The method developed by Freud for the treatment of mental illness, as well as a set of hypotheses and theories explaining the role of the unconscious in human life and the development of mankind. Despite the fact that many psychoanalysts seek to emphasize the scientific (and in this sense, non-philosophical) status of P., Freud's teachings from the moment of its inception not only claimed to be generalizations of a philosophical nature, but also included a setting for the creation of a peculiar philosophy of man. The formation of P. is associated with an attempt to find a way out of the dead ends into which philosophy was led, on the one hand, positivism, focused exclusively on natural science knowledge, and, on the other hand, irrationalism, appealing to intuitive guesses and intrapersonal comprehension of being. The organizational formation of P. began in 1902 with the formation of a small circle of like-minded people, then grew into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, and finally culminated in the spread of the psychoanalytic movement in many countries of Western Europe and America. P. examines not just the inner world of a person, but that sphere of the mental, within which the most significant and significant processes and changes occur that affect the organization of all human existence. Ontological issues are shifting to the plane of the psyche. The psychic is recognized as a reality, having its own nature and subject to special laws of development, which by no means always have an analogue in the physical world. The study of the mentally real, the identification of the patterns of functioning of the human psyche, the study of internal collisions and dramas that play out in the depths of human existence - these are the essential points of psychoanalytic philosophy. P. relies on the hypothesis of the existence of an unconscious layer of the human psyche, in the depths of which a special life takes place, not yet sufficiently studied, but nevertheless really significant and noticeably different from the processes of the sphere of consciousness. If in some philosophical systems of the past the recognition of the independent status of the unconscious was limited at best to attempts to consider the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes, then P. explores not only these relationships, but also the content characteristics of the unconscious mental itself. The unconscious is compared to a large anteroom, where all spiritual impulses are located, and consciousness is compared to a narrow room adjoining it, a salon. On the threshold between the antechamber and the saloon stands a guard, closely examining every spiritual movement and deciding whether to let him pass from one room to another. If a spiritual movement is allowed into the salon, then it can become conscious when it attracts the attention of consciousness. The front room is the abode of the unconscious, the salon is the receptacle of the preconscious, and only behind it is the cell of the conscious proper. This is one of the spatial, or topical, ideas of P. about the human psyche. In the 1920s, P. used a different comparison. The psyche is understood as consisting of three layers, or instances - It, I, Super-I. The Unconscious It is presented as a deep layer inherited by the human organization, in the depths of which hidden spiritual movements are hidden, reminiscent of old demons and expressing the unaccountable desires of a person. Conscious I - an intermediary between the It and the outside world, an instance designed to assist in exerting influences of this world on the unconscious activity of the individual. Superego is an instance that embodies the imperatives of duty and prohibitions of a sociocultural nature. I'm trying to subdue It. If this fails, then the I obeys the It, creating only the appearance of its superiority over it. The super-ego can also rule over the self, acting as a conscience or an unconscious sense of guilt. As a result, the Self finds itself in the grip of diverse contradictions, being "unfortunate", subject to a triple threat: from the outside world, the desires of the It and the severity of the Super-I. The doctrine of the "unhappy I" is directed against secular and religious illusions about man as an internally consistent being. According to Freud, throughout the history of the development of scientific thought, human narcissism has suffered several tangible blows - the "cosmological" one inflicted by Copernicus and crushed man's ideas about the Earth as the center of the Universe; "biological", inflicted by Darwin, who showed that man is only a step in the evolution of the animal world. But the most tangible should be, according to Freud, the "psychological" blow, coming from the doctrine of the "unhappy I" who is not the master in his own house. The spiritual life of man is constantly shaken by conflicts. Their resolution is associated with protective mechanisms that allow them to adapt to the outside world. A person is guided in life by two principles. The first of them is the "principle of pleasure" - the program of the functioning of mental processes inherent in each individual, within which unconscious drives are automatically directed towards obtaining maximum pleasure. The second is the "principle of reality", which corrects the course of the course of mental processes in accordance with the requirements of the environment and sets guidelines that help avoid shocks associated with the impossibility of direct and momentary satisfaction of drives. However, protective mechanisms of this kind, effective in relation to external reality, do not always contribute to the resolution of deep conflicts caused by psychic reality. At best, socially unacceptable impulses and desires are forced out into the sphere of the unconscious. At the same time, only the appearance of resolving intrapsychic conflicts is created, because the desires of a person forced out into the unconscious can break out at any moment, causing another drama. The resolution of internal conflicts must be achieved through conscious mastery of desires, their direct satisfaction or sublimation. P. is just conceived as an effective means of helping those who need to translate the unconscious into consciousness. P.'s practice is aimed at identifying and analyzing pathogenic material obtained in the process of deciphering "free associations", interpreting dreams, studying erroneous actions (misprints, reservations, etc.) and those "little things in life" that, as a rule, are not are paying attention. In theoretical terms, this is most closely related to the psychoanalytic theory of knowledge, based on the