Educ 323- ch 3 (Neoanalytic approaches)

• Background:

o Different types of psychoanalyst- pure classicists (orthodox Freudians), relational

psychoanalysis and in between

Object relations theorists, ego psychologists, self psychologists, interpersonal theorists, intersubjectivists

All consider selves direct intellectual descendents of Freud but all extend or deviate slightly from his theory (some differ significantly)

Orthodox analysts criticize relationists for being impure and not analytic, and relationalists see traditionalists as living in the past and clinging to outdated ideas

Biggest bone of contention is conceptualizations of motivation

• Traditional Freudian theory often referred to as drive theory (sex and

aggression)

• Contemporary variants differ in degree to which they accept or reject

drive theory

• Ego psychologists more traditional whereas relationl theorists most

radical in rejection of drive theory

o Object relations and relational theorists adopt view that humans

are motivated by need to relate to others

• Most important rlnshp for all theorists is that with the primary caretaker

(mother often most important b/c has breast, source of sustenance)

Newer forms of psychoanalysis useful for more severe dysfunction (ie psychosis, BPD)

View of human nature among neoanalytics varies

Neoanalysists vary in being objectivist positivist thinkers vs relativistic, constructivist ones

• Relational and self theorists more constructivist, see reality as

inseparable from observer

o Reality in therapeutic rlnshp is constructed by client and

counsellor prompting notion of “two person psychology” which emphasizes roles of client and counsellor in therapeutic events

Demise of totally objective therapist (from influence of science)

Most neoanalytical views see rlnshp b/w client and therapist as hugely important

• Melanie Klein:

o Introjections of breast is beginning of superego formation

Ego’s growing capacity for integration and synthesis leads more and more to states in which love and hatred (good and bad aspects of object) synthesized which gives rise to second form of anxiety (depressive anxiety)

• Now Oedipus complex sets in

• Analytic psychology- Carl Jung’s Version of Psychoanalysis:

o Typology of the personality: called the psychological makeup of the person the “psyche”

In center of Jungian personality structure is the “ego” (I/me and contains conscious aspects of the personality)

Persona (also in consciousness) is aspect of personality that’s presented to outside world

• Essentially acts as socially appropriate ego by presenting socially

acceptable characteristics

Personal shadow= balances conscious ego and lies in unconscious and contains parts of self viewed as negative, harmful, painful

• Could contain positive aspects that are underdeveloped/unrecognized

Collective unconscious= set of knowledge, beliefs and experiences shared by all ppl

• Most important elements are patterns called Archetypes (these “heroes”

change over time according to culture

• Animus vs Anima (masculine and feminine parts of indiv respectively)

o Jung believed all ppl had both animus and anima and some ppl

strived to understand and develop both in personality

Jung added to Freud in saying yes there was an unconscious with negative things but that it was also seat of human potential, creativity and existential meaning

o Jungian Typology:

One of most recognizable contributions by Jung was this

• Said 3 basic dimensions of personality and each dimension w/2

opposites that balance each other

• Introversion vs extroversion, thinking by feeling, sensing by intuition and

judging by perceiving

o Healthy psyche balanced b/w intro and extroversion (not just

how we relate to other ppl but how we explore self)

Introverted ppl, according to Jung, needed time for such exploration, that their libido was oriented toward deeper understanding of self and of internal lives of others

Thus has few friends but those they do have are close

Libido of extroverted person pushes for them to be near others and find meaning in life thru rlnshps w/others

o Thinking and feeling= thinking indivs favour logic, cognition, and

rational thinking, like to know all options available and base decision on that

Feeling ppl like ebb and flow of emotions and affect

o Sensation and intuition= favour sensing so you only believe what

you can sense (sceptical of what you cannot sense)

Intuition ppl seek to understand what you can’t tangibly perceive

• Good at picking up subtle cues, trust hunches

o Myers Briggs Type indicator uses 4th dimension of Judging or

Perceiving

Favour judging then u often make decision based on incomplete info for sake of immediate action, perceiver on the other hand slikes all info (less hasty)

