9.36 Psychotherapy/Mostly Psychoanalytic

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36. Psychotherapy – Overview  (Update 19 Septr 2021)

“The talking cure” is what a patient called the proto-psychoanalysis of the Viennese practitioner Josef Breuer whose glory Sigmund Freud stole. The patient's talking about her psychiatric symptom seemed to relieve it. “Psychotherapy” is treating a symptom of emotional or mental distress by words. (Sounds trivial but actually is more potent than it sounds.)

Of the various talking cures, Psychoanalysis is best known: From its name,"Psyche” (the mind) and “analysis.", it should be, in my opinion, analyzing one's way of thinking – evolutionary animal origins, anthropological inheritance, cultural learning influences, and individual history from birth. The purpose of psychoanalysis ought to be to give insight into thought and action as each relates to the other. If it succeeds, the subject can become a mental marvel – a person who functions intellectually and emotionally at top potential, given circumstances at birth and in life. It should not be considered a treatment to cure the disease; rather it should make one a better person. Such a person may still get or have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder but will be stronger mentally so less likely to lose his battle with mental illness and easier to treat.

Psychoanalysis is so dominated by its now discredited Freudian version that almost no one realizes that its basis is analysis of a person's thought for making the connection between the thought and a behavior and to allow the person better control of her or his behavior. Freudian psychoanalysis may now be labelled cult. For Notebook's psychoanalysis see chapter 33 of this Notebooks 9.

Several offshoots of Freudian psy-A are important.

Alfred Adler, an original disciple of Freud gradually came to a conclusion that Freud was wrong in his invention of un-provable psychic states, structures and events. Adler developed key concepts that underlie much successful psychotherapy today. His most important insight is that personality development is much affected by physical/mental/moral inferiority which is a reality imposed on infant and child as it grows up into an adult world. He also was impressed with the good and bad affect of birth order. He taught that a firstborn child is molded by intra-family rearing experiences into a conservative viewpoint and behavioral response. Obviously one cannot change one's birth order but Adler's idea has implication for child-rearing practice and for self control. I found it correct in my own 3-brother set.

 On the other hand, another offshoot of Freudian psy-A, that of Carl Gustav Jung, has become cult. Jung’s writings give no clear picture of what his type of psychology is. He carried over most of Freud's idea of the unconscious and the symbolism of dreams, and added a concept of racial memory by which he believed every human is born with a store of million-year complexes based on the experience of the “race.” Not surprisingly it was popular among Nazi psychiatrists. Jungian psy-A heavily involves the use of dream symbolism and medieval European metaphysical ideas. It never became popular outside of Jung's group though still practiced by cultists in US and Europe. 
In the UK, Melanie Klein's psy-A has been popular. Ms Klein (not an M.D.; a lay psychoanalyst) basically accepted Freud's belief in the power of infant experience to neuroticize the adult and even carried it to the extreme of seriously believing that infants are born with a perfect memory for events which, however, is repressed. Ms Klein is dismissed today outside of her now cult followers in the UK.

Other psychotherapies abound in the US and are in the province of clinical psychologist, social worker, and interested lay person.

   Psychotherapy is at present poorly organized with few or no tests of its results confirmed. (Exception: the tested and proven good result of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) developed by psychiatrist, Aaron Beck, M.D., which I deal with in my chapter on major depression; it is also used in panic, obsessive compulsive, somatoform, and other personality disorders.)

To educate readers: first of all, study Notebooks 9 and use the internet Wikipedia for a general knowledge of the Mind, its workings and its malfunctions. For specific mental illness diagnosis, consult a U.S. board-certified psychiatrist (or equivalent outside the US) with experience treating your (or loved one's) specific diagnosis (depression, schizophrenia). But, also come to the consultation with your own good knowledge based on reading Notebooks. Do not waste time on treatments developed outside the medical biophysical model. Use self psychoanalysis as given in Chapter 33 here assisted by a psychiatrist who may use neuro-psychiatric pharmacology to put a very disturbed patient into a state of mind where he or she is open to psychotherapy. 
  End of Section. To read next click 9.37 Neurology of Memory- Brain Anatomy