recognition of the presence in a person of such knowledge, about which he himself knows nothing until the chain of memories of real events of the past that once took place in the life of an individual is restored. individual or in the history of human development. Cognition of the unconscious is in P. nothing more than a recollection, a restoration in the memory of a person of pre-existing knowledge. The psychoanalytically interpreted consciousness turns out to be the resurrection of knowledge-remembering, forced into the preconscious due to the unwillingness or inability of a person to recognize behind the symbolic language of the unconscious those of his inner aspirations and desires, which are often associated with some kind of hidden demonic forces. P. explains the present, reducing it to the past, to human childhood, based on the postulate that the source of the unconscious is something related to sexual relations in the family between children and their parents. The knowledge of the unconscious ends with the discovery of the Oedipus complex in it - those initial sexual drives, under the influence of which all human activity is structured. Both in theoretical and practical terms, deciphering the "traces" of the unconscious and revealing its meaning did not finally resolve the issue of the possibility of understanding and understanding the unconscious mental, since the interpretation of unconscious representations allows for arbitrary interpretation and does not exclude a biased attitude that manifests itself in the process of cognition of the unconscious. In psychoanalytic philosophy, there is a desire to identify the moral foundations of human existence. The deciphering of the symbolic language of the unconscious, the interpretation of dreams, the discovery of symptoms of a painful splitting of the inner world of the personality - all this led to the recognition of the "evil", "bad" beginning in a person. Another aspect is that the deployment of the unconscious psychic is accompanied not only by a slide to the lower, animal nature of a human being, but also by activity to create the highest spiritual values of life, whether it be artistic, scientific or other types of creativity. P. reflects the Kantian idea of the "categorical imperative", considered as a special mental mechanism that completely predetermines or corrects human activity. This imperative is conscience, which displaces and suppresses the natural inclinations of the individual. Thus, in psychoanalytic philosophy, the duality of a person's existence in the world is fixed, associated with the natural and moral determination of his life activity. Focusing on the suppression of human sexual desires by culture and correlating "cultural morality" with the growth of neurotic diseases, Freud expressed the hope that the "conscience" of bourgeois society would someday wake up, as a result of which a change in moral norms would occur, contributing to the free development of the individual. In psychoanalytic philosophy, a complex of problems of both a cultural and a social nature is considered. The problems of "collective neuroses" and "neurotic culture" are discussed, as well as such topics as the antisocial behavior of individuals and the psychology of the masses, "social attraction" and social justice, the "cultural hypocrisy" of society and the regulation of human relations in it, "corporate spirit" and labor activities, etc. However, sociocultural issues are refracted, as a rule, through family-sexual relations, receive such an interpretation that easily fits into the psychoanalytic interpretation of a person's being in the world as an ongoing struggle between the "life instinct" (Eros) and the "death instinct" (Thanatos). The philosophical understanding of P. is characteristic of a number of areas of modern Western philosophy, as evidenced by the development of such concepts as "psychoanalytic philosophical anthropology" (Binswanger), "existential P." (Fromm), "psychoanalytic hermeneutics" (A. Lorenzer), as well as a number of "synthetic" philosophical and anthropological doctrines that combine individual ideas of P. with Hegel's "phenomenology of the spirit" (Ricœur) or Husserl's phenomenology (L. Rauhal). V.M. Leibin P., at first denoting a method of treating neuroses, as Freud shifted his attention to the study of dreams and erroneous actions, becomes a general designation for the technique of analyzing psychological phenomena. Further theoretical development expands the meaning of P. It is no longer understood only as a technique, but as an independent scientific discipline or project, consciously delimiting itself, on the one hand, from metaphysics, on the other hand, from classical psychology, which is also emphasized by its special designation: "metapsychology or "psychology of the unconscious". Freud makes repeated attempts to define the essential features of "meta-psychology", but neither he nor his followers succeed in presenting metapsychology as a special system, in deriving the foundations of the psychoanalytic method. After the first series of Freud's metapsychological articles (the last of which dates back to 1915) and numerous works of the second generation of psychoanalysts (Abraham, Ferenczi, Reich, Klein, Jones, etc.), in the 50s there was a "revision" of the concept of meta-psychology associated with the name of Lacan. The technique used here is borrowed from linguistics and social sciences (R. Jacobson, Levi-Strauss), and the formation of concepts is based on the philosophical tradition of Hegel and Husserl. According to Freud, the subject of meta-psychology is the description of this or that mental process in its topographical, dynamic and economic aspects. The topographic angle of vision captures the difference between conscious and unconscious representations, the dynamic angle fixes the intensity of the course of mental processes and the intensity of impulses, and the economic one establishes the distribution of mental energy between the structural parts of the psyche and determines the source of the impulse. Structural metapsychology is gradually abandoning the use of the concepts of mental "zones", "forces" and "energies", which came to P. from psychophysics. However, what Freud at one time designated as "topic", "dynamics" and "economics" in modern: psychoanalytic theory is actually fully expressed by its four central concepts: "unconscious", "drive", "repetition" and "transfer" . The basic concept of P. is the unconscious. The traditional idea of the unconscious, which served as the metaphysical basis of neurophysiological psychology, was accepted by Freud until 1895. The subsequent development