Definitions of Counseling and Psychotherapy

Chapter 2

Psychoanalytic Approaches

Glossary of Key Terms

The Aetiology of Hysteria:

This was one of Freud’s early professional presentations and publications wherein he outlined his seduction hypothesis. The seduction hypothesis described Freud’s belief that there was a clear causal connection between childhood sexual abuse and hysteria.

Allegiance effect:

A term used to describe the research finding that a researcher’s therapy preference or allegiance is a strong predictor of outcome study results.

Anal:

Freud’s developmental theory involves four stages and a latency period. Progress through stages is driven by biological maturation, which forces individuals to confront demands inherent to each stage. The second stage is called the anal stage. It involves the time period when an individual is between 1 and 3 years old.

Anxious-avoidant insecure attachment:

One of Ainsworth’s three original attachment styles.

Anxious-resistant insecure attachment:

One of Ainsworth’s three original attachment styles.

Attachment-informed psychotherapy:

Therapy that focuses on how early child-caretaker interactions have been internalized and subsequently serve as a model for current and future interpersonal relationships.

The basic rule:

(see free association)

Conflict-based triangle of insight:

Psychoanalytic therapists often focus their interpretations on triangles of insight. These insight triangles focus on either conflict or transference. A conflict-based triangle of insight includes (1) the client’s wish, aim, or drive; (2) the threat or imagined threat that makes the direct gratification of the wish impossible; and (3) the defensive compromise.

Conscience:

In Freud’s structural approach, there are two parts of the superego. One part is called the conscience. It’s developed as a function of parental prohibitions. These admonitions are internalized within the child’s psyche and later used by the child (and, in later years, by the adult) to self-punish or prohibit unacceptable impulses.

The Conscious:

Freud’s topographic approach divides the pschoanalytic mind into three interrelated regions; the unconscious, the preconscious, and the conscious. The conscious mind is the part of the mind of which we are aware.

Corrective emotional experience:

As originally defined by Alexander and French (1946) the corrective emotional experience is the exposure of the client under more favorable circumstances, to emotionally difficult situations that he or she was unable to handle previously.

Countertransference:

Originally defined as the therapist’s tendency to see the client in terms of his or her own previous relationships or unresolved issues. In that sense, it’s the same as transference, but it occurs when the transference is directed from the therapist toward the client.

Defense mechanisms:

The ego develops defense mechanisms as the means of dealing with the id’s primitive impulses, the admonitions and expectations of the superego, and the realities of the real world. Defense mechanisms are designed to ward off unacceptable id impulses that are at odds with superego standards or that would result in real world problems. They have four primary characteristics:

(1) They’re automatic; (2) they’re unconscious; (3) they ward off unacceptable impulses; and (4) they distort reality (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the defense mechanism employed).

Denial:

As a type of ego defense mechanism, denial is usually expressed forcefully. Clients using denial often say, “No way, that’s not true” and repeat their denial forcefully.

Derivatives:

In analytic terms, derivatives refer to somewhat distorted unconscious material that come into consciousness through free association and then become one focus of interpretation. They usually represent primarily instinctual conflicts or primarily relationship or attachment conflicts.

Developmental stage approach:

Freud’s developmental theory involves four stages and a latency period. Progress through stages is driven by biological maturation—which forces individuals to confront demands inherent to each stage. At each stage, if parents are overly indulgent or withholding, the child can end up with fixations or complexes. A fixation or complex is an unresolved unconscious conflict (aka dysfunctional internal working model). Freud’s developmental stages include oral, anal, phalli, latency, and genital.

Disorganized/disoriented attachment:

A fourth attachment style identified by Mary Main, a student of Mary Ainsworth.

Displacement:

A type of ego defense mechanism. Displacement occurs when the aim of sexual or aggressive impulses is shifted from a more dangerous person or activity to a less dangerous person or activity.