• Balanced person get as much info as possible

but can still make decision w/o all info

o Psychological dysfunction and therapy:

Believed part of human development was tendency to dev Complexes

• Complex part of personality, can center on life events that one doesn’t

understand or that are too painful to incorporate into ego

o Can give rise to symptoms as u try to resolve emotions,

memories associated w/it

o To alleviate must bring complex out of unconscious and

incorporate it into the ego

General focus on unconscious, early childhood and transference (similar to humanistic too)

Believed successful therapist understood 4 critical principles of psychological function:

• 1- that the psyche is self regulation (client knows what’s needed to heal

complexes

• 2- unconscious serves protective function w/in personality (shields ego

from painful thoughts)

o Unconscious source for creaticity and inspiriation, and is a

resource for understanding self

• 3- counselling rlnshp major role

• 4- personal growth can happen across lifespan

Therapy in 4 stages:

• Can be solo stages or harmony (together)

• 1- Confession= explore client’s history,, ego and unconscious w/o judging

o Unconditional positive regard

o Acceptance to reduce shame/guilt

o Often projection of aspects of self being explored

• 2- Elucidation= exploration of transference where counsellor points out

that client is transferring and explores source

o Explore events in very early childhood (up to age 4)

• 3- Education= counsellor and client being to implement insight achieved

in elucidation thru action

• 4-transformation (most clients don’t reach this stage) where client nears

self actualization (value conscious and unconscious experiences and find balance)

o Conclusion: Jung’s theory focuses on internal conflicts of indiv as well as existential

meaning of indiv’s life

• Ego psychology: Id loses the limelight, temporarily:

o Overview: Anna Freud one of founders of child psychoanalysis

Considered close to traditional psychoanalysis but added attn to adaptive functions of ego (like defensive mechanisms)

Also Heinz Hartman who freed ego from subservience to superego and id

o Central Constructs:

Structural model= Ego psychology retains id/ego/superego and aggressive/sex drives

• But Freud concentrated on instincts and therefore id functioning,

whereas obviously EP is on ego functioning

• Seen as more than a product of need to control id (ego autonomy)

o Ego w/own store of energy (separate from id) gained thru

transforming instinctual into ego energy thru Neutralization

• Look at how ego adapts to environment

Defences= wrath of superego, threat of drives and dangers of the outside world

• Denial, identification w/aggressor, asceticism (so threatened by emerging

lust that they renounce all desires), altruistic surrender (gratify own needs thru fulfillment of another’s), turning against self (redirect impulses on self no environment), reversal, isolation, undoing

Conflict free sphere- not all psychological life driven by conflict b/w environment, ego/id/superego

• Areas of ego functioning that are indep of id/superego such as thinking,

perception, memory and learning

Average expectable environment= if this exists the infant (born w/capacity to adapt to and use environment) will grow in healthy ways

• So if needs met, will be healthy (relates to attachment theory)

o Theory of the person:

EPs follow psychosexual model of development

• Assumption that personality is formed by ways child’s instincts are

gratified and phallic stage as critical period

Mahler saying biological birth and psycholigcal birth don’t coincide

• Biological is dramatic and readily observable, latter slow/less visible

• In first month of life infant in state of “normal autism” where can’t

differentiate b/w self and mother

o Aka absolute primary narcissism

• Second month Normal Symbiosis begins and infant increasingly aware of

mother as part of him (not separate identity tho)- fused

o If good mothering, individuation begins around 4-5 months

o First Differentiation and Body image period (gradually tolerates

physical distance from mother)

o Then Practicing where child learns to walk

o Once walking achieved, egotistical and narcissistic (no period)

• At 17 months child recognizes he can’t be alone w/o parent (separation

anxiety to show onset of Rapproachement phase where rlnshp w/mother ambivalent)

o Go back and forth b/w new found autonomy and anxiety

• Final phase= Emotional object constancy and individuality where child

internalizes positive mother img so can be truly separate

o Health and Dysfunction: EP accept mostly psychological health proposed by Frued

(healthy repression of instinctual drives, ability to love/work)