of the concept of the unconscious leads to its radical reinterpretation. P. postulates the irreducibility of the mental to the conscious. In theoretical and methodological terms, both the "manifested" (manifested) contents of mental processes and the "latent" (implicit) contents of mental processes have the same value. Any psychic content is a "record". The question here is not so much whether the elements of the inscription are conscious or pre-conscious, but rather under what conditions they can become conscious. The ability of a mental element to become conscious is determined not by its belonging to an associative series (which can consist exclusively of unconscious links), but by its significance within a certain system of relations, which is the unconscious in the strict sense of the word. The unconscious is not exhausted by its contents. Levi-Strauss and Lacan, comparing the structure of the unconscious with the structure of speech, speak in this connection of a "symbolic function" or "symbolic order". The structure of the unconscious is mobile, changes are constantly taking place in it, during which individual elements are "substituted" (replaced by others), combined with others into one whole or "shifted" (moved to another context). The two types of transformation - "condensation" and "displacement" - are the primary processes of the unconscious and are subject to detection using the "method of free association" developed by Freud. The latter consists in the free, unconstrained pronunciation by the patient of everything that comes to his mind during the psychoanalytic session, with the subsequent interpretation of this by the analyst. It is assumed that the patient's identification and awareness of the hidden connection between parts of the story and repressed, unconscious drives has a positive therapeutic effect. Structural metapsychology emphasizes the analogy between the mechanisms of condensation and displacement, on the one hand, and such rhetorical figures as metaphor and metonymy, on the other. If in Freud's dynamic model the separation of the mental element from its symbolic place corresponded to the process of repression, then the structural metapsychology of Lacan and his followers, focusing on the connection of the element with its symbolic place (similar to the connection of the signifier with the signified), refuses to admit the duality of the psychological place (that is the belonging of the element to the system of consciousness and the system of the unconscious), from which the first topographical model was repelled. Accordingly, repression is no longer interpreted through the dynamics of two opposing forces, but as a symbolic removal of the repressed. The fundamental theorem of psychoanalysis, first formulated by Freud in relation to the dream (1900) and then to the symptom (1905), says: in the form of "fulfillment" of desires and representation of drives, the repressed represents desire. Freud called it "unconscious fantasy"; Lacan speaks of "fantasy" as a "bearer of desire". The connection thus established between the concepts of the unconscious, desire and attraction, which marks the transition from the topico-dynamic to the "economic" approach, forms the core of Lacan's psychoanalytic theory. Klaus Hamberger (Vienna) Freud 3. Lectures on psychoanalysis. M., 1989; Leibin V.M. Freud. and modern Western philosophy. M., 1990; Psychoanalysis and Philosophy. N.Y., 1970; Lorenzer A. Archeology of psychoanalysis. M., 1996; M. Miri. Philosophy of Psychoanalysis. Simla, 1977; J. Lacan. Les quatre consepts de la psychanalysis. P., 1973; Ch. Hanly. Existentialism and Psychoanalysis. N.Y., 1979; B. Farrell. The Standing of Psychoanalysis. Oxford etc., 1981; A. Grunbaum. The Foundation of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique. Berkeley etc., 1984.
For several decades, the development of psychoanalysis was accompanied by the popularization of psychoanalytic ideas and their integration into various fields of knowledge, such as science, religion, and philosophy. After the release of this concept on the international arena, it became so widely used and widespread in the psychological, artistic and medical literature of the 20th century that it turned into an indefinite and incomprehensible one.
The first to introduce this concept was Sigmund Freud. In 1896 he published an article in French on the etiology of neuroses. At that time, such a concept was interpreted as a kind of therapeutic technique. Then it received the name of a science that investigated the unconscious mental activity of the individual. And over time, it turned into a concept that could be applied in all spheres of life, not only of a person, but also of world culture.
The uncertainty in the designation of the concept of psychoanalysis is mainly caused by the not fully thought-out interpretation on the part of many scientists, doctors and researchers of the theories, concepts, and ideas once described by Freud. However, the ambiguity of this concept is explained not only by these factors. In the works of Freud himself, several definitions of psychoanalysis can be seen. They are not only related to each other, but in a certain context they interchange, contradict each other, which is a difficult factor in understanding the definition of psychoanalysis.
The traditional definition of psychoanalysis is as follows - a set of psychological methods, ideas and theories aimed at explaining unconscious connections using the associative process.
This concept became widespread in Europe (early 20th century) and in the USA (mid-20th century), as well as in some Latin American countries (second half of the 20th century).
Popular definitions of psychoanalysis
As mentioned earlier, there are quite a few interpretations of psychoanalysis. If we take a certain interpretation as a starting point, then the ground for a detailed study and understanding of the concept disappears. Therefore, we will try to give its characteristics, described by Freud in his works. So, psychoanalysis has the following definitions:
One of the subsystems of psychology as a science that explored the unconscious;
one of the main means of scientific research;
method of research and description of the processes of psychology;
a peculiar tool, for example, as a calculation of small quantities;
concept with which I can master IT(consciousness - unconscious);
one of the means of research in various spheres of spiritual life;
type of self-knowledge of oneself as a person;
research on therapeutic techniques;
a method for ridding oneself of mental suffering;
a medical method with which it is possible to treat certain forms of neurosis.
