Psychodynamic Therapy
The Origins of Psychodynamic Counselling
The psychodynamic approach to counselling is a form of counselling that is usually associated with psychotherapy and involves a much longer period of training for the therapist than other branches of counselling. Psychotherapy sessions with a client are usually more numerous, taken over a longer period of time, supporting the client through more profound change. Psychodynamic counselling has its roots in the theories of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and other eminent Psychoanalytic thinkers of the time. Freud initiated his writings in the late 19th and early 20th century in Vienna. Freud invented his theory of psychoanalysis, which placed mental illness in relation to unconscious drives: these drives, he felt were primal, innate and driven out of the need to survive. He observed the detrimental effect, on the mental health of patients when the primal drives were repressed due to a fear that expression could contravene society’s morals and laws, or create a response more threatening to the individual’s safety. Psychodynamic Counselling/Psychotherapy uses various methods borne out of the Psychoanalytic tradition such as exploring the clients’ perception of the relationship with the therapist, repeated behavioural or interactional patterns, exploration of dreams, to bring to the surface the latent and manifest content of the unconscious mind.
How Therapy Works
Psychodynamics focuses on the client, their experiences throughout their life and the self-perceptions drawn from these experiences. We are searching for an understanding of the individual and what they have been through and who this might have led to the source of emotional disorder. The therapist will listen very carefully to the client and focus, not only on what conscious awareness the client has of their experience, but also explore the deeper layer of the unconscious experience of the client and look for deep-rooted motivations that are linked to childhood patterns. At the clients’ own pace, in a safe trusting environment with their therapist, they will have the opportunity to explore traumatic periods of their life and try to come to terms with them. The therapist will respectfully offer interpretations of behaviours observed without judgement. The aim is to provide the individual with a better understanding of the self, a greater self-awareness. This awareness offers the individual choice to change the behaviours or perceptions that are causing them emotional distress. The client can use various defence mechanisms, which are unrealistic methods for dealing with the environment. It is up to the therapist to uncover these and find the root of emotional problems and attempt to strengthen the ego. There are vast emotional stressors and needs that we all have as human beings. It can be so very hard to manage these needs when the outside world and significant others within it put press upon us. Particularly if this happens when we are in a vulnerable time of our lives, without power or autonomy, such as in childhood, we haven’t established ways to process and manage our powerful emotions and often they are regressed (swallowed down) as we try to survive and interact with the environment. The instincts of individuals and society will always be in conflict in psychoanalytic thought unless there is some compassion for the emotional struggles of the individual. In everyday life, we see mourning, depression, anxiety and aggression, but seldom seek to understand the cause as it isn’t convenient alongside the pressures of modern society.
One major aspect of psychodynamic thinking is the unconscious material that is released in a transference reaction to the therapist. Transference was originally defined as the process by which a patient attributes to his analyst attitudes and ideas that derive from previous figures in his life but in modern counselling now includes the total emotional attitude towards the therapist. Counter-transference is feelings produced by the therapist in response to the client’s feelings. Therapy involves the therapist being able to self-monitor their own feelings and think very deeply about the communications, conscious and unconscious that they are picking up from the client. This is all without judgement and is powerfully useful material to enable understanding of the many parts of the client.
Other Psychodynamic Theories
Freud’s theories have been heavily criticised for their focus on childhood sexuality but have been a theoretical source for much further research into the unconscious processes that occur in humans. Post-Freudian developments in psychoanalysis include the object relation’s schools started in the 1940s that were less individualistic and placed more emphasis on the relationships between the child and others. Post-Freudian developments focus on the physical relations between human beings rather that the inner world of the individual subject alone.’ Attachment theory, pioneered by John Bowlby in the latter half of the twentieth century is an influential concept that springs from psychoanalysis and also focuses on early childhood bonds with caregivers as being very important for future mental health, but differs from object relations in being a more biologically based reaction, which can be clinically observed.