Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and continued by others. It is primarily devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior, although it also can be applied to societies.
Psychoanalysis has three applications:
- a method of investigation of the mind;
- a systematized set of theories about human behaviour;
- a method of treatment of psychological or emotional illness.[1]
Under the broad umbrella of psychoanalysis there are at least twenty-two different theoretical orientations regarding the underlying theory of understanding of human mentation and human development. The various approaches in treatment called "psychoanalytic" vary as much as the different theories do. In addition, the term refers to a method of studying child development.
Freudian psychoanalysis refers to a specific type of treatment in which the "analysand" (analytic patient) verbalizes thoughts, including free associations, fantasies, and dreams, from which the analyst formulates the unconscious conflicts causing the patient's symptoms and character problems, and interprets them for the patient to create insight for resolution of the problems.
The specifics of the analyst's interventions typically include confronting and clarifying the patient's pathological defenses, wishes and guilt. Through the analysis of conflicts, including those contributing to resistance and those involving transference onto the analyst of distorted reactions, psychoanalytic treatment can clarify how patients unconsciously are their own worst enemies: how unconscious, symbolic reactions that have been stimulated by experience are causing symptoms.
|
New Scientist (blog)
The sculpture is one of three in Ismond Rosen: Psychoanalysis and the Creative Mind, an exhibition which also contains a collection of the artist's ...
