Freud said the study of psychoanalysis is the study of transference and resistance. What is resistance? You come into therapy, you’re told to say everything, put all your thoughts and feelings into words, into the space. It’s impossible, you get close but it’s impossible. Resistance is the impediment to doing so. There’s internal and external […]
Another psychoanalytic theory is the object relations’ theory. The primary object is the mother, the first person you come in contact with and you are aware of. It is really your relationship with your mother that creates who you are. The father comes into the picture later as the giver of the law. Object relations […]
In modern psychoanalysis, aggression is important. Managing aggression is healthy and maturational. In fact, there is something called the dual drive theory, one of the early theories of psychoanalysis. Freud first proposed that there was only libido, love, pulling things close and that encompassed all our actions and feelings. It took World War II for […]
One of the other ideas that comes into play in psychoanalysis is the object oriented question. It is the asking the patient a question, contacting the patient, as opposed to the patient asking the therapist a question; one that takes the patient away from their ego. It’s done for a number of reasons: One is […]
Another type of transference, and this also comes from Dr. Spotnitz, is called anaclitic countertransference. Countertransference are the feelings that the therapist has for the patient. I know we’ve talked about it in the past, but there are two types of countertransference: subjective and objective. Subjective are things from my past as a therapist that […]
I want to talk, in some detail, about the unconscious mind. In Freud’s topographical model of the mind, there were three levels. There’s the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. Everybody says subconscious today, but that was not a term Freud used. The conscious is what we’re discussing right now. Quite easy. The preconscious […]
Psychoanalysis starts with Freud. It is the study of unconscious motivation that affects our behavior. Freud was a believer that interpretation was curative, that telling people why they act a certain way was curative. Modern Psychoanalysts don’t really believe that. Knowledge is not itself curative. If I told you why you were acting certain ways […]
Freud said that if you study transference and resistance, that is psychoanalysis. I know I have talked about countertransference in that past, but I neglected to talk about transference. Transference comes down to the first person you meet, your mother. We call that the object. The primary object is your mother. When you are born, […]
One of the other things we should talk about is why we say everything. I've had patients ask, "How does this help? Why do I need to come and say everything?" Dr. Spotnitz gave me an anecdote. He said so much resides in our unconscious and affects our behavior. The more you talk the more […]
One of the reasons I do this is it’s enormously rewarding and I guess my feelings are, if I can leave the planet having eased the suffering of some people, I have done a good thing. I had one lady ask me, “Am I crazy?” I said, “Of course you’re crazy. You could not get […]