Posted by lookdownfish on December 22, 2003, at 3:39:25
In reply to psychoanalysis (unfavorable review), posted by badhaircut on December 21, 2003, at 18:44:14
I have only done psychoanalytic therapy. I chose this because from what I know of the CBT approach it is more about coping skills. I felt I wanted an in-depth solution to the problem - to find out why I get depressed - rather than to just cope better with it. I initially found it very frustrating - the lack of structure and focus, the lack of a deadline, the slow and drifting nature of it. Infact I am still finding that frustrating, but I have decided to put my faith in it, at least for a little while and see what comes of it. I am prepared to give it two years and then review where I'm at.
But, I have some sympathy with badhaircut's comments. It bothers me that psychoanalysts seem to insist upon their patients putting unlimited amounts of faith in the process. At some stage, surely they have to be answerable and the effectiveness of the treatment has to be assessed?
> The way they phrase it, a patient may get "better," start feeling happy, stop feeling miserable, find a love, get a more desirable job, etc, while in analysis, but that may not happen, even if the analysis is successful.
Is this self-contradictory? What are the criteria for success? How can an analysis be called successful if none of these things have happened? I guess I'm asking myself this question as much as anyone else.
> --Faith that modern psychoanalytic theory has some validity despite the fact that MOST (not merely some or just the early work) of Freud's vividly depicted intracranial cosmology fails serious scientific confirmation.
badhaircut: Are you referring to concepts like ego, id, superego? Isn't this just a model to help us understand how the brain works rather than a literal definition of how it works?
poster:lookdownfish
thread:291847
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20031221/msgs/292286.html