Chapter 3: Neoanalytic Approaches

What is Neo analytic Approach and who is associated with it?

Neo analytic approach is the approach to personality psychology that is concerned with the individual’s sense of self (ego) as the core of personality.

Generally under this approach a person does not have free will to make choices and their destiny is set (but this is open to interpretation)

Most of the theorists were founded in Freud’s Psycho-Analytic Society, however these theorists broke away from this approach to create the Neo-Analytic Approach.

Neo analytic theory modifies and encompasses psychoanalytic theory by: de-emphasizing sexuality, and de-emphasizing the importance of the unconscious. Instead it emphasizes the role of the ego, some neo analytic theorist’s focus on the operation of the ego and some focus on how the ego interacts with, and is affected by, other individuals/society/culture.

• There are four major variants of neo-analytic thought including: Ego Psychology, Object Relations, Self-Psychology, and Relational Psychoanalysis

Ego Psychologyà The study of the ego especially with regard to mechanisms of defense, transference, reality-testing, and attainment of the ego ideal.

Object Relationsà How experience affects unconscious predictions of others' social behaviors, with repeated experiences of the caretaking environment forming internalized images, which usually depict one's mother, father, or primary caregiver, and later experiences only somewhat reshaping these early images.

Self- Psychologyà Self psychology explains psychopathology as being the result of disrupted or unmet developmental needs. Essential to understanding self-psychology are the concepts of empathy, self-object, mirroring, idealizing, and alter ego. Though self-psychology also recognizes certain drives, conflicts and complexes present in Freudian psychodynamic theory, these are understood within a different framework.

Relational Psychoanalysisà emphasizes the role of real and imagined relationships with others in mental disorder and psychotherapy

• Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Erik Erikson, Karen Horney are associated with the neo analytic approach, below is more about them and their beliefs:

Alfred Adler:

-          Assumed that humans are motivated primarily by social urges

-          Perfection not pleasure was for Adler the goal of life

-          Adler broke with Freud over the issue of sexuality

 

Carl Jung:

 

-          Disagreed with Freud over the importance of sex drive

-          Wanted to develop a psychology that dealt with human aspirations and spiritual needs

 

Erik Erikson

-          Confusion about identity

-          Little formal education, travels brought him to Vienna and Ann Freud

-          Trained in psychoanalysis, and while he retained many Freudian ideas, he did have his own distinct theory

 

 

Karen Horney

-          One of the most important discoveries a child makes is that of his/her own helplessness

-          Importance of self-realization and growth for each individual

-          Emphasized importance of warm, stable family as well as impact of larger society and culture

 

 

Techniques associated with Neo analytic Approach:        

The most effective technique is interpretation, specifically transference. This involves understanding and explanation these two things must in place for interpretation to work successfully.

Another technique is dream analysis, dreams are considered important, and the counselor is always interested in how they relate to the clients life.

Videos

Chapter 2: Psychoanalytic, Video: Psychoanalytic Session

The client described to the counselor that she ran into a professor from graduate school when she was in New York. She then goes into talking about how she was awake but asleep, she was conscious but felt so relaxed. She said that the dream made her feel torn. Her dream reminded her of when life was easier. This video relates to psychoanalytic theory because it relates to regression, when the demands of a current situation are overwhelming and the person’s current defenses and ego operations are unable to handle the stress, so she reverts to earlier ways of dealing with life, when it was “easier.” It also relates to dream analysis which includes the manifest content, the information the dreamer reports is known. Also the latent content which appears to be unacceptable to the conscious. Some dream symbols appear to be sexual while others may even represent the opposite of what they appear to be.

Chapter 3: Neo analytic, Video: Focusing on past relationships in therapy video

The client doesn’t feel a whole lot although his wife is Caroline is pregnant. She tell him that she is reminded of his father and that pushes his buttons because he doesn’t want to repeat what his father did because it didn’t feel so good being on the receiving end of it. The father of the client was distant so it reminds him of how his father was uninvolved. The counselor goes on summarizing what the client has told him, which he says makes sense why his wife might be reminded of his father. This video relates to the neo analytic approach in that Ann Freud’s defenses include turning against the self- redirecting threatening impulses against the self rather than into the environment. For the man seeking counseling he is blaming himself for how he feels, and when his wife tells him that she is reminded of his father he places the blame and guilt on himself and does not put his feelings onto her, especially because she is going through a pregnancy. Along with this the counselor uses the techniques of interpretation to understand and evaluate the client.