As you can see, psychoanalysis can be considered both a science and an art. Moreover, it occupies a place between philosophy and medicine.
However, is it possible to classify psychoanalysis as a science that would be able to study and explain the unconscious drives and desires of a person? Is it the art of interpreting dreams, literary texts and cultural phenomena? Or is it still a common method of treatment that is widely used in psychotherapy?
The answers to these questions directly depend on the angle of view of Freud's psychoanalytic teachings about culture and man. Thus, the question of the scientific status of this concept remains unanswered, despite the numerous efforts of experienced scientists and researchers to confirm or refute all kinds of psychoanalytic theories, methods and concepts. Some researchers (who are supporters of classical psychoanalysis) believe that psychoanalysis can be considered to be the same studied science as, for example, chemistry or physics. Others say that psychoanalysis in no way can meet the requirements of science (K. Popper) and is an ordinary myth (L. Wittgenstein) or an intellectual delusion of a person endowed with fantasy and imagination, which was Freud. Some philosophers, for example, J. Habermas and P. Ricoeur, believe that psychoanalysis is hermeneutics.
The most complete definition of the concepts of psychoanalysis can also be found in the encyclopedic article "Psychoanalysis and Theory" of Libido, which was written by Freud. There he made the following interpretations:
A method of research and definition of mental processes that are inaccessible to conscious understanding;
one of the methods of therapy for neuroses;
several emerging and constantly evolving psychological constructs that, over time, may recreate a new scientific discipline.
Background, goals and ideas of psychoanalysis
The main premise of psychoanalysis is the division of the psyche into two categories: the unconscious and the conscious. Any more or less educated psychoanalyst does not consider consciousness to be the main link in the psyche and proceeds from the fact that unconscious desires and aspirations are the predetermining factor in human thinking and actions.
Speaking about the causes of most mental and emotional disorders, it should be noted that many of them are rooted in childhood experiences that have a destructive effect on the child’s psyche, unconscious desires and sexual desires, and, as a result of aggressive, colliding with cultural and moral norms existing in society. . Because of this, a mental conflict is born, which can be resolved by getting rid of the "bad" inclinations and desires that are rooted in the mind. But they cannot simply disappear without a trace, they only go into the depths of the psyche of the individual and sooner or later will make themselves felt. Thanks to sublimation mechanisms (switching aggressive and sexual energy to good intentions and acceptable goals), they can turn into creativity, scientific activities, but they can also push a person to illness, i.e. neurotic way of resolving the life contradictions and problems facing a person.
In theory, the main goal of psychoanalysis is to reveal the meaning and significance of the unconscious in the life of an individual, to reveal and understand the mechanisms of functioning that are responsible for the human psyche. The main psychoanalytic ideas include the following:
There are no accidents and coincidences in the psyche;
the events of the first years can affect (both positively and negatively) the subsequent development of the child;
the oedipus complex (unconscious drives of the child, which are accompanied by the expression of loving and aggressive emotions towards parents) is not only the main cause of neuroses, but also the main source of morality, society, religion and culture;
The structure of the mental apparatus has three areas - the unconscious IT(drives and instincts that originate in the somatic structure and manifest themselves in forms that are not subject to consciousness), the conscious self (having the function of self-preservation and control over actions and demands IT, as well as always striving for satisfaction at any cost) and hypermoral SUPER-I, which is the authority of parents, social requirements and conscience.
The two fundamental drives of man are the drive for life. (Eros) and to death (Thanatos), which includes a destructive instinct.
In clinical practice, psychoanalysis is used to eliminate the symptoms of neurotic by bringing the patient to awareness of his unconscious desires, actions and drives in order to understand them and subsequently not use these intrapsychic conflicts. Using numerous analogies, Freud compared therapeutics to the work of a chemist and archaeologist, as well as the influence of a teacher and the intervention of a doctor.
Lecture by A.V. Rossokhina Mysteries of modern psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is not only a type of psychotherapeutic and clinical practice. At the same time, it is a philosophical doctrine of man, a social philosophy, belonging to the factors of an ideological order. It is in this sense that psychoanalysis has become an integral part of Western culture.
According to the definition of the psychological dictionary, psychoanalysis (psychoanalytic therapy) is a psychological trend founded by the Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist S. Freud at the end of the 19th century. Initially developed as a method of treatment of neuroses; then it turned into a general psychological theory that placed the driving forces of mental life, motives, drives, meanings in the center of attention; subsequently became one of the important areas of philosophy of the XX century. It is based on the idea that behavior is determined not only and not so much by consciousness as by the unconscious. So, the term is used in three main senses:
1) theoretical direction in psychology;
2) a special methodology for the study of the psyche;
3) psychotherapeutic method: a set of ways to identify the characteristics of a person's experiences and actions due to unconscious motives.
