States that after two decades of decline, psychoanalysis is back
with new popularity. Made famous by Sigmund Freud; Purged of classic
orthodoxies; Made female friendly; Additional differences from the
original therapy; More than 50 percent of the new analysts are women;
Factors that are spurring interest.
By
PT Staff, published on July 01, 1992
Psychoanalysis
Dust off the couch. But let go of your id. Psychoanalysis is back.
With a difference.
After two decades of decline, the therapeutic method that Sigmund
Freud made famous is enjoying new popularity. This time around, however,
it's been purged of some classic orthodoxies, made female-friendly, and
cut free of its medical roots.
Across the United States, a new crop of psychoanalytic institutes
is springing up to turn out practitioners, now drawn for the most part
from psychology. In the old days, in keeping with Freud's dictates,
psychoanalytic training was largely restricted to M.Ds. Even the old-line
institutes have recently had their doors pried open by psychologists who
successfully sued.
What the newcomers bring with them are fresh theories and
practices. "They've introduced cutting-edge relational views," claims
Jonathan Slavin, Ph.D., head of Boston's Massachussetts Institute for
Psychoanalysis. "The analytic process is now seen as a two-person field.
The analyst is involved."
More than 50% of the new analysts are women, and they have forced
the most profound change. Feminists have long challenged the Freudian
view of development, which regards women as defective men--weaker because
they are more attuned to relationships. "The psychoanalytic model of
mental health is no longer the autonomous, isolated Western male," says
Slavin. "We now see that all people are embedded in relationships from
the beginning."
Dying too, say the avant-garde, is the theoretical imperialism that
made analysis cultish and rigid. Fast fading is the strict Freudian ego
psychology, although psychoanalysis is still based on the belief that
most thoughts and feelings are outside the conscious self.
One factor spurring interest in psychoanalysis may be its view of
that most contemporary social problem, trauma and sexual abuse.
"Psychoanalysis offers the only comprehensive way to understand the
massive effects of trauma on personality formation," contends Slavin. "It
understands splitting off, dissociation--processes the mind goes through
in order to survive. It understands that the longing for good parenting
affects how a child handles the bad parenting, and how the information
gets stored in the mind."
Tags:
conscious self,
feminism,
feminists,
Freud,
imperialism,
mental health,
newcomers,
profound change,
psychoanalysis,
psychoanalytic training,
Sigmund Freud,
therapy,
thoughts and feelings
