The Synthesis of Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamics Articles

The Synthesis of Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamics Articles

Psychotherapy is a term describing different forms of therapy (Summers, 2006). Psychodynamic therapy is a psychology approach studying underlying psychological forces underlying human feeling, emotion and behaviors as well as their relation to early childhood experience. The theory is mainly interested in dynamic relation between conscious and unconscious motivation asserting that behaviors are a product of underlying conflicts which people are little aware of. Psychodynamic therapy primary focus is uncovering unconscious content of a patient’s psyche in order to aggravate psychic tension. The three article have revealed that dream have meaning in sense of correlation, coherence with other psychological variables and waking thoughts connections, some dreams are symbolic of figurative thinking found in waking thought. 

Theme 1 Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Psychodynamic therapy is a therapeutic approach embracing analytic therapies work. Its origins lie primarily in Freud’s psychoanalysis approach but Alfred Adler, Otto Rank, Melanie Klein and Carl Jung are widely recognized for further application and concept of psychodynamics (Higdon & Higdon, 2012). Similar to psychoanalytic therapy and psychoanalysis, psychodynamic therapy aim is bringing the mind unconscious state into consciousness- assisting personalities in experiencing, unravel and understand their deep-rooted, true feelings to help them in resolving them. The therapy discusses that the unconscious of a person holds onto painful memories and feelings which cannot be processed by the conscious mind. In ensuring the experiences and memories do not surface, many people tend to develop defenses such as projections and denial and according to the therapy, the defenses cause more harm than good.

Psychodynamic and psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic therapies are similar in their process of uncovering repressed childhood experiences which are explains a person’s current challenging situation (Borden, 2009). Psychoanalytic therapy revolves on the ideas that the development of an individual’s mind is related to early childhood forgotten events and that irrational drives from unconsciousness influence human dysfunction and behaviors. The positioning of Freud was biological which was influenced by his medical training. He discussed that instinct drive and direct behavior have a goal to satisfy needs resulting from the instincts. Needs generates tension which is reduced by behavior in pleasure principal concept.

Schelling described the reason self- fulfillment as an important idea in philosophy of German idealism whose work was the history of philosophy climax. Increasing conscious has been seen as an expression of ego extension. Reasons use the human’s passion to achieve its self-fulfillment which is referred as cunning of reason. Passion and ego is antagonist often fighting against each other portraying an ambivalence of enlightenment or rationality which was the many themes for theorist in 20^th century (Magnus Johansson, 2007). This Hegel optimist teleology of self-fulfillment reason was reversed to a negative teleology of reason which is a history of enlightenment decline from emancipation to governance.

Sigmund Freud was one of the most 20^th century scientific thinkers with his ideas profoundly influencing western practice and cultures on counseling and psychotherapy. Many forms of psychodynamics and psychoanalysis therapies were developed including the analytic therapies (Jacobs, 2003). Among his most important concepts are his unconscious ideas and his human personality expression as a struggle between three egos categories: id, ego, and super ego (Collins, 2013). Defense mechanisms help an individual in fighting against nervousness caused by painful feelings and thoughts which are unconscious. At certain points, they are functional and useful but when they become a repeated habit of functioning, they become problematic.

The articles have derived several psychodynamic approach assumptions. Borden (2009) says that an unconscious motive powerfully affects individuals’ feelings and behaviors. Adults’ feelings, behaviors and psychological problems are rooted from childhood experiences. Behavior is motivated by two instinct drives; the aggressive drive and death instinct from Thanatos and the sex drive & life instinct by Eros which originate from ‘id’. The unconscious parts of the mind (the super ego and id) conflict constantly with the ego which is the conscious mind. The conflict generates nervousness that is dealt by defense mechanism from ego. Personality is shaped through modification of drives from different conflicts at different childhood times in psychosexual development. 

The articles have revealed that innate drives (instincts for libido/sex, and death/aggression) were governed by human emotion and behavior and that they are in constant state of conflict with societal demand. The Freud’s defined mental structure model as a stratified stratum from consciousness to the extremely upsetting unconscious feelings and thoughts. According to Hebbrecht (n.d.), the psychic stratification model befitted the guiding psychoanalytic process perception. The consciousness super layer was ordinary and the mental apparatus pathogenic core was linked with pathogenic. While enquiring the repression and infantile sexuality motive, the universality solution was established of unconsciousness and repression (Jacobs, 2003). Oedipal complex and infantile sexuality theory occupied in the content, breach in Freud’s opinion of the mind. This endorsed the unconsciousness presence to the biological nature.