The main technical means of psychoanalysis: 1) the associative method - the analysis of free associations; 2) dream analysis and interpretation of dreams - a method of dream analysis; 3) analysis and interpretation of various erroneous and unintentional (accidental) symptomatic actions of everyday life - a method of error analysis.
The philosophical dictionary gives the following definition:
Psychoanalysis is:
1) In the narrow sense of the word - a psychotherapeutic method developed by Z. Freud in the late 90s. XIX century for the treatment of psychoneuroses. Psychoanalysis as a method of therapy consists in identifying, then bringing to consciousness and experiencing unconscious traumatic ideas, impressions, mental complexes.
2) In the broad sense of the word, various schools of dynamic psychotherapy are called psychoanalysis. Moreover, we can talk not only about the theoretical platforms of these schools, but also about the institutionalized movement that is carried out on the basis of them. Psychoanalysis as a movement originates from a circle of supporters of S. Freud, who united around him in 1902 and founded the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1908. Modern successors and continuers of this movement belong to the so-called "classical" or "orthodox" psychoanalysis - its most numerous, powerful and influential direction. In theoretical terms, classical psychoanalysis is Freudianism, in some respects refined and reformed in the 1930s and 1950s. Other areas (schools) of psychoanalysis, much less institutionalized and influential, were founded by students who had moved away from Freud - A. Adler, K. Jung, who only for a short time became close to him and the Vienna Society.
Consequently, the essence of psychoanalysis can be considered at three levels: as a method of psychotherapy, as a method of studying the psychology of the individual, and as a system of scientific knowledge about the worldview, psychology, and philosophy.
Freudianism - and this is its merit - sought to fill psychological knowledge about a person with a new life truth, create a theory and, on its basis, obtain information useful for solving practical, primarily psychotherapeutic problems. It is no coincidence that Z. Freud began his scientific demands with an analysis and generalization of psychotherapeutic practice and only then turned the accumulated experience into a psychological theory.
The concept of "psychoanalysis" was introduced into scientific literature at the end of the 19th century. to refer to a new method of studying and treating mental disorders. For the first time, this concept was used in an article on the etiology of neuroses, published in German on May 15, 1896. Laplanche and Pontalis' Dictionary of Psychoanalysis gives the following definitions of psychoanalysis: a research method based on identifying the unconscious meanings of words, actions, products of a person's imagination (dreams, fantasies , delirium); a method for treating neurotic disorders based on this study; a set of theories of psychology and psychopathology, in which the data obtained by the psychoanalytic method of research and treatment are systematized.
From the point of view of psychoanalysis, the key to understanding a person's mental illness should be sought in his subconscious. The use of psychoanalysis allows you to activate the unconscious and extract it from the depths of the psyche. Psychoanalysis is based on psychodynamic theories of personality, according to which the feelings and thinking of an individual are determined by internal factors, the interaction of the conscious with the unconscious.
The historical roots of psychodynamic theories of personality go back to the psychoanalysis of the Austrian scientist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). He believed that the cause of all mental disorders is the unresolved conflicts of childhood and the painful memories associated with them. According to Freud, human life, culture and creative processes are determined by primary, unconscious (especially sexual) drives. According to Freud, disorders of sexual desires play a decisive role in the formation of a pathological personality. Unpleasant experiences, repressed into the subconscious, are the cause of constant internal conflict, which eventually leads to the development of a mental or neurological disease. Taking the main provisions of Freud's theory as a basis, his student, the Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler (1870-1937), created an individual psychology, according to which the main driving forces for the development of the individual are the desire for superiority, perfection and a sense of community.
Various forms of psychopathology and social deviations are associated with the underdevelopment of a sense of community. Meanwhile, according to the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (Jung 1875-1961), mental disorders are caused not so much by childhood memories as by a person's real well-being. The images that arise in the subconscious are innate, they are associated with evolution, the history of mankind, and social consciousness. Neopsychoanalysis relies on and develops some of Freud's statements. The healing process in dynamic psychotherapy has as its ultimate goal the realization of the “unconscious”.
Therapeutic action
There are differences and even contradictions between the directions of psychoanalysis, but in general they are quite similar. Freud's psychoanalysis tries to find the causes of illness in the unconscious by analyzing dreams, childhood memories, free associations. Over time, a kind of picture of a person’s subconscious is formed from individual parts, the causes of his internal conflicts emerge. The task of the psychotherapist is to help the patient to realize them.
An important aspect of psychoanalysis is the patient's resistance to treatment. By the nature and intensity of the resistance, the therapist can understand which unconscious conflicts the patient most wants to push into the subconscious. In order for the patient to fully open up, he must trust his psychotherapist, a spiritual connection must be established between them. The connection between the doctor and the patient decreases after the conflicts are recognized and resolved - then the patient is left alone with them.
The Effectiveness of Psychoanalysis
If depth psychotherapy is effective, then the patient overcomes his internal conflicts and can lead a normal life.
Often during treatment, the patient begins to doubt its effectiveness. However, in order to feel the beneficial effects of psychoanalysis, a lot of time must pass. Even if at first psychotherapy does not give positive results, it should not be interrupted.