Dream interpretation:

According to Freud, dreams are the royal road to the unconscious and therefore provide access to the unconscious, but require interpretation to produce insight. Although dream interpretation was formerly conducted more authoritatively by psychoanalysts, contemporary psychoanalytic dream work is more interactive and collaborative.

Dynamic approach:

Freud’s dynamic approach to human psychology is known as drive theory or instinct theory. He believed humans are filled with mental or psychic energy. This energy comes from two essential sources: Eros (energy associated with life and sex) and Thanatos (energy associated with death and aggression).

Ego:

A concept in Freud’s structural approach. Ego functions include memory, problem-solving abilities, and logical thought. These functions are considered secondary thought processes and help us cope with primary sexual and aggressive drives. Overall, the ego acts as a mediator within the human personality. It must contend not only with the id’s primitive impulses, but also with admonitions and expectations of the superego, as well as realities of the external world.

Ego ideal:

A part of the superego in Freud’s structural approach. The ego ideal is a positive desire to emulate adult standards.

Ego psychology:

After Freud’s death, many psychoanalysts (including Anna Freud) began focusing more on ego functions. These ego functions included memory, thinking, intelligence, motor control, and others.

Eros:

Freud believed humans are filled with mental or psychic energy in his dynamic approach to human psychology. This energy comes from two essential sources: Eros and Thanatos. More specifically, eros is the energy associated with life and sex.

Focal psychotherapy:

When psychoanalysts or psychodynamic therapists focus their work on one significant conflict or problem.

Free association:

In psychoanalysis; the client is encouraged to “say whatever comes to mind.” This process, also known as “the basic rule” is designed to facilitate emergence of unconscious impulses and conflicts.

Genital:

Freud’s developmental theory involves four developmental stages and a latency period. Progress through stages is driven by biological maturation—which forces individuals to confront demands inherent to each stage. The genital period is the time period from adolescence to adulthood.

Id:

A concept in Freud’s structural approach. The id is the seat of biological desires. As a structural entity within the human personality, it functions on the pleasure principle and primary-process thought. Freud described the id as “a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations” (Freud, 1964, p. 73). For the most part, id impulses are unconscious. We can view id impulses within ourselves via dreams, fantasies, flashes of instinctual desire, and powerful pleasure-seeking urges.

Internal working model:

A key concept throughout the history of psychoanalytic therapy, but especially so within the field of attachment-informed psychotherapy. Individuals are said to internalize old or early relationship patterns and use them as a working model for how to act and interact in the present and future.

Interpretation:

The main tool or intervention strategy employed by psychoanalytic therapists. The therapist typically interprets unconscious processes in an effort to bring them more clearly into awareness.

Latency:

Libido:

Libido is sensual or sexual energy associated with Eros in Freud’s drive or instinct theory. In contrast, Jung defined libido as creative life energy, rather than simply sexual energy. However, Fairbarn defines libido as object seeking, not pleasure seeking. He emphasized that human behavior is not fueled by instinctual (libidinal) drives for sexual and aggressive gratification; instead, behavior is influenced and motivated by the desire for human connection and relationship.

Normal abnormal continuum:

This phrase refers to Freud’s ideas that normality and abnormality lie on a continuum and that it’s possible to see, in small ways, how even a “normal” person might “break down.”

Object relations theory:

Following the development of ego psychology, another phase in psychoanalytic thinking was object relations. This approach emphasized that libido was focused on human connection or relationship instead of just pleasure. Objects are not things; objects are people and internalized versions of people.

The Oedipal conflict:

The idea that young children begin wishing for a more intimate and sometimes even sexual relationship with their parents. Based on the Oedipal myth, this version of children’s attractions to their parents focuses on boys. Girl’s attraction to their fathers is often referred to as an Electra complex or conflict.

Oral:

Phallic:

Preconscious:

Freud’s topographic approach divides the psychoanalytic mind into three interrelated regions; the unconscious, the preconscious, and the conscious.

Projection:

A type of ego defense mechanism. Projection occurs when clients push their unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or impulses outward, onto another person.

