Psychotherapy/Psychoanalysis

Programs that specialize in providing therapeutic interventions that are based on the theory developed by Freud that the roots of human behavior lie in unconscious motivation and conflict. It takes as its point of departure the concept of the libido (sexual energy), and suggests that the individual's overall development and ability to adjust to life's problems depend on how sexual energy develops in the child, whether it is normal or repressed and distorted into unhealthy channels. Psychoanalysis as a therapy attempts to overcome repressions, often by exploring their origins in childhood in order to release energy for healthy, normal living. Psychoanalysts accomplish this largely by means of free association, dream analysis and working through transference issues over time to overcome resistance and get at the sources of the unconscious impulses. Psychoanalytic psychotherapists accomplish the same objective through utilization of more directive interpretation and a face-to-face therapeutic setting, and focus on the relationship of present behavior to childhood patterns rather than utilize free association.