According to Freud in, Marc Hebbrecht article, the mind was a subordinate phenomenon, an imitative of frustrated biological impulses. Mental life originated from instincts or drives. Due to the fact that drive is on the border of psychological and biological, it developed his ultimate concept model of mental functioning. These theories assume that the mind is the body derivative and pushes in the biological sense as the groundwork of the psyche. According to Freud, mind is a formation of unsatisfied drives frustration. The mental apparatus is an epiphenomenon, a structure erected in managing unmet reduction needs. 

Theme 2 Evolution of Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis as a theory pertains to man as a cultural being and treatment of psychological distress. Through this vagueness, the theory compacts with man as an enigmatic being who is undergoing through shortage and compels to gain access to culture (Fonagy, 2004). The therapeutic process involves interpretation, development, and working through of transference. Through the process, defenses are infiltrated and unconscious material is changed to conscious awareness. The client gains insight and works through conscious related feelings and its relation to current problems. (Hebbrecht,  n.d.)

Initially, a therapist is not active during classical psychoanalysis serving as a blank slate for transference reactions (Newirth, 2015). Psychoanalytic and other analytic approaches have been criticized on multicultural issues; overemphasize on early development, treatment of women (penis envy), and overemphasis on individual dynamics and length and lack of affordability in relation to social issues and influences (Bleger, 2012).

Freud accredited that psychoanalysis biographical sections substitute objectivist approach (Newirth, 2015). There is a split between Freud the hermeneutist who accomplished special mental investigation technique and Freud the natural researcher who had an impartial knowledge on mind (Summers, 2006). The conflict was significant in that the two clinical technique positions leading to the discovery of the interpretation of dreams method. According to Freud, dreams are wish fulfillments originating from infancy. They are disguised infantile wish expressions which is stimulated by the day’s event. They have unconscious meaning with the interpretation process consisting of manifestation content in finding the disguised wish.

Theme 3 Dreams and Symbolism

Displacement and condensation are mechanisms involved in the process of dream interpretation. The essence of dream construction was that it contains suppressed childhood desires representation that is fulfilled by avoiding the censorship that triggered their conscious banishment. The interpreting dream theory used free association to translate displacement, condensation and other methods in disguising the latent content. Many dreams are rooted from childhood wishes. Through Freud, dreams are considered to have meaning which can be uncovered by following associations.

Metaphors

Photographic metaphors have also been used in characterizing dreams. The dreams are conceived as films where the character represents the dreamer, who is both the actor and director of one show. One dream function is the symbolic and pictographic illustration of initially pre-symbolic familiarities. This interpretation will assist the psyche needs reconstructive procedure in order to develop its mentalizing ability of originally non-thinkable practices thus making them thinkable even though not rememberable. The main goal of psychoanalytic enterprise is enhancing the capacity of the patient to be alive of the full spectrum of human experience as much as possible. Dreams in all articles are royal road to the unconscious used in analyzing dreams in understanding personality aspects as they relate to pathology.

Circling, Dreaming, Aging

Each dream has more impact on both analyst and patient. During periods of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic, the analyst is confused on the analysis process direction (Pervin & John, 2001). Recapitulative dreams portray categorization episodes recapitulating the dreamer’s simple conflicts whereas offering vigorous solution. They disclose the utmost essential and fundamental problems subjects which illuminate both the future and the past of dreamer’s defensive organization.

The Dream as a Picture of the Psychoanalytic Process

A dream as the picture of a process is similar because of its transparency and lucidity. It is a working through dream giving an overview of what happens in the process of the done psychological work. The dream is not a nightmare, it is not unpleasant and it is not an anxiety inducing content. 

Historiography and Psychoanalysis

Dreams pay a crucial role in the therapy or in the analysis. Penetrating dreams fascinates an analyst as they are similar as they are pictures of important emotional moment. Bleger 2012, although this type of dream occurs in every analytic process, its occurrence in is frequently during psychotherapies or psychoanalyses with established pathological mourning or traumatized individuals or those who suffer unresolved issues. 

“Frozen dreams” fall in to the group of dreams as images of a stagnated development. They are self-possessed of one tableau alternative to the other with no action. Associating with these dreams replicate paranoia in the mourning work which is a defensive state where the client tries to deny aggression to the dead individual while trying to bring the latter back to life. This conflict between the dread of success and the wish to do so is controlled by “freezing” the conflict while preventing resolution. 

