1. A Brief Introduction to Psychoanalysis Timothy C. Thomason Northern Arizona University 2012

2. Freud’s Introductory Lecture on Psychoanalysis, 1916 “Psycho-analysis is a procedure for the medical treatment of neurotic patients.” – Eg., hysteria, phobias, obsessive neurosis “Nothing takes place in a psycho-analytic treatment but an interchange of words between the patient and the analyst.” – Psychotherapy is a therapeutic conversation in the context of one person assisting another person.

3. “Words provoke affects and are in general the means of mutual influence among men.” “Words were originally magic and to this day words have retained much of their ancient magical power. By words one person can make another blissfully happy or drive him to despair....”

4. We would like to listen to the use of words in psycho-analysis, but we cannot; an observer would change the situation. Psycho-analysis cannot be objectively verified. One learns psycho-analysis by studying one’s own personality. But one advances much further if one is analyzed oneself by a practiced analyst.

5. “Two of the hypotheses of psycho-analysis are an insult to the entire world.... “ The first declares that mental processes are unconscious and only part of mental life is conscious. Instinctual sexual impulses play an extremely large part in the causation of mental diseases.

6. Civilization has been created at the cost of satisfaction of the instincts. Sexual impulses are sublimated and directed to higher social aims. But this arrangement is unstable. Society denies the strength of these instincts and will not tolerate it and therefore considers psycho-analysis repulsive and dangerous.

7. Who Was Freud? Born 1856 in Moravia Had a rich family life as a child Saw his mother naked and felt aroused Was criticized by his father and began having fantasies of success Lived in a social climate of sexual hypocrisy Liked Darwin; saw himself as a scientist

8. Freud studied anatomy; he hypothesized the existence of neural synapses two years before they were discovered. Began a private practice as a physician and treated nervous disorders using baths, massage, rest cures, etc. Freud said “I have become a therapist against my will.” “I am not basically interested in therapy.”

9. “We do analysis for two reasons: to understand the unconscious and to make a living.” “Psychoanalysis meets the optimum of favorable conditions where its practice is not needed, i.e., among the healthy.” “Given the vast amount of neurotic misery the quantity we can do away with is almost negligible.” Freud said that the state should provide psychoanalytic clinics for the poor.

10. Freud met Breuer, who treated Anna O. for hysteria using hypnosis and talk therapy. Anna’s symptoms disappeared when she was able to verbalize her traumatic childhood memories. Freud met Charcot, who showed that hypnosis could induce symptoms of hysteria, proving a psychological component to physical symptoms. Freud used hypnosis and forehead touching.

11. Freud told patients: Concentrate on a symptom and recall any memories that come to mind; suspend judgment; don’t censor yourself. This lead to the technique of free association. Patients always recalled early memories that revealed infantile wishes and impulses. Freud concluded that adults have these same impulses but repress them.

12. Freud’s Theory Human behavior results from the operation of internal dynamic forces; he called psychic energy libido. Conflict between the id (instincts) and the ego (reality) is inevitable. Lack of satisfaction of impulses results in fixation. The repression of impulses into the unconscious produces anxiety.

13. Displaced impulses result in a phobia. Converted impulses result in somatic symptoms. Dissociated impulses result in amnesia. Neurotic symptoms are the surface manifestations of unconscious conflict. They are substitute gratifications for unfulfilled sexual wishes. However, a specific symptom is not always the result of a specific trauma.

14. We all have a tendency to repeat fixed patterns of behavior (the repetition compulsion). We re-enact old patterns of relating to others. We seek a partner who treats us the way our opposite-sex parent treated us as children.

15. Freud said that hysteria was caused by “a passive sexual experience before puberty, i.e., a traumatic seduction.” Most of Freud’s patients reported they had experienced attempted or actual sexual abuse as a child. Freud called the memory of psychic trauma in childhood the “precious metal” hidden in the ore of memory.

16. Dreams are the “royal road to the unconscious.” They reveal the psychology of the neurosis in a nutshell. Dreams have a manifest content and a latent content. Dreams express wishes. Dreams are metaphors for symptoms. Dreams can be interpreted.

17. We all have fantasies of wish fulfillment which are expressed in dreams & daydreams. Some people make their dreams reality. The artist transforms wishes in art. The neurotic transforms wishes into symptoms.

18. Parapraxes Parapraxes reveal the “psychopathology of everyday life.” They reveal unconscious motivations. – Slips of the tongue – Mis-readings, errors, memory lapses – Faulty actions – Jokes

19. Therapeutic Techniques Free association Dream analysis Analysis of parapraxes Analysis of resistance Analysis of transference

20. Free Association is the Fundamental Rule of Analysis Psychoanalysis is not an ordinary conversation. The patient must say whatever comes to mind, no matter how embarrassing, nonsensical, trivial, or irrelevant it may seem. “You must say it precisely because you feel an aversion to doing so.” Act as if you were a traveler by the window in a railway car describing the changing views.

21. The analyst should be a blank screen or a mirror. The analyst should listen with a non- judgmental, accepting attitude, with “even attention” or “hovering attention.” The analyst should use his unconscious to listen to the patient’s unconscious.

22. Freud recommended a “coldness in feeling” and the model of the surgeon “who puts aside all his own feelings, including that of human sympathy.” Psychoanalysis can be seen as psychic surgery. He rejected the expedient of sham affection as an aid to therapy. Warmth blankets the wounds. Empathy can degenerate into a technique. “Psychoanalytic treatment is founded on truthfulness.”

23. The analyst listens, makes connections, and gives interpretations of what the patient’s unconscious communications mean. To get better, patients must accept the interpretations and work through the transference neurosis.

24. The analyst joins forces with the patient’s ego. The patient’s defense mechanisms against their unconscious impulses must be overcome. As resistance is overcome and the transference is resolved, neurotic symptoms will improve. – Patients learn to express their motivations directly instead of indirectly through symptoms. But the long-term goal is personality change.

25. The goal of psychoanalysis is not self- improvement or personal fulfillment, but rather the more modest goal of improving the patient’s ability to love and to work. The goal is to “turn neurotic misery into common unhappiness.”

26. Psychoanalysis as Anti-Narrative Therapy Analysis seeks to destroy the story the patient has believed to be the story of his life. The analyst uses evidence the patient provides to break down the patient’s story. Analysis does not replace the old story with a new one. It emboldens the patient to live without a story. It lets him see his life as risky, interesting, and free. Our lives are not novels.

27. Quotations “What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.” “The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the true creator of civilization.” Psychoanalysis is in essence a cure through love.”

28. “Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.” Neurosis is a private religion. [paraphrase] “Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.” “One is very crazy when in love.” “We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.”

29. “A certain degree of neurosis is of inestimable value as a drive, especially to a psychologist.” “A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get in accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.” Ferenczi said “The patient is not cured by free-associating, he is cured when he can free- associate.”

30. “Psychoanalysis is like going to school about yourself.”- C. Ludwig “Psychiatry is the care of the id by the odd.” - Anonymous “Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.”- Sam Goldwyn “Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. It has no mother.”-Germaine Greer