So you want to have sex with your mother. Well, at least that's what Freud would have you believe. Now, this video is not about Sigmund Freud.
But we will be talking about his most important creation. Psychoanalysis. Developed by Freud back in 1896, psychoanalysis is, plainly put, a form of therapy that he popularized as a treatment for mental health disorders.
But more than that, many psychologists would agree that psychoanalysis marks the beginning of psychotherapy. And while it may be incredibly scientifically flawed and unpopular today, it's kind of a big deal. So, let me give you the skinny on what it is exactly. In order to understand what psychoanalysis is, you first have to understand what it believes. Psychoanalysis theorizes that human personality can be divided into two parts, the conscious and unconscious minds.
On a daily basis, these two parts, the conscious and unconscious, are constantly in conflict. In the end, Mature human behavior is the compromise between these two belligerent roommates. To make things a little more complicated, psychoanalysis proposes that the human psyche, the mind that is, is comprised of three parts.
The id, ego, and superego. The id is sort of like a mini Jabba the Hutt. It includes all of your immediate desires, like your desire for eating, sex, aggression, and shiny things.
It's instinctual and impulsive and... Well, kinda ugly. It has no morality, it just knows what it wants. The superego, on the other hand, is sort of like your internal Captain America.
Essentially it tells you what's right and wrong based on what you've learned to be socially acceptable. It always follows the rules. And the ego is essentially Judge Judy.
It hears both sides, makes sense of all the information, and gives a final decision about how you should behave. Can you imagine, like, Judge Judy, Jabba the Hutt, and Captain America all in the same room just like... Duking it out. Psychoanalysis theory says that the conflict between the desire to ravage and social order results in the development of defense mechanisms to keep the id from rearing its ugly head.
And those defense mechanisms keep us safe from the guilt and anxiety we would feel if we ever gave in to our innermost desires. This is the theory that psychoanalysis gives for mental illness. When the unconscious conflicts become too intense and the defense mechanisms are too restrictive. the individual begins to show mental health symptoms. Okay, so now that you know what psychoanalysis believes, let's look at how it's done.
The goal of psychoanalysis is to make you conscious of your unconscious defense mechanisms. In an individual with mental illness, the symptoms are both a defense mechanism against and a partial release of our unacceptable impulses. Psychoanalysis attempts to help the person identify and accept their defenses and create more forgiving defenses that allow mature expression of those desires.
The session itself sort of looks like your stereotype of therapy. You lay on the couch and do most of the talking. The analyst, on the other hand, is very detached. They sit at the head of the couch, out of eyesight. They don't disclose anything about their personal lives, and they never socialize with clients.
But you should still be able to trust them. Okay. So you're laying on the couch and you're ready to make your unconscious conscious. What now?
When you think about psychoanalysis, you may associate it with dream analysis. For example, dreaming about spiders means that you feel like you're being excluded from a group. Or dreaming about lava means that you might have a deep anger.
Or maybe you associate it with Freudian slips. It's quantity, not quality. All right. She meant quality, not quantity.
I know, I was only joking. Were you joking when you said quantity and not quality? In regards to sex.
Not quality, it's quantity! And indeed, these are thought to be little revelations of the unconscious. But the most important aspect of psychoanalysis is to have the client engage in free association. This is where the client says whatever is on their mind, no matter how trivial, incoherent, or repulsive it might be. Sounds simple enough, right?
Well, not exactly. It turns out it's incredibly difficult because our learned defenses are so deeply ingrained. To overcome this, psychoanalysis has a whole slew of techniques.
Let's try some! First, tell me what you see. Very interesting. Now I'm going to say a few words.
After each word, say out loud the first thing that comes to your mind. The faster, the better. Ready? Dog.
Toy. Mother. Work.
Coat. Heart. Good work!
Was that easy or hard? How long did you have to think before saying a word? Were any of the words surprising that you said?
These are the sorts of questions that analysts would look at. It's surprising supposed to give insight into your unconscious. Rorschach inkblots and word association might be a lot of fun to do, but they can also help the client with free association.
And when the client is able to do that, then they become more willing to recall dreams and childhood memories, even if they're perceived as threatening. At least that's what the theory says. As the client talks, the analyst pays attention to the content of the free association, while also examining their speech for subtle, unconscious clues. In particular, transference.
Here's a situation where the client was just talking about his relationship with his mother. And tell me, how did your mother treat your other brothers? Uh, fine, I guess.
I'm sorry, why are we talking about my brothers? This is supposed to be about me. Like, they're not here paying for this session, so I'd rather just talk about all the stuff that I was just talking about.
You seem to be feeling angry toward me. Well, yeah, I mean, you're bringing up unimportant stuff and treating me like crap. Like, how do you want me to respond?
In this situation, the client is engaging in transference. Transference is when you transfer feelings you have for one person or thing to a different person. You have undoubtedly had experiences of transference.
Your boss was really demanding at work, which made you angry. And you accidentally get angry at your coworker, even though they didn't do anything wrong. In this interaction, the client feels resistant talking about his brothers.
He feels anger towards them and becomes angry at the therapist instead. At this point, the analyst would explore the relationship more and help the patient gain insight into these unconscious thoughts. By identifying transference in session, the patient would be able to identify the immature defense mechanism, identify the underlying impulse, and replace it with a more controlled expression of his aggression.
Alright, so now we know what psychoanalysis believes and how it's done, but does it work? Well, Freud wasn't much of a supporter of empirical data, but it's still a surprise that to this date there are no controlled outcome studies on classical psychoanalysis. Case studies, surveys, and several studies reveal that psychoanalysis is better than no treatment. And in one study that examined randomized clients receiving either psychoanalysis or behavioral therapy over a 4 month period, clients did show comparable improvement in both forms of therapy. Gotta be honest though, psychoanalysis is not for everyone.
Maybe not even most. Generally, clients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or borderline personality disorder are considered positive. poor candidates for classic psychoanalysis. Additionally, people who are not rich in time or money are poor candidates, like literally.
Psychotherapy often requires 3-5 years of therapy with 4 or 5 sessions a week. It's an extremely expensive and inaccessible form of therapy. Today, psychoanalysis is viewed as too unscientific and subjective, and there's still not enough evidence to measure the actual effectiveness of psychoanalysis for different disorders. And There may never be. Psychoanalysis has fallen out of favor in therapeutic practice and likely will never recover in our data-driven world.
Maybe for the better. Sorry Freud, but I do appreciate you creating psychotherapy. Thanks for watching this episode of Micah Psych. If you want to see some more Rorschach inkblots that I made, you can check them out over on Patreon. I've posted them there and you can click here to see those.
Don't forget to subscribe if you want to learn about other types of therapy. You know, I know that you unconsciously want to do that anyway. Also, feel free to post any free association comments you may have down below.
Until next time, I'm Micah. Think about it.