PSYCHOANALYSIS

Psychoanalysis in psychology is a specialty of professional psychology

distinguished by its body of knowledge and methods of treatment. Its
theories of personality cover human development, abnormal and normal
behavior, social behavior and even artistic functioning. Cognitive
processes, affective reactions and both conscious and unconscious
processes are part of its purview.
One of its most noteworthy and historically distinctive features is its focus
on implementing long-term, intensive, psychotherapeutic activity,
employing such interventions as dream interpretation, attention to free
association, analysis of the therapist-patient relationship and other
distinctive foci in order to achieve effective character transformation.
More recently, psychoanalytic intervention methods have been developed
that produce short-term therapies, group therapy, marital and family
therapy, and milieu therapy, all of which make use of the distinctive
features of psychoanalytic theory of personality development.

HISTORY
If in what follows I bring any contribution to the history of the
psychoanalytic movement nobody must be surprised at the subjective
nature of this paper, nor at the role which falls to me therein. For
psychoanalysis is my creation; for ten years I was the only one occupied
with it, and all the annoyance which this new subject caused among my
contemporaries has been hurled upon my head in the form of criticism.
Even today, when I am no longer the only psychoanalyst, I feel myself
justified in assuming that none can know better than myself what
psychoanalysis is, wherein it differs from other methods of investigating
the psychic life, what its name should cover, or what might better be
designated as something else.
In the year 1909, when I was first privileged to speak publicly on
psychoanalysis in an American University, fired by this momentous
occasion for my endeavors, I declared that it was not I who brought
psychoanalysis into existence. I said that it was Josef Breuer, who had
merited this honor at a time when I was a student and busy working for
my examinations (1880-1882). Since then, well-intentioned friends have
frequently repeated that I then expressed my gratitude out of all due
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proportion. They considered that, as on previous occasions, I should have

dignified Breuer's "cathartic procedure" as merely preliminary to
psychoanalysis, and should have claimed that psychoanalysis itself only
began with my rejection of the hypnotic technique and my introduction of
free association. Now it is really a matter of indifference whether the
history of psychoanalysis is considered to have started with the cathartic
method or only with my modification of the same. I only enter into this
uninteresting question because some opponents of psychoanalysis are
wont to recall, now and then, that the art of psychoanalysis did not
originate with me at all, but with Breuer. Naturally, this only happens to be
the case when their attitude permits them to find in psychoanalysis
something that is noteworthy; ion the other hand when their repudiation
of psychoanalysis is unlimited, and then psychoanalysis is always
indisputably my creation. I have never yet heard that Breuer's great part
in psychoanalysis has brought him an equal measure of insult and
reproach. As I have recognized long since that it is the inevitable fate of
psychoanalysis to arouse opposition and to embitter people, I have come
to the conclusion that I must surely be the originator of all that
characterizes psychoanalysis. I add, with satisfaction, that none of the
attempts to belittle my share in this much disdained psychoanalysis has
ever come from Breuer himself, or could boast of his support.
One of the latest achievements of psychoanalysis, we have lately been
admonished to put the actual conflict and the cause of the illness into the
foreground of analysis. This is exactly what Breuer and I did in the
beginning of our work with the cathartic method. We guided the patient's
attention directly to the traumatic scene during which the symptom had
arisen, tried to find therein the psychic conflict and to free the repressed
affect. We thus discovered the procedure characteristic of the psychic
processes of the neuroses which I later named regression. The
associations of the patients went back from the scene to be explained, to
earlier experiences, and this forced the analysis which was to correct the
present to occupy itself with the past. This regression led even further
backwards: At first it went quite regularly to the time of puberty. Later,
however, such failures as gaps in the understanding tempted the analytic
work further back into the years of childhood which; had, hitherto, been
inaccessible to every sort of investigation. This regressive direction
became an important characteristic of the analysis. It was proved that
psychoanalysis could not clear up anything actual, except by going back
to something in the past. It even proved that every pathological
experience presupposes an earlier one which, though not in itself
pathological, lent a pathological quality to the later occurrence. But the
temptation to stop short at the known actual cause was so great that even
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in later analyses I yielded to it. In the case of the patient called "Dora,"
carried out in 1899, the scene which caused the outbreak of the actual
illness was known to me. I tried uncounted times to analysis this
experience, but all that I could receive to my direct demands was the
same scanty and broken description. Only after a long detour, which led
through the earliest childhood of the patient, a dream appeared in the
analysis of which the hitherto forgotten details of the scene were
remembered, and this made possible the understanding and solution of
the actual conflict. From this one example it may be seen how misleading
is the above mentioned admonition and how much of a scientific
regression it is to follow the advice of neglecting the regression in the
analytic technique.

