Freudian Fuss

Psychology has always interested me since I took it up for ‘A’ level, however, one particular sector of psychology has got me thinking.; The “Psychodynamic approach”. After looking over my revision essays which is what makes up most of this blog post, I got thinking about Freud and whether I believe.

Now to most people this is the branch of psychology that is most known and disagreed with. Everyone seems to have a reason to doubt Freud and to be fair to him, all his findings are completely unfalsifiable and hence this is understandable. For me, nevertheless, I believe strongly in his works. Freud believed that psychoanalysis could uncover unconscious desires and conflicts that had happened in the past to solve mental disorders. If the unconscious was made conscious Freud believed that it would help the individual cope better with inner emotional conflict that is causing the conflicts. Freud’s technique aims to help the client gain insight and awareness to their repressed conflicts to discover the root cause of their illness. He did this in a number of ways which I will explain so that you can have a better idea of how Freud worked.

Dream analysis is where an analyst tries to interpret the client’s dreams to try and uncover their unconscious. Freud believed that dreams are unconscious drives disguised in symbolic form. There are two types of content – the manifest and the latent. The manifest content is what the dreamer will claim what happened (e.g. Shooting a teacher) and the latent content is what the analyst will interpret the dream to mean – which represents the dreamers urges (e.g. Ejaculation). Freud believed that dreams were wish fulfilment – usually based on a sexual or aggressive nature. Bring the subconscious ideas to the conscious means that the person is then aware and can get help from someone to solve their mental disorders because they can find out the root cause.

Free association is another Freudian technique for making the unconscious conscious. The client lies on a couch and free flow their thoughts, feelings and images about anything and anybody as they are not being judged by the analyst who has to suspend their own values and beliefs for the sake of the client. Freud believed that eventually as the conscious mind is emptied out the unconscious mind will begin to seep through. Freud believes that all memories are ordered and eventually the client will come across a crucial memory that could be causing their mental disorder. The analyst will make notes from what the client says, and if they think they have heard anything that was particular random or unusual they may question the client, asking them to continue with that story to find out as much as possible.

Word association is another way of making the unconscious conscious. The analyst reads a list of words one at a time and asks the client to say the first word that comes in the mind when that word is said (e.g. Analyst – Sky, Client – Blue). The analyst will start off saying passive words (yellow, sand) then work up to more emotional words (shame, disgrace). The analyst would listen out for hesitations, mind blanks or unusual responses, which could potentially show an unconscious repressed memory.

Eventually the patient will go through “transference” once they are getting close to finding repressed memories especially if the repressed memory involves a person. The client begins to redirect their feelings to the therapist that are unconsciously meant to be directed at someone significant in the client’s life – which is usually a parent. This can take two forms – love or hate. The client could turn to hate the therapist because they think that they are not getting better and that they’ve messed up their life and will usually compare the behaviour they think their therapist is showing towards the person it is meant to be directed at e.g. their mother or father. However, they could also end up falling in love with their therapist and become obsessive. This is important as it shows clearly the unconscious mind trickling into the conscious mind as they are acting out how they feel. The therapist must not encourage or prevent the behaviour and counter transference is very important to avoid. In counter-transference the therapist acts on the transference the client is experience, for example the therapist could begin to think they are falling in love with their client, which is illegal and against the ethical guidelines.

I can understand why many may think that treatment such as these seem ridiculous and almost impossible to work, however, having experienced a repressed memory myself I can see how it may be true. My repressed memory came through a dream, it was almost as if someone were piecing together a puzzle in my mind and although I was upset at the time, facing up to my repressed memory made me feel unusually calm. Psychoanalysis takes a lot of time and can go on for 5-7 years with several 50 minute sessions a week. This means that it is very time consuming, as well as being very expensive – £70-150 a session adding up £163,800 a year. However, I managed to treat myself. Maybe our own minds are more powerful than they seem.