ABOUT PSYCHOANALYSIS

Psychoanalysis was developed by Dr. Sigmund Freud beginning in the early 1890's. Prior to this, Dr. Freud was a neurologist. In his practice, and while at the Salpetriere in Paris studying with the noted physician Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, Freud became interested in patients who had no physical illness to account for their, at times, dramatic physical symptoms.

After much study, Freud came to the conclusion that the patients' symptoms were the result of emotional (psychological) disturbances. Since his patients were not consciously aware of what was troubling them, Freud postulated the existence of the unconscious mind. This idea, virtually taken for granted now, was truly revolutionary at the time.

Early in his work, Freud learned that past emotional traumas had befallen his patients. According to his early theory, painful memories and feelings associated with these traumas had been repressed into the unconscious mind, and were now making their effects known in the patients' physical symptoms. Freud initially used hypnosis to attempt to help the patients recall these traumas. While confirming some of his theories about the current effects of past traumas, hypnosis did not yield lasting results. Consequently, Dr. Freud began developing the "talking cure", attempting to help his patients, while in a conscious state, remember and deal with their emotional traumas.

Freud's career spanned over fifty years. During this time he modified his theory and technique as clinical data warranted. No longer were emotional disturbances seen as only the result of repressed traumatic memories and feelings. Other factors including constitutional predispositions, emotional developmental fixations and deviations, recurrent problematic interactions with significant others, and faulty childhood assumptions were all included as contributing factors to an individual's difficulties.

As Freud published his work, other clinicians began to study and use his methods. Confirmation, differences, and debate, based on what clinicians heard and observed with their patients, furthered the development of psychoanalytic theory and practice.

The dialog within the psychoanalytic community continues today. While Freud began the profession, literally hundreds of psychoanalysts throughout the world have contributed to the evolution and development of current psychoanalytic theory and technique.

The results of this, over one hundred years of work of many clinicians, is a sophisticated and complex theory of: human emotional development, the functioning of the human mind, the genesis of emotional disturbances, and a treatment method, all of which are encompassed in modern day psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis has a comprehensive scientific theory of the development and workings of the human mind.

The development of the personality (the "mind" in a more abstract sense) is seen by psychoanalyst to occur in stages from birth on. The most important psychological stages in terms of the personality development of the individual occurs from birth through adolescence. Later stages of life also contribute, but not to the same degree as earlier ones.

The knowledge of the stages of emotional development has resulted from work with patients and from studies and direct observations of children and adolescents. While each person is a unique individual and brings that uniqueness to every stage of development, all human beings pass through the same stages.

Each stage or era of development is accompanied by tasks, accomplishments, and perceived danger situations (anxieties) peculiar to that stage of emotional and mental development.

Some of the developmental issues that come into play in all peoples' lives, that derive from experiences in these various stages, and that psychoanalysts deal with in their patients are: a sense of basic trust versus mistrust; a sense of psychological separateness and uniqueness; personal boundaries; a sense of sexual identity; aggressiveness and hostilities; sensitivities and hurt feelings; expansiveness and inferiority; interrelations concerning loves, hates, jealousies and competitiveness; a capacity to relate to and cooperate with others; personal meaning and integrity; and a sense of ethics and morality.

The psychoanalyst, in working with the patient's psychological make-up in the present, comes to understand how experiences in these stages of development have shaped the patient's personality. Addressing the problematic aspects of these stages as reflected in the patient's current life becomes a focus of the therapeutic work.