THEORY
Psychoanalytic theory originated with the work of Sigmund Freud. Through
his clinical work with patients suffering from mental illness, Freud came to
believe that childhood experiences and unconscious desires influenced
behavior. Based on his observations, he developed a theory that described
development in terms of a series of psychosexual stages. According to
Freud, conflicts that occur during each of these stages can have a lifelong
influence on personality and behavior.
Psychoanalytic theory was an enormously influential force during the first
half of the twentieth century. Those inspired and influenced by Freud went
on to expand upon Freud's ideas and develop theories of their own. Of
these neo-Freudians, Erik Erikson's ideas have become perhaps the best
known. Erikson's eight-stage theory of psychosocial development
describes growth and change throughout the lifespan, focusing on social
interaction and conflicts that arise during different stages of development.

TREATMENT
Using the various analytic and psychological techniques to assess mental
problems, some believe that there are particular constellations of
problems that are especially suited for analytic treatment (see below)
whereas other problems might respond better to medicines and other
interpersonal interventions. To be treated with psychoanalysis, whatever
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the presenting problem, the person requesting help must demonstrate a

desire to start an analysis. The person wishing to start an analysis must
have some capacity for speech and communication. As well, they need to
be able to have or develop trust and insight within the psychoanalytic
session. Potential patients must undergo a preliminary stage of treatment
to assess their amenability to psychoanalysis at that time, and also to
enable the analyst to form a working psychological model, which the
analyst will use to direct the treatment. Psychoanalysts mainly work with
neurosis and hysteria in particular; however, adapted forms of
psychoanalysis are used in working with schizophrenia and other forms of
psychosis or mental disorder. Finally, if a prospective patient is severely
suicidal a longer preliminary stage may be employed, sometimes with
sessions which have a twenty minute break in the middle. There are
numerous modifications in technique under the heading of psychoanalysis
due to the individualistic nature of personality in both analyst and patient.
The most common problems treatable with psychoanalysis include:
phobias, conversions, compulsions, obsessions, anxiety attacks,
depressions, sexual dysfunctions, a wide variety of relationship problems
(such as dating and marital strife), and a wide variety of character
problems (for example, painful shyness, meanness, obnoxiousness,
workaholic,
hyper
seductiveness,
hyper
emotionality,
hyper
fastidiousness). The fact that many of such patients also demonstrate
deficits above makes diagnosis and treatment selection difficult.
Analytical organizations such as the IPA, APsaA and the European
Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy have established procedures
and models for the indication and practice of psychoanalytical therapy for
trainees in analysis. The match between the analyst and the patient can
be viewed as another contributing factor for the indication and
contraindication for psychoanalytic treatment. The analyst decides
whether the patient is suitable for psychoanalysis. This decision made by
the analyst, besides made on the usual indications and pathology, is also
based to a certain degree by the "fit" between analyst and patient. A
person's suitability for analysis at any particular time is based on their
desire to know something about where their illness has come from.
Someone who is not suitable for analysis expresses no desire to know
more about the root causes of their illness.

SCHOOL OF THOUGHTS
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Functionalism:
Functionalism has the most influence of any theory in contemporary
psychology. Psychological functionalism attempts to describe thoughts
and what they do without asking how they do it. For functionalists, the
mind resembles a computer, and to understand its processes, you need to
look at the software -- what it does -- without having to understand the
hardware -- the why and how underlying it.

Gestalt Psychology:
According to Gestalt psychologists, the human mind works by interpreting
data through various laws, rules or organizing principles, turning partial
information into a whole. For example, your mind might interpret a series
of lines as a square, even though it has no complete lines; your mind fills
in the gaps. Gestalt psychotherapists apply this logic to problem-solving to
help patients.

