Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis came to be during the 19th & 20th century. It is an insight therapy based on the theory of Freud. He was known as the father of psychoanalysis and emphasized the revealing of unconscious conflicts, urges, and desires that cause disordered emotions, and behavior. He felt that if these unconscious thoughts could be brought to the surface of consciousness it would be therapeutic for the person.

Psychoanalysis addresses unconscious conflicts within the person. Freud included in his therapy on the four concepts surrounding the stages of oral. anal, oedipal, and genital in a person’s development. He analyzed individual case studies by application of dream interpretation, free association and fantasies.

One of the key concepts is dream interpretation. Dream interpretation helps us to evaluate symbols and apply them to our lives. Freud believed that repressed material often surfaced in our dreams in symbolic form.

The second concept in psychoanalysis is free association which is freely saying whatever comes into the patient’s mind without fear or criticism. As the patient begins to talk they reveal things, which are loosely associated with the flow of ideas. This leads the patient to reveal hidden, unconscious concerns.

Fantasy is a wish or desire that usually is not possible or will never exist. Many fantasies can be sexual in nature, but not necessarily. The fantasies are found in the conscious and unconscious mind of the person. Freud examined client’s fantasies to help psychoanalyze their psychological needs.

Freud is famous for his theory of treatment, but also has been very criticized over time. Many think that Freud was too sexually fixated and viewed that most people’s disorders were sexual in basis. He based his theory and treatment by case studies that contained no scientific basis and eliminated people in his works that did not comply with his view points and his method could take years for treatment to occur.