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Psychodyanmic Overview

June 2006

Freudian psychoanalytic theory provides both a model of the mind’s functioning and a technique for treating patients with emotional difficulties. As a model of mental functioning, it offers explanatory concepts for understanding human development, motivation, and behavior. As a technique, Freudian theory stresses listening to the conscious and unconscious communications of the patient.

Freudian psychoanalysis has evolved since its early days in several directions touched on but not fully developed in the body of Freud’s work. One thread has focused on a more thorough elaboration of defensive operations. Another has focused on the interaction with early caregivers (in psychoanalytic language “the object”) through which inner representations of self and other are formed.

In the area of technique psychoanalysis has expanded to treat a widening scope of patients. Analysts have recognized that certain conditions need to be developed in treatment in order for classical psychoanalytic methods to be effective. These include a background of safety and trust, a stable sense of self, and a capacity for self-reflectiveness. Contemporary Freudian thinkers have therefore focused attention on helping to foster these conditions. The goal of developing insight through interpretation remains a central tenet.

Although the ideas of both Freud and thinkers who came after him have constantly evolved and changed, the basic foundation of Freudian theory and treatment rests on six interrelated premises.

1) The belief in the existence of the unconscious and psychic determinism

Freudian theory assumes that the unconscious exists and that a great deal of mental functioning occurs outside of conscious awareness. The unconscious cannot be observed directly, but can be inferred from the powerful influence it often has on consciousness and observable behavior. All psychological events, even those that appear to be random, are actually determined by earlier experiences, feelings, and fantasies -- conscious and unconscious.

2) The emotional experiences of the past and their psychic consequences influence all later experience

Past emotional experiences and our reactions to them, though often buried (i.e., unconscious), live on in each of us and continue to influence later feelings and behavior. Above all, the experiences of early childhood, centering around the child’s relations with his/her caretakers, and the wishes, fears and conflicts they give rise to, regularly have a determining effect on individual desires and fears, character, object choices, etc.

3) Sexual (libidinal) and aggressive wishes are primary motivating forces in human life

Erotic feelings have long been recognized as a primary human motivation, and Freud showed how infantile pleasures and desires are precursors of adult sexuality. Psychoanalytic work with patients led Freud and his followers to recognize aggressive impulses and wishes as an equally important force in psychic life. In classical psychoanalytic theory these two groups of wishes, which are thought to be active from birth on, are called drives, or “instinctual drives” because of their power to impel the mind to activity and their ongoing role throughout life.

In Freudian thinking, every psychic act (thoughts, feelings, fantasies, plans, etc.) contains elements of both the libidinal and aggressive drives in varying proportions, and both play an essential role in psychic life and conflict. The specific nature of each person’s sexual and aggressive motives is, of course, unique to that individual, depending on his/her own individual experience and innate endowment. Sexual and aggressive wishes are malleable, and capable of undergoing extensive transformation.

4) Psychic conflict is ubiquitous, and the way conflicts are resolved largely determines individual adaptation

Many human impulses and wishes can be safely expressed in various ways within an individual’s social and life context. Sexual and aggressive wishes, however, are often felt to be unacceptable or dangerous – that is, they are experienced as likely to lead to consequences harmful to the individual. When this happens, the psyche reacts with anxiety and the mind then institutes various defensive measures geared to control, minimize or deflect the wishes, and thus forestall the feared consequences. This process is usually largely or entirely unconscious. The resolution or outcome of such conflicts is always a compromise between the various elements involved: wishes, fears, defensive processes and moral concerns. When the resolution is relatively stable and satisfying, we consider it adaptive (i.e. not hurtful to the individual or his surroundings. When the resolution or compromise leads to interpersonal or realistic problems for the individual, we consider it to be maladaptive. Every manifest psychic event is a compromise formation and contains elements of both drives and defenses in various proportions.

The opposition between anxiety provoking wishes and defensive forces in the psyche is the essence of psychic conflict. It is universal and “normal”. The ongoing tension and interplay between these opposing forces in the psyche is what we refer to when we speak of the dynamic unconscious, or dynamic processes in human relations and psychoanalytic work.

