Psychoanalytic Therapy - Term Paper Example

Psycho-Analysis can be said to have been one of the dominant models of psychology for the twentieth-century. Spanning the length of the century, various schools within psychoanalysis respectively have different therapeutic approaches. Freud, who invented psychoanalysis, was his own school, his friend and protege, Carl Jung, The Object Relations School, Adlerian Psychology, Frommian, and so on. The following will address the questions concerning counselling, with a special eye toward outlining how different schools have different beneficial impacts on therapy. Among the schools examined, it will be argued that the psychoanalysis of Carl Rogers is the most beneficial. Rogers patient/client relationship was very different than the traditional psychoanalytical focus on transference. It is important that the patient be who they are without the further obligation of creating a transference friendly environment, so to speak. While transference is an essential stage of psychoanalytic treatment, it is not that appropriate for a counsellor/client relationship. For this reason, the closing of this analysis or the “personal” component of the discussion, will show why the differences in Rogers are better suited to a client/therapist relationship where the caregiver is not a full-time analyst. An definition of counselling and the most essential characteristics of a helping relationship: At the most general level, Freud argued that all human minds have three levels, of which, one is innate and the other two are learned. Defining counselling involves a description of that which is being counselled, and the structure of the mind is unquestionably the starting and ending place. Freud argued that when we are born, our mind consists of the ‘ID’, and this is the core of all personalities [Freud, 1981:104]. It is characterised as a force which seeks its own self-gratification and cares little about how this is obtained, and who it effects toward its own self serving goal. However, as the infant grows, and begins to adapt to the environment, that is, the environment in terms of the interaction with his or her mother, it begins to regulate itself through the “Ego” [Freud, 1981: 49]. The ego is an aspect of the personality, which begins to regulate the Id, and it begins in a sense to understand how to get what it needs, without jeopardising its own well-being at the same time. In other words, in many senses, the ego is inseparable from the mother, and the psychoanalyst, describes the ego in terms of being the (m)other, or the other. It is an aspect of the personality which both attached to the person who forms the ego, but inseparable, at the same time, from the mother or significant other who constitutes the child’s environment in the first few years of his or her life. Counselling is a form of being who the client needs one to be. The needs of the mind, dictate the actions and activities of anyone serving or improving it. Understanding psychoanalysis in relation to therapy, entails the principal variable of understanding the role in the relation to the mind being treated. A detailed explanation of the key elements that must be covered in the first session with a new client and why they must be covered: Clients should unquestionably have a good source of information in order to best evaluate their treatment options. Explaining Freud in a setting which is short, poses some challenges. Nonetheless, the basic dimensions of it can be outlined in brief. After a few years, a third regulating force becomes imposed on the personality, according to Freud, namely, the superego [Freud, 1981: 137]. The superego essentially represents the wishes, social forces, and finally, the mores of the community [Freud, 1981: 138]. Thus, there is a tripartite schema to the personality, and with a certain dynamic according to Freud, and described or reduced in the following sense. The ego begins to act as a mediator between the id and the superego (in a healthy individual), it attempts to satisfy the selfish needs of the id, while accommodating the demands of society, and further, it is formed in relation with the mother. Thus, if there is a problem in later life, or early life, it is likely the cause of the stage of ego formation. In turn, it is likely the direct result of the child’s interaction with the mother, during what Freud called the psycho-sexual stages of personality development. This is a set of development phases, marked from the ages of early infancy to approximately the age of five, and it is important to stress, that until the ego is completely formed, the child views there personality as inseparable from their body, and subsequently, the functions of their body. As an example, a child who has not yet fully formed an ego, will view his or her faeces as part of themselves, and rather than be repulsed by this anatomical function, they might both take pleasure in this, and in turn, view this function as the process of producing gifts. However, someone who is ‘potty-trained’, for example, perceiving their mother as being repulsed by this process, or someone who is unhappy with this process, may begin to struggle with their mothers [Freud, 1981: 78]. In other words, retaining’ rather than producing these faeces at an early age, becomes both an act of aggression and assertion of power, emanating from the ‘id’, and directed against the mother. Freud, argued, for example, that if the process of training is not one which runs with consistency and proper nurturing, the individual will grow up to be ‘retentive’. In other words, view the controlling of objects of maintaining self-control in the face of a threat from authority. In this sense, the process of this form of control has become unconscious, and although the aspect of potty training has far receded into the background of an adults personality, it remains as a part of the unconscious [Freud, 