When is psychoanalysis used?
Psychoanalysis is used to treat various personality disorders. It gives positive results in depression, phobias, neuroses, personality pathologies, psychosomatic diseases.
Psychoanalytic therapy is contraindicated for children suffering from mental illness. These children have difficulty expressing their thoughts. They do not realize that they are mentally ill. Therefore, for the treatment of children, it is recommended to use other methods, for example, games that contribute to their self-expression.
Psychoanalysis is a psychological system proposed by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Originating first as a method of treating neuroses, psychoanalysis gradually became the general theory of psychology. Discoveries made on the basis of the treatment of individual patients have led to a deeper understanding of the psychological components of religion, art, mythology, social organization, child development and pedagogy. Moreover, by revealing the influence of unconscious desires on physiology, psychoanalysis has made a significant contribution to understanding the nature of psychosomatic diseases. Psychoanalysis considers human nature from the point of view of conflict: the functioning of the human psyche reflects the struggle of opposing forces and tendencies. At the same time, the influence of unconscious conflicts, the interaction in the psyche of forces that the individual himself is not aware of, is especially emphasized. Psychoanalysis shows how unconscious conflict affects the emotional life and self-esteem of the individual, his relationships with other people and social institutions. The source of conflict lies in the very conditions of human experience. Man is both a biological and a social being. In accordance with his biological inclinations, he seeks pleasure and avoids pain. This obvious observation is known as the "pleasure principle" characterizing a fundamental trend in human psychology. A state of mental excitement is maintained in the body, forcing it to function in such a way as to obtain the desired pleasure. The stimulus that prompts action is called drive. In an infant, the impulses are powerful and categorical; the child wants to do what gives pleasure, take what he wants, and eliminate everything that hinders the achievement of the goal. Frustration, frustration, anger and conflict are immediate, especially when the human environment tries to civilize and cultivate a new member of society in a few short years. The child must accept the prohibitions, mores, ideals and taboos of the special world in which he was born. He must learn what is allowed and what is forbidden, what is approved and what is punished. The impulses of childhood yield to the pressures of the adult world reluctantly and, at best, incompletely. Although most of these early conflicts are "forgotten" (actually repressed), many of these impulses and the fears associated with them remain in the unconscious part of the psyche and continue to have a significant impact on a person's life. Numerous psychoanalytic observations have shown that childhood experiences of satisfaction and frustration play an important role in the formation of personality. Basic principles of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is based on several fundamental principles. The first one is principle of determinism. Psychoanalysis assumes that not a single event in mental life is a random, arbitrary, unrelated phenomenon. The thoughts, feelings, and impulses that become conscious are seen as events in a chain of cause-and-effect relationships determined by the individual's early childhood experiences. With the help of special research methods, mainly through free association and dream analysis, it is possible to reveal the connection between current mental experience and past events. The second principle is called topographic approach. Each mental element is evaluated according to the criterion of its accessibility to consciousness. The process of repression, in which certain mental elements are removed from consciousness, testifies to the constant efforts of that part of the psyche that does not allow them to be realized. According to dynamic principle, the psyche is driven to action by sexual and aggressive impulses that are part of the common biological heritage. These drives are different from the instinctive behavior of animals. Instinct in animals is a stereotyped response, usually explicitly aimed at survival and caused by special stimuli in special situations. In psychoanalysis, attraction is viewed as a state of nervous excitement in response to stimuli that induce the psyche to action aimed at relieving stress. The fourth principle was called genetic approach . Conflicts that characterize adults, personality traits, neurotic symptoms, and psychological structures in general can be traced back to critical events, desires, and fantasies of childhood. In contrast to earlier conceptions of determinism and topographical and dynamical approaches, the genetic approach is not a theory but an empirical discovery that is constantly being confirmed in all psychoanalytic situations. Its essence can be expressed simply: whatever paths are opened to the individual, he cannot escape his childhood. Although psychoanalytic theory does not deny the possible influence of hereditary biological factors, it emphasizes "critical events", especially the consequences of what happened in early childhood. Whatever a child experiences - illness, accident, loss, pleasure, abuse, seduction, abandonment - in the future it will somehow affect his natural abilities and personality structure. The influence of each particular life situation depends on the stage of development of the individual. An infant's earliest psychological experience is global sensory exposure. In this phase, there is still no differentiation of the Self and the rest of the world, the baby does not understand where his body is and where everything else is. The idea of oneself as something independent develops in two or three years. Separate objects of the external world, such as a blanket or a soft toy, can be perceived at one time as part of oneself, and at another time as part of the external world. At the initial stage of development, the individual is in a state of so-called. "primary narcissism". Soon, however, other people begin to be perceived as sources of food, affection and protection. At the very core of the human personality there remains a significant component of childish self-centeredness, but the need for others - the desire to love, to please, to become like those one loves and admires - contributes to the transition from childhood narcissism to adult maturity. Under favorable conditions, by the age of six or seven, the child has gradually overcome most of the hostile and erotic impulses of the oedipal phase and begins to identify with the parent of the same sex. A relatively calm phase of the development process begins, the so-called. latency period. Now the child is socialized, and during this period formal education usually begins. This stage lasts until puberty in adolescence - a period of rapid physiological and psychological changes. The transformations that take place at this age largely determine how an adult perceives himself. Children's conflicts are awakened again, and a second attempt is made to overcome them. If it is successful, the individual develops an adult identification corresponding to his gender role, moral responsibility and the business or profession that he has chosen; otherwise, he will be predisposed to the development of mental disorders. Depending on constitutional factors and individual experience, psychopathology can take the form of developmental delays, pathological