5) Psychic pathology and normality lie along a continuum

Since psychic health and pathology are largely determined by the way conflicts are resolved, with many factors at play and the balance between them often changing, it stands to reason that there is no sharp dividing line between so-called “normality” and psychopathology. They lie along a continuum, with healthy functioning grading into various kinds and degrees of disturbance, depending on the individual’s endowment and experiences. In fact, since infantile wishes are alive in everyone throughout life, psychopathology can always be understood as one vicissitude of normal functioning.

6) Psychoanalysis provides a technique for understanding and interpreting human motivation and behavior

The technique of psychoanalysis is designed to elicit unconscious material (memories, dreams, fantasies, wishes and fears, etc.) implied in the concepts described above, with the goal of alleviating unrealistic fears and defensive processes that inhibit emotional freedom. Free association is the primary means by which unconscious material can be made accessible to consciousness.

Except in unusual circumstances, a psychoanalysis is conducted over a period of years, with a patient attending sessions 3-5 times a week. Often the patient lies on a couch with the analyst sitting behind him/her and out of sight. The patient is invited to say whatever comes to mind, disregarding such matters as politeness, logic, sequence and all the rules which ordinarily determine the pattern of communication between people. The analyst listens in a special way, allowing the feelings and images which the patient stirs up in him/her to resonate with his/her own unconscious as clues to what may be underlying the seemingly random thoughts and associations that emerge.

The analyst is trained to be “neutral,” that is s/he does not have specific goals or ambitions for the patient. The analyst strives to understand rather than to shape or teach. Neutrality does not mean indifference to the patient’s welfare or feelings as the patient engages in this struggle.

Of central importance in the analytic work: the patient’s experience of the analyst as one or more significant figures from the past. The exploration, analysis and dissolution of these attributions constitute the most important vehicle by which the inner world of the patient is discovered.

The analyst endeavors to help the patient understand him/herself and his/her past more fully. The goal of the analysis is to help the patient recover disavowed (i.e., unconscious) aspects of the self. These thoughts, impulses, wishes, etc., have been disavowed because they have become imbued with anxiety, defended against, and are no longer accessible to introspection. The patient is fearful of expressing desires and feelings which he believes, consciously or unconsciously, would elicit powerful, possibly annihilating, responses (often only fantasized) from people s/he loves, hates and/or depends on. These fears activate defenses.

By analyzing defenses in a safe setting, by helping to make connections that have long been disconnected, patients become, and feel, more integrated. Their behavior, mood, and relationships are no longer so largely shaped by hitherto unknown processes.

For further reading on Freudian psychoanalytic concepts, see Charles Brenner, An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis, Doubleday/Anchor Books, Revised edition, 1973.

An excellent reference on psychoanalytic concepts is Moore and Fine, Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts, American Psychoanalytic Association and Yale University Press, 1990. Below are page references to some of the most important concepts discussed there.

Basic concepts
The unconscious	p. 201
Psychic determinism	p. 150
Conflict (psychic)	p. 44
Compromise function	p. 43
Metapsychology
Structural theory	p. 119
Id	p. 90
Ego, ego development	p. 43
Superego	p. 189
Instinctual drives
Psychic energy	p. 100
Libido	p. 112
Aggression
Defense, defense mechanisms	p.48
Regression	p. 164
Repression	p. 166
Resistance	p. 168
Pleasure/unpleasure principle	p. 145
Reality/reality principle	p. 161
Development (psychic)	p. 55
Infantile sexuality – oral, anal, phallic	p. 98
Oedipus complex	p. 133
Dreaming, dreams	p. 57
Fantasy, unconscious fantasy	p. 74
Psychoanalysis	p. 154
Symptoms, symptom formation	p. 192
Anxiety, anxiety disorders	p. 24, 25
Character formation, disorders	p. 37
Trauma, traumatic neuroses	p. 199, 200
Normality	p. 127