It represented a real revolution in the world of the study of the human mind and its pathologies. A way of dealing with psychic distress based on a profound analysis of what each individual carries inside but is unable to express.
When it comes to psychoanalysis , the most immediate image our mind goes to is that of a patient lying on a black leather bed talking about his business to a specialist sitting next to him, who listens and takes notes with a slow nod. But what is psychoanalysis really and on what principles is this theory based that has turned the spotlight on the human unconscious?
Psychoanalysis
What is psychoanalysis
The theory of the unconscious
The pillars of psychoanalysis
Psychoanalytic therapy
What is psychoanalysis
The word psycho-analysis derives from the union of the Greek terms psyche , which means soul / mind and analysis . It is a discipline founded in by the famous neurologist Sigmund Freud , and deals with analyzing and treating psychological disorders taking into consideration the concept of the unconscious. Freud, in fact, was convinced that people could be cured of their psychic discomforts also through the assumption of awareness of their unconscious thoughts, and the consequent overcoming of situations buried somewhere in the memory (in the unconscious, in fact). The first time Freud spoke formally of psychoanalysis was in 1896 in two articles in which he described his own research. During the twentieth century, psychoanalysis perfected and articulated itself in various forms of evolution, also undergoing various criticisms.
The theory of the unconscious
As I have already mentioned, in the psychoanalytic discipline the role of the unconscious is fundamental , that is the whole sphere of psychic activity which is not reached by the conscience and which, therefore, the person is not aware of. Freud then began to consider all that substrate of thoughts in an ever more involving way, trauma, forgotten or repressed experiences of which the individual has no conscience but by which he is constantly influenced in behavior. The introduction of the unconscious as a concept was fundamental in the care and treatment of patients with mental disorders. In fact, the idea began to emerge that the phenomena of mental illness or discomfort were not necessarily all attributable to a biological lesion of the brain, but could instead be symptoms of all this previous experiential background that had remained in the shadows for years and years.
The pillars of psychoanalysis
In addition to the indisputable role of the unconscious, there are other concepts on which psychoanalysis is based: we speak of repression , conflict and drive , articulated in metapsychology in three different points of view, such as: the dynamic point of view, the structural one and the cheap. Let’s see them one at a time:
- From a dynamicpoint of view , psychic phenomena are the result of the conflict between contrasting forces that come to exclude certain experiences from consciousness, creating a sort of separate container represented, precisely, by the unconscious, alongside which we progressively find the preconscious and the consciousness.
- The structuralpoint of view , on the other hand, makes another tripartition, which distinguishes between id (unconscious, seat of drives), ego (seat of logical-rational thought) and super-ego (seat of ideals and moral demands).
- The last point of view, the economicone , is based on the idea that there are different psychic energies, which can only be transformed without being created or destroyed.
Psychoanalytic therapy
Psychoanalytic therapy is a type of therapy based on the word . Therapeutic activity consists in trying to bring back to the surface, or to consciousness, certain emotions or experiences that have fallen into the unconscious, because they are traumatic, shameful or extremely negative. This is done through various techniques, such as dream interpretation , psychic work on one’s intuitions and mechanisms such as transfer , in which the patient projects certain feelings reserved for other people and kept hidden until then onto the analyst.
