoanalysts.

Psychoanalytic therapy includes several basic techniques:

• Maintaining the Analytic Framework: This involves keeping the therapy consistent in terms of the analyst’s anonymity, the regularity of meetings, and the time of sessions. This consistent structure can act as a therapeutic factor.
• Free Association: Clients report whatever comes to mind without censoring any thoughts or feelings. This allows unconscious material to come to the surface, which the therapist then interprets.
• Dream Analysis: As explained above, this involves interpreting the manifest and latent content of dreams to uncover unconscious material.
• Interpretation: The analyst explains and teaches the client the meanings of their behaviour as seen in dreams, free association, and resistances. This should be done with a sense of the client's readiness.
• Analysis of Resistance: Therapists help clients work through any resistance they show toward free association or other techniques as these can be important clues.
• Analysis of Transference: This involves exploring the client’s feelings, thoughts and desires towards the therapist, as they are seen as a reflection of past or present relationships.

5. What are Psychodynamic therapies? How are they different from Psychoanalysis?

• Psychodynamic therapies are based on the principles of psychoanalytic theory, focusing on hidden conflicts as the root of mental disorders. It also tries to bring the true feelings of a patient to the surface to be understood.
• They assume that behaviour is influenced by the unconscious mind and past experiences. Key concepts in psychodynamic therapy include the dynamic unconscious, transference, countertransference, resistance, and psychic determinism.
• Differences between Psychodynamic Therapy and Psychoanalysis:
  • Psychoanalysis is more focused on bringing unconscious conflict to conscious awareness and tends to involve more frequent sessions over a longer period. It also traces adult problems back to childhood and deals with the interaction between the id, ego and superego.
  • Psychodynamic therapy places less emphasis on sexual and aggressive drives and unconscious information, focusing more on past relationships and has more specific goals and a shorter time frame.

6. Discuss the schools of psychoanalysis which have influenced Psychodynamics.

Several schools of psychoanalysis have influenced psychodynamic therapy:

• Freudian School: Based on Freud's theories, it emphasizes the unconscious, the id, ego, and superego, and the importance of early childhood experiences.
• Ego Psychology: This focuses on enhancing and maintaining ego function in line with reality. It stresses the individual's ability for defence, adaptation, and reality testing, shifting the emphasis from the id to the ego.
• Object Relations Psychology: This focuses on relationships, particularly the development of internal representations of others (objects) and how these influence behaviour.
• Self Psychology: This emphasizes empathy and focuses on the individual’s experience of self and how that relates to self-esteem and sense of boundaries. It also places importance on the therapist’s empathy.