1981: 63]. In this sense, repression emerges -- that is, the condition where the wish or desiring impulses come into conflict with the norms of the child’s parents, which are generally the normative values of society as well. What occurs, is that anxiety (unconscious) emerges over the early infantile pleasures which have remained, and the conflict with these pleasures or impulses against the values of society. It is this conflict that has brought the client to the table in the relationship. The goal of the therapist is the discerning of where there is a conflict between impulses, and the superstructure imposed on them. Moreover, how do the superstructures definitely repress parts of the id and why? At least two techniques from this course and an explanation of how and for what type of client issues I will use them for in treatment: FIRST TECHNIQUE: Freudian Therapy. As a form of therapy, psychoanalysis functions through association. How associations are interpreted, breaks the therapy practice down into at least two different approaches, namely, the Freudian and the Jungian. While different in how associations are interpreted, they share a number of qualities in common too. Through the understanding of the process of ego formation, an analyst is capable of associating adult forms of behaviour alongside those processes found in the psycho-sexual stages of development. Thus, association, and free association have become one of the focal points of analysis -- that is, with respect to how the therapy itself is carried out. Further, Freud thought that the unconscious could also be understood, through associations made in ‘dreams’, which he referred to as the “royal route to the unconscious”[Freud, 1981: 56], but also through ‘slips of the tongue’, and “jokes”, and the ideal or aim of analysis in this sense, is to make the unconscious become conscious such that a patient understands their irrational anxiety as essentially a childhood wish which stands against the morality of society, which has, by the time of the adulthood of an individual, been absorbed by the Superego. Second Technique: Jungian Therapy. Carl Jung (1875-1961) is generally regarded as one of the best known students of Sigmund Freud. And, although there are some significant differences between these two individuals, there are also some important similarities worth noting. One of the important premises of psychoanalysis, is the idea that most of our mental or psychological life is unconscious. The unconscious mind is a form of a memory system, in some sense. As we develop, and especially through the formative years of our life (e.g. ages 1 – 5), unconscious memories are formed through experiences which we repress [Brown, 1986: 7]. Repression generally functions as a defence mechanisms. For feelings or experiences which are often too horrific to process, our mind guards itself against these feelings by essentially burying them. Hence, they become unconscious, and moreover, they become important because they continue to influence our waking mental states – that is, the unconscious plays a role in terms of shaping or forming our behaviour, and in particular, how this shapes the phenomenon of anxiety. That is, however much we are unaware of the existence and influence of this unconscious. In general, one of the important theoretical and practical concerns of psychoanalysis, concerns the process under which the ‘unconscious’ becomes ‘conscious’, for the further purpose of overcoming anxiety. It was believed by both Freud and Jung, that a successful therapeutic experience was one where an individual is freed from psychological trouble because they are made aware of that which had remained unconscious [Brown, 1985: 187]. Like Freud, Jung maintained that there was a certain amount of stored energy within the psyche. And, some of this becomes a part or a portion of the unconscious as well. In a state of anxiety, what transpires is that the energy itself becomes unlocked. That is, an external trigger or a particular experience becomes associated with a repressed memory, and a state of anxiety is one where the unconscious has become conscious in some sense. However, because the very nature of the unconscious is structured around an ‘unknown’ archetype, anxiety results because of the individual’s inability to know the archetype in question. It is in this sense that the Jungian analyst works with a patient in a therapeutic setting in order to make the unknown unconscious, a known association: “for Jung an important task of life is bringing into harmony, or integrating, the preceding and other opposing forces”. Life experience(s) that will help you as a counselor work effectively with a wide range of clients. Carl Roger’s theories came much later than Jung and Freuds. He remained committed to some of the key ideas of both, however, with some important differences. Rogers developed self psychology in the psychoanalytic framework, but with some important distinctions relevant to shorter term therapeutic encounters. Roger’s influential works were mostly published during the 1950’s, and the 1960’s, and he is very often classified as being one of the leaders of a movement called “humanistic psychology” [Westen, 1995: 479]. In general terms, there is less a focus on an individual in relation to their own unconscious mind (e.g. Freud and Jung), and more of an emphasis on how are personality is shaped by those around us. In short, Rogers maintained that in order to understand ourselves, it is necessary to focus on those around us as our own personal or individual self. By contrast, Jung argued that in order to understand ourselves, it is necessary to focus on our own ‘isolated past experiences’. This is important because of the primary concern of understanding the nature of the unconscious, which is the source for anxiety. In terms of Roger’s general outlook on the nature of the self, he argued, in contrast to