Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis Quiz

Study Notes

Freud developed psychological treatments for disorders, believing prior experiences, particularly trauma, caused them.
Pioneered psychoanalysis with Josef Breuer.
Early psychoanalysis involved clients lying on a couch, therapist out of view, to reduce inhibitions and allow freer access to unconscious thought processes.
Treatment focused on uncovering unconscious feelings and drives causing maladaptive behavior.
Techniques included free association (saying whatever came to mind) and dream analysis (interpreting dream symbolism).
Goal of psychoanalysis was to increase client awareness of unconscious processes affecting daily life.
Psychoanalysis aimed to reduce unconscious conflicts to alleviate symptoms.
Traditional psychoanalysis is lengthy, expensive, and lacks strong empirical support for its effectiveness.

Reformulated Freudian ideas are grouped as psychodynamic therapy.
Psychodynamic approach aims to help clients examine needs, defenses, and motives for their distress.
Contemporary psychodynamic therapy typically involves a conversational approach in a chair-based setting, shifting focus from historical trauma to current relationships and symptoms.
Key parts of contemporary psychodynamic therapy involve exploring client avoidance of troubling thoughts, recurring patterns of thoughts and feelings, early traumas, interpersonal relationships, and childhood attachments.
Like most other therapies focus on the relationship between therapist and client

Psychoanalytic therapy's efficacy is questioned due to limited empirical support.
Brief forms of psychodynamic therapy show promise for certain disorders like depression, eating disorders, and substance abuse.
Research is inconclusive whether psychodynamic aspects are superior to other brief therapy forms such as simply talking about problems

The ability to talk to a caring listener, which is inherent to many therapy models, including psychodynamic therapy is important. It goes further to suggest that the actual talking aspect itself is a benefit rather than the specific theory being applied.