character traits, psychoneuroses, perversions, or more serious disorders up to severe mental illness. Psychoanalytic therapy is both a research method and a treatment method. It is carried out under certain standard conditions, called the "psychoanalytic situation". The patient is asked to lie down on the couch, turn away from the therapist and tell him in detail and honestly about all the thoughts, images and feelings that come to mind. The psychoanalyst listens to the patient without criticizing or expressing his own opinions. According to the principle of mental determinism, each element of thinking or behavior is observed and evaluated in the context of what is being told. The personality of the psychoanalyst himself, his values and judgments are completely excluded from the therapeutic interaction. This organization of the psychoanalytic situation creates conditions under which the patient's thoughts and images can emerge from very deep layers of the psyche. They arise as a result of the constant internal dynamic pressure of drives that give rise to unconscious fantasies (dreams, free associations, etc.). As a result, what was previously repressed is verbalized and can be learned. Since the psychoanalytic situation is not complicated by the influence of ordinary interpersonal relationships, the interaction of the three components of the psyche - I, Id and Super-I - is studied more objectively; this makes it possible to show the patient what exactly in his behavior is determined by unconscious desires, conflicts and fantasies, and what is determined by more mature ways of responding. The goal of psychoanalytic therapy is to replace stereotyped, automated ways of responding to anxiety and fears with an objective reasonable judgment. The most important part of therapy is connected with the interpretation of the patient's reactions to the psychotherapist himself. During treatment, the patient's perception of the psychoanalyst and his demands often becomes inadequate and unrealistic. This phenomenon is known as "transfer" or "transfer." It represents the patient's unconscious recovery of a new version of forgotten childhood memories and repressed unconscious fantasies. The patient transfers his unconscious childhood desires to the psychoanalyst. Transference is understood as a form of memory in which repetition in action replaces the recollection of the past and in which the reality of the present is misinterpreted in terms of a forgotten past. In this respect, transference is a repetition in miniature of a neurotic process. A.
History of psychoanalysis
The history of psychoanalysis begins in 1880, when J. Breuer, a Viennese physician, told Freud that one patient, talking about herself, apparently recovered from the symptoms of hysteria. Under hypnosis, she was able to uncover a deeply traumatic event in her life, while experiencing an extremely strong emotional response (catharsis), which resulted in symptom relief. After coming out of the hypnotic state, the patient did not remember what she had said under hypnosis. Freud used the same technique with other patients and confirmed Breuer's results. They reported their observations in the joint publication "Studies in Hysteria", in which they suggested that the symptoms of hysteria are determined by masked memories of forgotten "traumatic" events. The memory of these events disappears from consciousness, but nevertheless continues to have a significant effect on the patient. Freud saw the reason for this disappearance from consciousness in the conflict between certain impulses associated with a given event and moral principles. For personal reasons, Breuer withdrew from research. Working independently, Freud discovered that a similar experience occurs not only in hysteria, but also in obsessive-compulsive disorder of a sexual nature, which often occurs in childhood. The child's sexual desires alternately involve the mouth, anus, and genitals in a biologically determined sequence, culminating between three and six years of age when the sexual needs are addressed to the parent of the opposite sex. This leads to rivalry with a parent of the same sex, accompanied by fear of punishment. All these experiences together are called the Oedipus complex. The punishment that the child fears takes on the form of bodily harm in his imagination, such as damage to the genitals. Freud considered this complex the key to neuroses, meaning that the desires and fears of the oedipal situation are the same as in the development of a neurosis. The process of symptom formation begins when unconscious childhood impulses threaten to break through the barrier set up by repression and enter consciousness for realization, which turns out to be unacceptable to other parts of the psyche, both for moral reasons and for fear of punishment. The release of forbidden impulses is perceived as dangerous, the psyche reacts to them with unpleasant symptoms of anxiety. The psyche can protect itself from this danger by again and again expelling unwanted impulses from consciousness, i.e. as if renewing the act of repression. If this fails or only partially succeeds, a compromise is reached. Some unconscious desires still reach consciousness in a weakened or distorted form, which is accompanied by such signs of self-punishment as pain, discomfort, or limitation of activity. Obsessive thoughts, phobias and hysterical symptoms arise as a compromise between the conflicting forces of the psyche. Thus, according to Freud, neurotic symptoms have a meaning: in symbolic form, they reflect the unsuccessful attempts of the individual to resolve internal contradictions. Freud found that the principles that allow the interpretation of neurotic symptoms apply equally to other mental phenomena, both moral and psychological. Dreams, for example, represent the continuation of daily life in such an altered state of consciousness as sleep. By applying the psychoanalytic method of research, as well as the principle of conflict and the formation of a compromise, the visual impressions of a dream can be interpreted and translated into everyday language. During sleep, children's unconscious sexual desires try to express themselves in the form of a visual hallucinatory experience. This is opposed by internal "censorship", which weakens or distorts the manifestations of unconscious desires. When censorship fails, the impulses that break through are perceived as a threat and danger, and a person has a nightmare or nightmare - a sign of an unsuccessful defense against a threatening impulse. Psychoanalytic theory also considers other phenomena that reveal the nature of the compromise between various conflicting tendencies in the psyche; it can be reservations, superstitions, certain religious rituals, forgetting names, losing objects, choosing clothes and furniture, choosing a profession, hobbies, and even certain character traits. In 1923, Freud formulated a theory of the functioning of the psyche in terms of its structural organization. Mental functions have been grouped according to the role they play in conflict. Freud identified three main structures of the psyche - "It" (or "Id"), "I" (or "Ego"), and "Super-I" (or "Super-Ego"). "I" performs the function of orienting a person in the external world and interacts between him and the external world, acting as a limiter of drives, correlating their requirements with the corresponding requirements of conscience and reality. "It" includes the basic drives derived from sexual or aggressive impulses. "Super-I" is responsible for the "removal" of the unwanted. It is usually associated with conscience, which is the legacy of moral ideas acquired in early childhood and the product of the most important childhood identifications and aspirations of the individual. A.
