Psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Classical psychoanalysis is the most intensive of all psychotherapies in terms of time, cost, and effort. It is conducted with the patient lying on a couch and with the analyst seated out of sight but close enough to hear what the patient says. The treatment sessions last 50 minutes and are usually held four or five times a week for at least three years. The primary technique used in psychoanalysis and in other dynamic psychotherapies to enable unconscious material to enter the patient’s consciousness is that of “free association.” (See association test.) In free association, according to Freud, the patient

is to tell us not only what he can say intentionally and willingly, what will give him relief like a confession, but everything else as well that his self-observation yields him, everything that comes into his head, even if it is disagreeable for him to say it, even if it seems to him unimportant or actually nonsensical.

Such a procedure is rendered difficult, first because the voicing of one’s innermost (and often socially unacceptable) thoughts is a departure from years of experience spent carefully selecting what will be said to others. Free association is also difficult because the patient might resist recalling repressed experiences or feelings that are connected with intense or conflicting emotions the patient has never resolved or settled. Such repressed emotions or memories usually revolve around the patient’s important personal relationships and innermost feelings of self; consequently, the release or recollection of such emotions in the course of treatment can be intensely disturbing.

Through attentive listening and empathy, the therapist helps the patient express thoughts and feelings that in turn permit the unearthing of underlying emotional conflicts. In the course of treatment, however, there likely will be many points at which the patient seems to block progress—for example, by forgetting, growing confused, becoming overly compliant or noncompliant, intellectualizing, and so on. This is called resistance. Another phenomenon, known as transference, occurs when the patient projects (attributes to someone or something else) onto the therapist feelings that the patient has experienced in earlier significant relationships—e.g., love or hatred, dependence or rebellion, and rivalry or rejection. These feelings may include the disturbing emotions felt in the therapeutic process of recollection and free association, with the psychoanalyst almost invariably becoming the focus of such projection; that is, the patient is likely to blame any immediate emotional distress on the analyst. To facilitate the development of transference, the analyst endeavors to maintain a neutral stance toward the patient, becoming an effective “blank screen” onto which the patient can project inner feelings. The analyst’s handling of the transference situation is of vital importance in psychoanalysis—or, indeed, in any form of dynamic psychotherapy. It is through such resistance and transference that the patient discovers the nature of unconscious feelings and then becomes able to acknowledge them. Once this has been done, the person is often able to regard these inner feelings in a far more dispassionate and tolerant light and can experience a sense of liberation from their influence on future behavior.

A major therapeutic tool in the course of treatment is interpretation. This technique helps patients become aware of any previously repressed aspect of emotional conflict (as reflected in resistance) and to uncover the meaning of uncomfortable feelings evoked by transference. Interpretation is also used to determine the underlying psychological meaning of a patient’s dreams, which are held to have a hidden or latent content that may symbolize and indirectly express aspects of emotional conflict.

Individual dynamic psychotherapy

Although the influence of psychoanalysis, particularly on American psychiatry, was profound, it began to wane in the 1970s. Since then, those seeking treatment have tended to choose short-term individual dynamic therapy over psychoanalysis. This form of therapy is usually more accessible and less costly than psychoanalysis, and it typically requires no more than a series of weekly sessions (lasting approximately one hour) over the course of several months. The aim of treatment, as in psychoanalysis, is to increase the patient’s insight (self-understanding), to relieve symptoms, and to improve psychological functioning. Additionally, the therapist provides the patient with a sense of support and a structured means of identifying problems and achieving solutions. Suitable patients include those who experience any of a wide range of psychological and personality disorders or adjustment problems and who wish to change; the patients must, however, be able to view their problems in psychological terms.

As in psychoanalysis, patients learn to trust the therapist so that they are able to speak candidly and honestly about their most intimate thoughts and feelings. The treatment setting, however, is, less formal than that of psychoanalysis, and it more closely resembles arrangements used in other forms of psychotherapy (e.g., with the therapist and patient seated so that eye contact can be achieved if desired).

Therapists use treatment techniques such as free association and interpretation to analyze a patient’s resistances, transference, and dreams. As opposed to classical psychoanalysis, the focus of interpretation is much more likely to be on resistance than on transference. The therapist directs the patient’s attention to meaningful yet unconscious links between present and past experiences, as well as to seemingly unrelated aspects of the patient’s current life patterns. The overall treatment goal, as in psychoanalysis proper, is the achievement of increased insight and rational control over previously unconscious aspects of the patient’s life and the accompanying relief of symptoms.

Brief focal psychotherapy

This is a form of short-term dynamic therapy in which a time limit to the duration of the therapy is often established at the outset. Sessions lasting 30 to 60 minutes are held weekly for, typically, five to 15 weeks. At the beginning of treatment the therapist helps identify the patient’s problem or problems, and these are made the focus of the treatment. The problem should be an important source of distress to the patient and should be modifiable within the time limit. The therapist is more active, directive, and confrontational than in long-term dynamic therapy and ensures that the patient keeps to the focus of treatment and is not diverted by subsidiary problems or concerns.

Humanistic and existential psychotherapies

In contrast to dynamic psychotherapy, humanistic and existential psychotherapies focus on the current experience of the patient in resolving problems. Humanistic therapy is represented primarily by the person-centered approach of American psychologist Carl Rogers, who held that the essential features of therapy are the characteristics of the relationship created by the therapist (as opposed to the therapist’s specific interventions). In Rogers’s view, these characteristics—empathy, warmth, and a nonjudgmental attitude—are sufficient to produce therapeutic change, given the patient’s natural propensity for personal growth and healthy functioning. This belief in the patient’s inherent capacity for growth is the basic tenet of humanistic psychology.

Existential therapies are various in style, although each is concerned in one way or another with the meaning of the patient’s current experience and larger existence. In addition, all existential therapies emphasize the importance of the therapeutic relationship as an authentic, “real” medium in which patients can discover themselves. Approaches such as the Gestalt therapy of German American psychiatrist Frederick S. Perls involve confronting the patient’s behavior in the immediate here and now of the patient’s experience. Others, such as the existential approach of Austrian American psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, appear more intellectually inquisitive regarding meaning and values, though they are still directed toward the patient’s immediate experience. Rather than use interpretation in the psychoanalytic sense to uncover unconscious material and supply meaning for the patient, humanistic and existential therapies seek to help patients discover their own meanings through collaborative effort with a supportive, yet often bluntly candid, therapist.