WHAT IS PSYCHOANALYSIS
Psychoanalysis focuses on the Psychic trauma of the individual; it does not focus on the here and now but on past traumas and unconscious conflicts. It focuses on early childhood experiences and discovers how these events have shaped the individual. Trauma is an unresolved issue that makes a person’s life uncomfortable, dysfunctional and ineffective. The psychoanalyst looks for patterns and significant events that played a key role in the difficulties the person faces as an adult. The orientation of psychoanalysis is based on childhood experiences, unconscious thoughts/feelings and unresolved fragments of childhood conflicts. All of these seem to play a significant role in a person’s life, creating fertile ground for mental illnesses and dysfunctional behaviors to develop in adulthood.
Through Psychoanalysis one can return in a controlled way to a safe place, based on the psychoanalytic relationship that has been developed. It is there that he will be supported to relive that traumatic experience that played an important role in shaping his adult life. An early experience which is not only not past but exists in the unconscious and has been incorporated into the ego.
During the psychoanalytic process, a relationship of trust and security is created between psychoanalyst and analysand. By taking advantage of this developing relationship an early traumatic experience can be reinterpreted and take on a new meaning within the adult self.
For a psychoanalysis to be considered successful there should be such conditions where the repressed conflicts can be consciously experienced, controlled and modified in such a way that the analysand feels free from conflicts and unhooked from the traumatic experiences of the past.
Benefits of psychoanalytic psychotherapy
-The analysand with the help of the psychoanalyst will discover the true feelings and repressed mental conflicts
-They will be able to understand the meaning of emotions and how they are experienced in empirical life
-They will learn to demarcate thinking, feeling and behavior, to use yes and no correctly
-Through psychoanalysis they will experience what they have not experienced until now, an inner security and a more essential communication with oneself
-The psychoanalyst will find the appropriate resources that will help the analysand to accept the difficult feelings of the injured inner child and to be able to manage them through an adult and mature perspective
-Psychoanalytic psychotherapy will help the analysand to consciously develop a stronger and clearer sense of self-identity and through this to begin to create relationships with a clear character, distinct boundaries with a healthier and more coherent way of behaving
Psychoanalysis: Method/Framework/process
Psychoanalysis is not a structured treatment, it is based on the method of free association, i.e. the expression of thoughts and feelings without restrictions. The analysand begins to talk about what concerns him freely, effortlessly to the psychoanalyst, without feeling pressure or without fear of criticism for what is said. When this is achieved it leads to unexpected associations which can potentially reveal desires, defenses, difficulties that could not be consciously perceived. Through all this catechism of thoughts and empirical situations, the psychoanalyst is led to the roots of the analysand’s problems.
Throughout the hearing, the analyst will be left to this process. Through this process he watches but simultaneously observes his own emerging associations as they appear. These elements lead the analyst to an internal process of reading them in order to adequately shape the transference-countertransference dipole. Along the way the analyst will intervene by clearly interpreting the transferences of what exactly is happening in the present moment of the session with the goal of mutual understanding of the patient’s difficulties.
The therapeutic process that will lead the analysand to become aware of the thoughts that trigger his conflicts is the repeated reporting of identical situations that display correspondingly identical conflicts. All this converges to adopt a new perspective that will liberate the analysand and give him the freedom of choice, something that before this seemed impossible.
Frame
The process of free association takes place in the psychoanalyst’s office where the analysand is lying on the sofa and begins his narration freely, without verbal or visual interventions from the psychoanalyst, who is sitting on the back side where the analysand is lying. The placement of both is defined in such a way as to create a quiet & clean frame from visual and acoustic disturbances. In this safe environment that has been created and which is familiar the analysand will do his introspection, he will be transferred to conflict situations, he will revive early childhood experiences, he will enter into repressed memories. He will indulge in dreams, experience fantasies, illuminate aspects unexplored and create his own personal story.
Procedure
Psychoanalysis lasts 50 minutes an hour at a frequency of four to five times a week. A chair or couch may be used where this is determined by the analysand. Within this framework, agreements will be made regarding the program, the fee, the cancellation procedure and the manner. All these are both binding and if necessary then they should be redefined. The duration of psychoanalytic treatment is 3 to 5 years, however each case is unique with different needs. This enables both the analyst and the analysand to terminate or suspend the analysis.