Jung, that individuals are essentially good when they are born, however, it is the matrix of experiences involving others which often create problems for any given individual. In other words, we are essentially good until we become socialized, and therefore, the process of socialization becomes the key to unlocking the self understanding necessary to overcome whatever psychological difficulties an individual might be manifesting. The self he argues is split in this sense, there is the “true self” on the one hand. This is the core of the individual who is essentially good or kind, and then there is the “false self”. The false self is that which is connected to the process of socialization: . . . the false self emerges because of people’s natural desire to gain the positive regard of other people. As children develop, they learn that to be loved they must meet certain standards. In the process of internalizing these conditions of worth, they distort themselves into being what significant others want them to be [Westen, 1995: 479] Thus, for Rogers, self concept formation is an important therapeutic notion. The self must necessarily separate the “ideal self” [Westen, 1995: 479] as what is authentically individual, from those aspects of our self which were constructed around the need or desire to gain the approval and support from others. In terms of anxiety, Rogers argues that within this scheme, that it is caused by the “incongruence” [p. 181] between the self who is perceived, and the self who is “experienced” [ibid.]. For example, if someone perceives themselves as an ‘ideal’ as someone who never hates other people, it follows that anxiety will emerge in those particular situations where the feeling of hater emerges: Anxiety is the result of a discrepancy between experience and the perception of the self. Again, the person whose self concept is that he or she never hates anyone will experience anxiety whenever hateful feelings are experienced to any degree at all [ibid. p. 181]. Thus, to understand the notion of anxiety, is to grasp his better schema with respect to how he identifies or defines the ‘personality’ in general. There is unquestionably a ‘split self’ in terms of the ideal self, and the real self in the above sense, and moreover, it is when these two are in complete ‘incongruence’ with one another that anxiety is the result. By contrast, it was shown above that Jung’s notion of conflict is between the conscious and the unconscious mind. As such, the perception of the social influence of others is less important than an introspective form of self understanding and awareness. Compared with Freud and Jung, the importance of the therapist is more pronounced in Rogers. In traditional psycho-Analysis, a primary objective is the achievement of transference. To this end, Jung and Freud spent intensive sessions with a patient which often involved daily interaction. As an actor on the stage where the patients dialogue is paramount, they were to become that which the patient needed. As analyst, they are there to fulfill the role of object for the patient. That is not an option available to a social worker. The quantitative distinction imposed on the difference between a social worker as practitioner, and psychoanalyst, is defined in terms of the frequency of visits. Transference and of course, counter-transference takes a great deal of time to develop and without that, the practice which is how the theory of psychoanalysis will not work. For this reason, it is being argued that the humanistic approach taken by Rogers achieves a therapeutic balance. A counselor or practitioner can factor in their own subjectivity in the development of the relationship, but the agenda of transference is not on the table – it is not a plausible expectation for an outcome, therefore a practitioner must define themselves in the most general or human ways possible. There is the further advantage that this is an approach that is best adapted to interactions characterized by difference in mufti-culture. CONCLUSTION: In conclusion, it can be said that Rogers approach is far less esoteric. His theory is not grounded in the abstractions of unconscious mythological archetypes (Jung), or mythological narratives like Freuds Oedipus Complex. Rather, his theory is grounded in the ‘observed’ and ‘lived’ experience of individuals. Further, it has been argued that these two aspects of the personality often are at odds with one another. When we experience feelings or observed behaviour which is at an incongruence with the ideal self which we have been socialized within, and which we have also contributed to the construction of, then, anxiety is the result of this clash of selves. As a point of introspection, I can say that my own personal self concept is much closer to the dynamics of my family order than it is to the mythological story of Odysseus. In this sense, I can further see that anxiety is more the result of a disharmonious state of mind caused by feelings which I can more often than not, identify with. By contrast, the arguments concerning the causes of anxiety, it has been argued in this analysis, are based on a structure of the mind which seems highly implausible. Works Cited: Brown, J.A.C.. Freud and the Post-Freudian s (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985). Freud, Sigmund Two Short Accounts of Psycho-Analysis. Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis and The Question of Lay Analysis. Translated and Edited by James Strachey (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1981). Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and its Discontents. Translated and Edited by James Strachey with a biographical introduction by Peter Gay (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989). Westen, Drew. Psychology. Mind, Brain, and Culture (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995). PSYCHOANALYSIS AS THERAPY. Read More