A historical perspective of psychoanalysis

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A Historical Perspective of Psychoanalysis

In the following paper, the reader will grasp the idea of psychoanalysis with the history, as well as examples of Freud’s own psychoanalytic work. Also, the examples of Freud’s own technique of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud's revolutionary ideas have set the standard for modern psychoanalysis in which students of psychology can learn from his ideas spread from the field of medicine to daily living. His studies in areas such as unconsciousness, dreams, sexuality, the Oedipus complex, and sexual maladjustments laid the foundation for future studies. In result, better understanding of the small things which shape our lives (Jung).

Psycho-Analysis is the name of a procedure for the investigation of mental processes which are almost inaccessible in any other way, of a method (based upon that investigation) for the treatment of neurotic disorders and of a collection of psychological information obtained along those lines, which is gradually being accumulated into a new scientific discipline (Freud). Psychoanalysis is used still to this day, because of its appreciation of so many great psychologists. From 1885 to 1886, Freud spent nineteen weeks with Jean Martin Charcot, a world famous neurologist and the director of a Paris asylum. It was Charcot that first introduced Freud to the idea of hysteria and hysterics (Appignanesi).

Freud became intrigued by the idea of hypnotism as a method of therapy, but he was told that only hysterics could be treated with hypnotism (Appignanesi). There was a firm belief that only women could be hysteric and that no man or non- hysteric woman could be affected by the use of hypnotism (Appignanesi). Freud knew that hysteria could only develop where there is a degeneration of the brain, not just with women but with men too and that hypnotism could have an effect on normal people (Jung). Freud was on to something and developed his own creations. His subsequent writings were devoted entirely to that field, which he had named psychoanalysis in 1896 (Jung).

The work was presented in 1893 in a preliminary paper and two years later in an expanded form under the title “Studies on Hysteria” (Appignanesi). In this work, the symptoms of hysteria were ascribed to manifestations of undischarged emotional energy associated with forgotten psychic traumas (Freud). The therapeutic procedure involved the use of a hypnotic state in which the patient was led to recall and re-enact the traumatic experience, which could help solve the problem (Freud). The publication of this work marked the beginning of psychoanalytic theory formulated on the basis of clinical observations.

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During the period from 1895 to 1900 Freud developed many of the concepts that were later incorporated into psychoanalytic practice and doctrine (Jung). Soon after publishing the studies on hysteria he abandoned the use of hypnosis as a cathartic procedure and substituted the investigation of the patient's spontaneous flow of thoughts, called free association, to reveal the unconscious mental processes at the root of the neurotic disturbance (“Freud Archives”). This method encouraged the patient to express any random thoughts that came to the mind, which promoted a stream of consciousness that helped tap into the unconsciousness (Freud). The material that ...

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