Psychoanalysis: A Brief Christian Review

The father of psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud. His theories are the foundation of psychoanalytic thought. His theories were widely used in the 1930's through the 1950's. Freud was influenced by many writers and psychiatrist in the development of psychoanalysis (Sharf, 2004). While studying Paris, Freud learned the value of the unconscious mind. He began studying the connection and the conflict of the unconscious mind with the conscious mind. Originally, he attempted to use hypnosis in the treatment of patients with psychoneuroses. To get past the resistance of the patients, he began to use a technique known as free association. Through free association, he asked patience to lie on the couch with their eyes closed, to concentrate on their symptom, and to recall all memories of it without censoring their thoughts, and then report the first thing that came to their mind.

Psychoanalyst assumes that current behavior is dictated by unresolved past conflicts and unconscious drives to resolve those early conflicts. It poses that those conflicts are developed mainly from early childhood experiences. Those experiences are seen as sexual or aggressive in nature.

Freud's theories included the drive theory, ego psychology, object relations, self-psychology, and relational psychoanalysis. He specified three levels of consciousness: the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. He also believed the personality has three major parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id operates on the pleasure principle. Whatever is pleasurable is good and it seeks to avoid all pain. The function of the ego is to test reality, to plan, to think logically through situations and ideas in order to satisfy the needs. The superego represents parental values, broad societal standards and moral codes. In order to cope with anxiety, the ego has means to deal with difficult situations with defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms include: repression, denial, reaction formation, projection, displacement, sublimation, rationalization, regression, identification, and intellectualization.