Projective testing:

This testing process involves presentation of an ambiguous stimulus to clients. Clients then are engaged in a generative process wherein they create responses to the stimulus that are supposedly projections of the clients’ inner psychodynamics. Projective tests include the Rorschach Inkblot Test, the Thematic Apperception Test, and human figure drawings.

Psychic determinism:

This is Freud’s idea that there is an underlying psychological explanation for every emotion, thought, impulse, and behavior.

Rationalization:

A type of ego defense mechanism. Rationalization occurs when clients use excessive explanations to account for their behavior. For example, if a student makes an impulsive, hostile comment to someone in class, he or she might extensively explain and justify the comment.

Reaction formation:

A type of ego defense mechanism involving a pattern of acting the opposite of how one really feels. For example, an individual may behave in an excessively loving way if it’s too dangerous to directly express aggression toward someone. The inverse example occurs when it’s not acceptable to express sexual attraction; therefore the individual behaves in ways suggestive of hatred or distaste toward the person whom he or she really feels an attraction.

Regression:

A type of ego defense mechanism. Regression involves going back to old, less sophisticated methods of doing things. Traumatized children may regress to wetting the bed or pooping their pants rather than using more advanced toileting skills. Adults who are skillful communicators may regress to shouting and aggression rather than controlling their impulses.

Relational psychoanalysis:

Relational psychoanalysis is also referred to as two-person psychotherapy or an intersubjectivity model. In relational psychoanalysis the analyst is viewed as inescapably subjective and therefore is a participant-observer.

Repetition-compulsion:

A term used by psychoanalysts to articulate repeating patterns caused by a client’s internal working model.

Repression:

A type of ego defense mechanism. Repression involves forgetting (or motivated forgetting) of an emotionally painful memory. When a client has repressed a memory, there may be behavioral evidence that it exists, but the client genuinely has an absence of recall.

Role induction:

Role induction refers to a process wherein therapists educate clients about their role in the therapy process.

Secure attachment:

One of Ainsworth’s original attachment styles.

The seduction hypothesis:

The seduction hypothesis described Freud’s belief that there was a clear causal connection between childhood sexual abuse and hysteria.

Self-psychology:

This is a psychoanalytic approach developed and articulated by Heinz Kohut. Kohut believed needs for self-cohesiveness and self-esteem were the overarching motivations fueling human behavior. The focus is on the development of a healthy or cohesive self. Kohut believes that self-defects and noncohesion stem from early childhood experiences.

Strange situation:

This was (and is) a research paradigm developed by Mary Ainsworth. Ainsworth brought individual mother-child (6–18 months) pairs into her lab and observed them in a series of seven, 3-minute episodes or interactions.

Structural Approach:

Freud’s structural approach involves interrelationships of the well-known concepts of id, ego, and superego. Powerful, unconscious forces flow through the body and mind. If not for the system’s structural components, human behavior would be dictated by sexual and aggressive forces or drives. However, because these primal forces flow through the id, ego, and superego, humans learn to constructively manage their urges.

Sublimation:

A type of ego defense mechanism. Sublimation is one of the most constructive defense mechanisms. It occurs when primal sexual or aggressive energy is channeled into positive loving or vocational activities.

Superego:

A concept in Freud’s structural approach. The superego develops when children resolve their Oedipal issues and begin strongly identifying with parents and parental demands or expectations.

Thanatos:

Within his dynamic approach, Freud believed humans are filled with mental or psychic energy. This energy comes from two essential sources: Eros and Thanatos. Thanatos is energy associated with death and aggression.

Therapeutic alliance:

This part of the relationship between the client and analyst is also sometimes referred to as the working alliance because it represents the conscious bond and process of working together to help clients resolve their difficulties. The therapy alliance is identified as a common factor contributing to positive therapy outcome.

Timing:

Good timing is essential to effective interpretations. Interpretations function to helping something unconscious to become conscious by naming it at the moment it is striving to break through. Effective interpretations are given when the client is ready and his or her immediate interest is momentarily focused.