Neo-Freudianism
A new direction, whose representatives, having mastered the basic schemes and orientations of orthodox psychoanalysis, revised the basic category of motivation for it, was neo-Freudianism. At the same time, the decisive role was given to the influence of the socio-cultural environment. At one time, Adler sought to explain the unconscious complexes of the personality by social factors. The approach outlined by him was developed by a group of researchers who are usually called neo-Freudians. What Freud attributed to the biology of the organism, the instincts inherent in it, the neo-Freudians explained by the adaptation of the individual to the historically established culture. These conclusions were based on a large anthropological material collected in the study of the mores and customs of tribes far from Western civilization.
One of the leaders of neo-Freudianism was Karen Horney(1885-1953). In her theory, on which she relied in psychoanalytic practice, Horney argued that all conflicts that arise in childhood are generated by the child's relationship with his parents. It is because of the nature of this relationship that he develops a basic sense of anxiety that reflects the child's helplessness in a potentially hostile world. Neurosis is nothing more than a reaction to anxiety, while the perversions and aggressive tendencies described by Freud are not the cause of neurosis, but its result. Neurotic motivation takes on three directions: movement towards people as a need for love, movement away from people as a need for independence, and movement against people as a need for power (generating hatred, protest and aggression).
E. Fromm developed the problem of human happiness, the possibilities of achieving it, gave an analysis of the two main modes of existence - possession and being. The central problem is the problem of the ideal and reality in a particular human life. According to Fromm, a person is aware of himself as a special being, separated from nature and other people, his physical body and people of the opposite sex, that is, he is aware of his complete alienation and loneliness, which is the main problem of human existence. As the only answer to the problems of human existence, Fromm calls love as "the ultimate and real need of every human being." Ways to meet this basic need and is expressed in two basic modes of existence. The desire to have a consumer society, the inability to satisfy the ever-increasing human needs for consumption. The division of possession into existential (which does not contradict the orientation towards being) and characterological, expressing the orientation towards possession.
Harry Sullivan did not receive a special psychoanalytic education and did not accept Freudian terminology. He developed his own system and terminology. Nevertheless, his conceptual scheme repeats in general terms the reformed psychoanalysis of Horney and Fromm.
Sullivan called his theory "the interpersonal theory of psychiatry". It is based on three principles borrowed from biology: the principle of communal (social) existence, the principle of functional activity and the principle of organization. At the same time, Sullivan modifies and combines in his concept the two most common psychological trends in the United States - psychoanalysis and behaviorism.
Eric Erickson: Ego Psychology. A. Freud and the Norwegian psychoanalyst E. Erikson are the founders of the concept, which is called "egopsychology". According to this concept, the main part of the personality structure is not the unconscious Id, as in Z. Freud, but its conscious part of the Ego, which strives to preserve its integrity and individuality. In the theory of E. Erickson (1902-1994), not only Freud's position regarding the hierarchy of personality structures is revised, but the understanding of the role of the environment, culture, social environment of the child, which, from Erickson's point of view, is of great importance for development, changes significantly. Erickson believed that personality development continues throughout life, and not just the first six years, as Freud believed. This process is influenced not only by a narrow circle of people, as traditional psychoanalysis believed, but also by society as a whole. Erickson called this process the formation of identity, emphasizing the importance of preserving and maintaining the personality, the integrity of the Ego, which is the main factor in resistance to neuroses. He identified eight main stages in the development of identity, during which the child moves from one stage of self-awareness to another, and each stage provides an opportunity for the formation of opposite qualities and character traits that a person is aware of in himself and with which he identifies himself.