See that problems early on can continue

Brenner proposes that behvior a function of Compromise Formations

• Conflict found in interplay of 4 psychic motivations (pressure of drives,

push of superego, ego’s motivation to adapt to reality and ego’s need to avoid/minimize anxiety/depression

o Nature of therapy:

Assessment= very little formal assessment, clinical interview primary mode of assessment to observe current and past functioning and get info on defensive operations and core unconscious conflicts

• May use formal DSM diagnosis but generally more interested in

underlying dynamics than symptoms

Overview of therapeutic atmosphere and roles of client and counsellor:

• Hard to id orientation to therapy

Goals: EP therapists accept goal of psychoanalysis to make unconscious conscious but they add 2nd important goal to improve adaptation to world

o Process of therapy: in classical, client free associates and analyst interprests,

transference very important (Countertransference very bad tho)

o Therapeutic techniques: same as in classic psychoanalysis

Free association, interpretation, dream analysis

Free association goal of analysis, not technique tho

• Object relations: The lego approach

o Overview: Melanie Klein huge in this field- accepted drive theory but still emphasized

importance of psychic representations of rlnshps and primitive fantasy (esp aggressive urges)

Ideas considered so deviant that in late 1920 the European psychoanalytic world split into London school and Viennese school

Fairbairn probably most radical OR theorist- said drives were directed at objects, not just simply at the pleasure of expressing the drive or some combo of object seeking and drive release

Freud used term object to describe target of instincts

• Traditionally most important objects are ppl who satisfy libidinal or

aggressive urges

• These OR ppl generally reject classic drive theory and instead argue that

we seek objects (mostly ppl) in and of themselves, not as means to satisfy instinctual drives (as Freud thought)

o Melanie Klein vs Anna Freud= dif approaches to child psychoanalysis (british for Klein,

Viennese for Freud)

Each drew from dif components of Freud’s work, developmental theory versus therapeutic techniques

• A Freud focused on Freud’s theory of child dev concluding that traditional

analytic techniques applied to adults couldn’t be used for kids b/c for

adults it’s based on interpretation of patient’s free association and free association requires language capabilities beyond children

o So Anna Freud developed new therapeutic technique that had

the goal of developing and strengthening child’s ego in hopes of repressing id’s impulses

• Melanie Klein, on the other hand, chose to incorporate adult analytic

techniques into child danlysis

o Said aggressive tendencies that child experiences in oral and

anal stages were evidence of child’s sadistic fantasies (aggressive instincts) and were projected onto mother and then introjected as hostile objects

o Also believed full transference rlnshp created b/w child and

analyst and negative transferenes were important b/c brought out initial reason for child to see analyst in first place

A Freud said this bad b/c children’s egos not developed enough to deal w/bringing out such aggression

o Central constructs:

Objects- several uses of the term

• 1-external objects (ppl and things in the environment)

• 2-internal objects most important- psychological structure formed thru the

internalization of interactions w/important others early in life

• Bipolar intrapsychic representations- internal representations of rlnshps

o 3 components= img of self, img of other person and associated

emotions

Projections= initially a way of relating to breast and primitive emotions associated w/it (along w/introjections and splitting)

• Aim of defense is to protect self integrity and attachment object

• Seen when feelings associated w/object are fused w/object and

projected into external world so they’re safer

o Ie happy infant who just fed projects feelings onto breast and it’s

a good breast (vice versa)

Introjection= another waay to make scary world safe is to take bad aspects of it and internalize them so that they can be controlled (but can make internal world scary)

Splitting= way to manage good and bad affect

• Normal process by which dangerous feelings, objects and impulses are

separated from good ones and makes them easier to manage

• Fairbairn said infant splits repressed bad objects further into Rejecting

and Exciting objects

o Rejecting=aggressive, exciting= sexual/libidinal drives

Projective identification= beings when infant projects some scary feelings outward onto another object (but now impulses are outside and uncontrollable)

• So soln is to continue to relate to scary object by bringing it back inside

self (internalize)

o Theory of the person and development of the individual:

Infant (if given proper environment) eventually develops capacity to resolve splitting and to integrate various internal objects into wholes

