PSYCHOANALYSIS

To know more about and remember

oThe modern understanding of Psychoanalytic Therapy

oThe contribution of Psychoanalysis to all the other Therapies

oIts Key Concepts

oApplying it for Groups

oDoing Individual and Group Counseling

Modern Psychoanalysis

oGoal is to restructure the Client’s Character and Personality System (Corey, 2008)

oThough we interested to see the historical antecedents of current behavior, we need to weave back and forth between the past and present. (Locke, 1961)

oWe need to focus on the unconscious meanings in the ‘here & now’ before attempting to reconstruct the past (Kernberg, 1997)

The contribution of Psychoanalysis to the other Therapeutic approaches

Key Concepts

oInfluence of the Past

oThe Unconscious

oAnxiety

oEgo-Defense Mechanisms

oResistance`

oTransference

oCountertransference

Acronym: I UAE RTC

The influence of the Past

oFirst 5-6 Years

oExploring the Childhood

oPitfalls of getting lost in the past

The Unconscious

oThoughts, feelings, motives, impulses, and events that are kept out of our awareness as a Protection of Anxiety.

oEveryday life is often determined by unconscious motives and needs.

oThus “the shadow of the past hunts the Present”

oChoices are not ‘freely’ made.

oConsciousness is only a small part of the human experience like Iceberg.

Anxiety

oIt is the feeling of dread and impending doom that results from repressed feelings. Memories, desires and experience bubbling to the surface of the awareness.

oIt is triggered by the environment or within individual

oTo cope with anxiety, we look for Defense Mechanisms

Defense Mechanisms

oThey protect ego from threatening thoughts and feelings.

oThey are one way of maintaining a personal adequacy

oNot essentially pathological

oThey operate outside one’s consciousness

oE.g. Repression, Denial, Regression, Projection, Displacement, Reaction formation, Rationalization.

Resistance

oIs defined as the individual’s reluctance to bring into conscious awareness threatening unconscious material that has been previously repressed or denied.

oThe defense of the Defense

oe.g. Showing distrust

Exhibiting an exaggerated need to help others

Behaving uncooperatively

Maintaining an attitude of Indifference

Transference

A basic concept of Psychoanalytic approach involves

oUnconscious repetitions of the past in the present

oClients’ unconscious shifting to the therapist or to others in case of groups

oFeelings, attitudes and fantasies that stem from the reactions to significant persons from clients’ past.

oUnresolved conflicts that keep the person fixated and make full emotional growth impossible

Countertransference

oConsists of a therapist’s unconscious emotional responses to the client.

oEven destroying objectivity

oStems by the Unresolved conflicts of the Therapist.

oTherapists have to be aware of their unresolved conflicts

Therapeutic Techniques and Procedures

oFree Association

oInterpretation

oDream Analysis

oInsight and working through

Free Association

oCommunicating whatever comes to mind regardless of how painful, illogical or irrelevant it may seem

nFree group Association

n Go- around Technique

oFree to respond to each other

ne.g. interpreting the Dream of a group member by everyone.

oIt encourages being spontaneous and uncovering unconscious processes leading to the insights of the Psychodynamics of group members.

Interpretation

oUsed in the analysis of free associations, dreams, resistances and transference feelings.

oWell timed and accurate interpretations help clients to gain insights

oClients may become resistant.

oInterpretations can better be presented n form of Hypotheses.

oShould begin from the surface and can go deeper.

oIt’s best to point out a form of Defense or resistance before interpretation.

oEncourage the members of the group to make interpretations.

Dream Analysis

oThe Royal Road to the Unconscious.

oCan be shared in the Groups to investigate the unresolved problems behind it.

oMembers are encouraged to do free association and then interpretations.

nManifest Content

nLatent Content

Insight and working through

oInsight - Awareness of the causes of one’s present difficulties.

oCognitive and Emotional Awareness of the connection of the past experience to the present problems.

oNewer Connections are formed and new perspective to life starts

Insight and working through

oWorking Through involves repeating interpretations and overcoming resistance thereby, dissolve the dysfunctional patterns that originated in Childhood and make choices based on the new insights.

oA Long Commitment