Psychoanalytic Therapy

Revised: 2020-10-05

Psychoanalytic therapy is the inheritor of Freud's original therapeutic methods. Like Freud before them, psychoanalytic therapists look to uncover the patient's repressed feelings thoughts and motives, and they basically ignore the patient's presenting symptoms.

Two common techniques of psychoanalytic therapy are free association and dream analysis.

Free association occurs as the patient comes to realize that the therapist will not engage in ordinary conversation. Over time, the patients will begin to free associate, or to simply speak what is on their minds. Freud believed that such free associations gave hints to the underlying problems of the patient.

Dream analysis is another commonly used tool in psychoanalytic therapy. Patients are encouraged to reveal their dreams which are then interpreted by the therapist. Psychoanalytic therapists distinguish between the concrete content of the dream (the manifest content) and the symbolic meaning of the dream (the latent content). Latent content is deemed more important because it helps to reveal hidden conflicts. Common interpretations include:

Manifest Content	Latent Content
A trip	Death
A king and queen	Your mother and father
Climbing stairs	Having sexual intercourse
Balconies	Breasts
Snake	Penis

Psychoanalytic therapists believe that dreams are symbolic so that the dreamer will not have to confront the unconscious directly.

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