• Self is inherent in human condition (born w/it) and it develops thru

interaction w/others

• Klein-Infant first feels anxiety and love (of breast) and goes back and

forth b/w the 2- These are both external objects

o This phase in 1st 6 months of life and is the paranoid-schizoid

position

• Around 6 months Klein said infant begins to perceive mother as whole

person (good and bad objects synthesize, realize bad breast is part of her)

o Depressive position b/c child recognizes hate and aggression

toward mother and wants to repair rlnshp

o Also Klein sees this as beginning of Oedipus complex (love,

aggression, guilt, anxiety)

o Klein said we never really outgrow these 2 positions (struggle to

resolve thru life)

Healthy ppl function more at depressive position than paranoid-schizoid position

• Winnicott-coined term “Good enough mother” to describe mum who

mostly met infant’s needs and one who created a “safe holding environment”

o Mother’s role= first ensure infant’s needs are met and in doing so

allows infant to believe she has created needed objects (help infant dev associated degree of omnipotence necessary for ego dev)

Second mother allows infant periods of quiet time (if don’t get fragmentation of self)

Transitional object= something inanimate (ie teddy bear/blanket) that provides “a developmental way station b/w hallucinatory omnipotence and recognition of objective reality)

• Child in omnipotence believe they created the

teddy bear b/c they wanted it, parent goes along w/this but object is still real in external world

• Fairbairn- dev as process of resolving twin pulls of individuation and

attachment to others

o Infant’s strong emotions are threatening so they externalize

these emotions on parents

If parents can accept (contain) emotion and still maintain bond w/infant then infant will eventually learn how to accept/contain emotion themself

o Health and dysfunction:

See psychological dysfunction as the result of faulty early development (w/emphasis on object relations that result from less than optimal parenting)

• Winnicott- failure of mother to provide holding environment for infant

causes child to experience Impingement (either fails in area of omnipotence of providing quiet time to consolidate)

o Child doesn’t dev healthy core sense of self, instead dev false

self in order to deal w/external world and protect what little bit of self there is

• Kernberg- dysfunctiong stemming from lack of integration of object

representations (unmetabolized bipolar intrapsychic representations)

o Difficutly w/integration usually b/c of excessive defensive splitting

o Aggressive can result from either constitutional (inherited) or

environmental forces (ie abuse)

Felings result in negative emotional tenor that dominates interpersonal rlnshps and thus negative objects are internalized

o Nature of therapy:

Assessment: not likely to use any formal assessment, are more interested in observing client’s behaviours and verbal content for clues of underlying processes

Overview of therapeutic atmosphere and roles of client/counsellor:

• Look very much like orthodox psychoanalysts

• More likely to attend to environment of therapy, see therapy rlnshp as

replicating early rlnshp w/caregiver

• Klein- emphasized early phases of experience, more interested in

aggressive impulses, advocated use of early very deep interpretations

o Instead of going surface to depth, would offer interpretations

based on early developmental dynamics much sooner than would a traditional analyst

• Winnicott- analytic situation for holding environment that the child missed

o Therapist should avoid impinging on client so true self can safely

emerge and replace false self

• Kernberg- therapists must retain their authority based on education,

training and skills but must also recognize their own input in rlnshp

o Therapeutic neutrality necessary (doesn’t imply anonymity,

doesn’t say that therapists personality won’t influence patient)

Goals= good therapy will restore healthy object relations and thus a solid sense of self

• Fairbairn- client to dev new ways of relating to others (ones that weren’t

tied to faulty patterns client brought to therapy)

• Kernberg- goal of therapy as integration of part-objects w/in self and

resulting abilities to maintain continuous sense of self and others

o Process of therapy: very interested in Insight (first about dynamics of therapy rlnshp, later

about history)

Also very interested in transference- accept that clients will bring old ways of relating to therapy and will unconsciously recreate early rlnshps w/analyst

Deal w/transference objectively interpreting transference to client from unemotional/neutral standpoint

Kernberg- analysis w/analysts technical neutrality, use of interpretation and goal of developing fully fledged transference neurosis (resolved thru interpretation)