Psychoanalysis:
Psychoanalytic theory, which originated with Sigmund Freud, explains
human behavior by looking at the subconscious mind. Freud suggested
that the instinct to pursue pleasure, which he described as sexual in
nature, lies at the root of human development. To Freud, even the
development of children hinged on key stages in discovering this pleasure,
through acts such as feeding at the mother's breast and defecating, and
he treated abnormal behavior in adults by addressing these stages.

Behaviorism:
In the 1950s, B.F. Skinner carried out experiments with animals, such as
rats and pigeons, demonstrating that they repeated certain behaviors if
they associated them with rewards in the form of food. Behaviorists
believe that observing behavior, rather than attempting to analyze the
inner workings of the mind itself, provides the key to psychology. This
makes psychology open to experimental methods with results that can be
replicated in the same way as any scientific experiment.

Humanistic Psychology:
Humanist psychologists teach that to understand psychology, we must
look at individuals and their motivations. Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of
needs" exemplifies this approach: a system of needs, such as food, love
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and self-esteem, determines a person's behavior to various extents.

Meeting these needs leads to a sense of self-satisfaction and solves
psychological problems.

Cognitivist:
Cognitive psychology follows behaviorism by understanding the mind
through scientific experimentation, but it differs from it by accepting that
psychologists can study and understand the internal workings of the mind
and mental processes. It rejects psychoanalysis, as it regards
psychoanalytic theories about the subconscious mind as subjective and
not open to scientific analysis.

CRITICISM
An increasing amount of empirical research from academic psychologists
and psychiatrists has begun to address this criticism.[citation needed] A
survey of scientific research suggested that while personality traits
corresponding to Freud's oral, anal, Oedipal, and genital phases can be
observed, they do not necessarily manifest as stages in the development
of children. These studies also have not confirmed that such traits in
adults result from childhood experiences (Fisher & Greenberg, 1977, p.
399). However, these stages should not be viewed as crucial to modern
psychoanalysis. What is crucial to modern psychoanalytic theory and
practice is the power of the unconscious and the transference
phenomenon.
The idea of "unconscious" is contested because human behavior can be
observed while human mental activity has to be inferred. However, the
unconscious is now a popular topic of study in the fields of experimental
and social psychology (e.g., implicit attitude measures, fMRI, and PET
scans, and other indirect tests). The ideas of unconscious, and the
transference phenomenon, have been widely researched and, it is
claimed, validated in the fields of cognitive psychology and social
psychology (Westen & Gabbard 2002), though a Freudian interpretation of
unconscious mental activity is not held by the majority of cognitive
psychologists. Recent developments in neuroscience have resulted in one
side arguing that it has provided a biological basis for unconscious
emotional processing in line with psychoanalytic theory i.e., neuron
psychoanalysis (Westen & Gabbard 2002), while the other side argues
that such findings make psychoanalytic theory obsolete and irrelevant.

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Shlomo Kalo explains that Materialism that flourished in the 19th Century
severely harmed religion and rejected whatever called spiritual. The
institution of the confession priest in particular was badly damaged. The
empty void that this institution left behind was swiftly occupied by the
newborn psychoanalysis. In his writings Kalo claims that psychoanalysis
basic approach is erroneous. It represents the mainline wrong
assumptions that happiness is unreachable and that the natural desire of
a human being is to exploit his fellow men for his own pleasure and
benefit.
Freud's psychoanalysis was criticized by his wife, Martha. Ren Laforgue
reported Martha Freud saying, "I must admit that if I did not realize how
seriously my husband takes his treatments, I should think that
psychoanalysis is a form of pornography." To Martha there was something
vulgar about psychoanalysis, and she dissociated herself from it.
According to Marie Bonaparte, Martha was upset with her husband's work
and his treatment of sexuality.
Jacques Derrida incorporated aspects of psychoanalytic theory into his
theory of deconstruction in order to question what he called the
'metaphysics of presence'. Derrida also turns some of these ideas against
Freud, to reveal tensions and contradictions in his work. For example,
although Freud defines religion and metaphysics as displacements of the
identification with the father in the resolution of the Oedipal complex,
Derrida insists in The Postcard: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond that
the prominence of the father in Freud's own analysis is itself indebted to
the prominence given to the father in Western metaphysics and theology
since Plato.

REFERENCES
I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis

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II.

http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentecourse/a/dev_psycho

III.

analy.htm
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Freud/History/
http://classroom.synonym.com/six-major-schools-thought-

IV.

psychology-2579.html

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