Psycho-analysis
Psycho-analysis
The psychological method and therapeutic technique developed by Freud (see Freud, Sigmund). This method consists in the use of such procedures as free association, automatic writing and especially dream-analysis to recover forgotten memories, suppressed desires and other subconscious items which exert a disturbing influence on the conscious life of an individual. The cure of the psychic disturbances is effected by bringing the suppressed items into the full of consciousness of the individual. Psycho-analytic theory has posited a subconscious mind as a repository for the suppressed elements. Freud exaggerated the sexual origin of the suppressed desires but other psycho-analysts, notably Jung and Adler, corrected this exaggeration. The psycho-analytical school has developed its terminology in which the following are characteristic.
Free association is the method of encouraging the patient to recall in random fashion experiences, particularly of childhood.
A “complex” is a more or less permanent emotional system or mechjnism responsible for the mental disturbances of the patient.
Libido designates the underlying sexual drive or impulse, the suppression of which is responsible for the psychic disturbance.
Suppression or repression is the rejection from consciousness of desires and urges which it finds intolerable.
Sublimation is the transference of a suppressed desire to a new object.
These terms are only a few samples of the elaborate and at times highly mythological terminology of psycho-analysis. — L.W.