New York School of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Freud pioneered the idea that unconscious forces influence overt behavior and personality. He believed that childhood events and unconscious conflict, often pertaining to sexual urges and aggression, shape a person's experience in adulthood.

Freud's theory of psychoanalysis created the framework for psychoanalytic therapy, a deep, individualized form of talk therapy. Psychoanalytic therapy encompasses an open conversation that aims to uncover ideas and memories long buried in the unconscious mind.

Psychoanalysts employ specific techniques, such as spontaneous word association, dream analysis, and transference analysis. Identifying patterns in the client's speech and reactions can help the individual better understand their thoughts, behaviors, and relationships as a prelude to changing what is dysfunctional.

What is the id?

The id holds primitive desires and urges. Freud conceived of it as an unconscious, instinctual, dark component of the psyche that seeks pleasure. It isn't rational or accessible, and primarily possesses sexual and aggressive urges—although some contemporary psychologists believe that Freud overemphasized these tendencies.

What is the superego?

The superego embodies a person's higher moral code. This moral compass is responsible for self-control, decision-making, and sacrifice, abilities that allow an individual to live well with others in society. The superego is thought to arise from parental authority, according to Freud's view. It has absolute and inflexible standards, which leads to conflicts with the impulsive id.

What is the ego?

The ego represents the self that balances and resolves conflicts between two competing forces: the primitive impulses of the id and the morals and values of the superego. This ego then represents one's reality, identity, and decision-making consciousness; in Latin, the word "ego" means "I."

What is the unconscious?

The unconscious is the vast sum of operations of the mind that take place below the level of conscious awareness. The conscious mind contains all the thoughts, feelings, cognitions, and memories we acknowledge, while the unconscious consists of deeper mental processes not readily available to the conscious mind.

What is transference?

Transference is a phenomenon in which a patient unconsciously directs feelings or desires toward an important figure in his life, such as a parent, onto the therapist. For example, the patient may respond angrily when the therapist unconsciously reminds the patient of his domineering father.

What is countertransference?

Countertransference encompasses the feelings that the patient evokes in the therapist. Therapists can sometimes observe their countertransference and leverage it into insight that can help the patient. For example, a therapist who feels irritated by a patient for no clear reason may eventually uncover subtle unconscious provocations that annoy and repel others, thereby keeping the patient unwittingly isolated. Those behaviors can then be addressed in therapy.

What are defense mechanisms?

What is projection?

Projection is a defense mechanism by which a person displaces their own feelings onto a different person or object. The term is often used to describe defensive projection—attributing one's unacceptable urges to another. For example, if someone continuously bullies and ridicules a peer about his insecurities, the bully might be projecting his own struggle with self-esteem onto the other person.

What was Freud's conception of dreams?

Freud believed that dreams were vehicles for people to act out their unconscious wishes and desires, and that interpreting symbols in dreams could elicit awareness and insight. Today, some scientists disagree with Freud's conclusions or entirely contest the idea that dreams possess deeper meaning. Yet dreams can still be helpful in a therapeutic context if they initiate discussion and insight.

What are the principles of contemporary psychoanalysis?

Although there is diversity in psychoanalytic theory and treatment today, several beliefs cut across these different perspectives:

1. An assumption that all human beings are motivated in part by wishes, fantasies or tacit knowledge that are outside of awareness (this is referred to as unconscious motivation).

2. An interest in facilitating awareness of unconscious motivations, thereby increasing choice.

3. An emphasis on exploring the ways in which we avoid painful or threatening feelings, fantasies and thoughts.

4. An assumption that we are ambivalent about changing and an emphasis on the importance of exploring this ambivalence.

5. An emphasis on using the therapeutic relationship as an arena for exploring clients' self-defeating psychological processes and actions (both conscious and unconscious).

6. An emphasis on using the therapeutic relationship as an important vehicle of change.

7. An emphasis on helping clients to understand the way in which their own construction of their past and present plays a role in perpetuating their self-defeating patterns.

What is neuropsychoanalysis?

New York School of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/psychoanalysis

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