Evolution of Psychoanalysis and Intrapersonal Identity

According to Marc Hebbreth article, there is a belief that behavior is not an incidence of chance, every thought and action is motivated by some unconscious level. Psychodynamic theory is not the only one theorizing that early childhood dealings play a major role in  modeling personality but it is exclusive in the degree it highlights the events as personality elements dynamics and development (Pervin & John, 2001).  The early experiences (occurrences during the first weeks and months of life) according to the psychodynamic model set personality processes in motion that affect individuals’ years or decades later. These are mostly caused by experiences beyond the normal range. 

Psychodynamic assumes that not anything in mental life occurs unintended- no such thing as feeling, indiscriminate thought, behavior or motive. This is known as the psychic casualty principle with most researchers and theorists agreeing that motives, thought, expressed behaviors and emotional responses do not arise randomly but stem from biological and psychological processes combination. Researches evaluating psychodynamic conceptions produce varied results; some have received respectable empirical support while others perform fairly (Collins, 2013). For example, in the notion that people express strong sexual feelings from an early age as suggested by psychosexual stage, have not been held for empirical scrutiny.

In the topographic model, the mind was classified in to conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscious region holds information that is being utilized at the meantime- what one feeing and thinking at the moment (Pervin & John, 2001). The preconscious region contains materials that are potentially conscious but not conscious at the instant as attention is not focused on it. The utmost controversial part of the model is the unconscious region which contains anxiety producing materials (aggressive urges and sexual urges) that are deliberately repressed as a form of comfort or self-protection. 

The topographic model led to the rise of psychosexual stage model that argues that early week in life development through sequence progressive growth stages each with a distinctive challenge with a different sexual gratification (Pervin & John, 2001). The Freud’s psychosexual stages include oral, anal, Oedipal, latency, and genital and any over indulgence during a certain stage is hypothesized in resulting to fixation in the stage and development of anal, oral or oedipal personality. The topographic model was recognized by Freud as a helpful tool in understanding how people process and store information. According to structural model, individual’s personality reflects the psychic structures interplay which differs across individuals in relative influence and power (Jacobs, 2003).

When instincts rule and id predominates, it results to an impetuous personality style. When the superego is stoutest, the supreme ethical prohibitions reign and an over controlled, controlled personality ensures (Brinton Perera, 2013). When ego dominates, the personality trait is more balanced. In additional to being rational, logical, reality oriented fragment of the mind, the ego attends another vital function in enabling people to manage anxiety by use of ego defenses (Jacobs, 2003). These ego defenses are principally mental approaches used unconsciously and routinely when a person feel threatened. They assist in navigating distressing events as they involve distortion to reality.

Conclusion

Psychoanalysis continues to be practiced by social workers, psychiatrics and other mental health professionals, in contrary; the practice is less common today than previous years. In contrast, psychodynamic therapy is commonly used today. Early psychoanalysis critique believed these theories are rarely based on experimental and quantitative research and more on clinical case-study method. Both psychodynamic and psychoanalysis theories are criticized for lack of scientific rigor also known as pseudoscience.

References

Bleger, J. (2012). Theory and practice in psychoanalysis: psychoanalytic praxis 1. The International Journal Of Psychoanalysis, 93(4), 993-1003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-8315.2012.00593.x

Borden, W. (2009). Contemporary psychodynamic theory and practice. Chicago, Ill.: Lyceum Books.

Brinton Perera, S. (2013). Psychological Perspectives,. Circling, Dreaming, Aging, 56, 137–148,. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00332925.2013.786642

Collins, B. (2013). Psychodynamic theory for therapeutic practice. Psychodynamic Practice, 19(2), 227-229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14753634.2013.778483

Fonagy, P. (2004). Attachment theory and psychoanalysis. London: Karnac.

Hebbrecht, M. Romanian Journal of Psychoanalysis. The Dream As A Picture Of The Psychoanalytic Process.

Higdon, J. & Higdon, J. (2012). Psychodynamic theory for therapeutic practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jacobs, M. (2003). Sigmund Freud. London: SAGE.

Magnus Johansson, P. (2007). Historiography and psychoanalysis. International Forum Of Psychoanalysis, 16(2), 103-112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08037060701300083

Newirth, J. (2015). Psychoanalysis’ past, present, and future: Sherlock Holmes, Sir Lancelot, and the Wizard of Oz. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 32(2), 307-320. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035251

Pervin, L. & John, O. (2001). Personality. New York: Wiley.Summers, F. (2006). Freud’s relevance for contemporary psychoanalytic technique. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 23(2), 327-338. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0736-9735.23.2.32