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The Process of Psycho-Analysis
The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings in this article.
Unpleasant Memories Unpleasant memories from childhood affect us more than unpleasant memories generated in adult life. Unfortunately, negative memories from childhood do not fade away ; instead they get repressed since they are not valued. Memories that are negatively valued can lead to personality disturbance, because such memories become combined with anxiety. The anxiety is usually kept under control by ensuring that the memory is kept repressed and relegated to the subconscious mind. [¹] |
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| Sub - headings | |
| 1st Rule | |
| More limitations | |
| Two ways to change | |
| References |
In order to remove the causes of personality disturbance these unpleasant, subconscious memories have to be brought into full consciousness : this process ensures that the accompanying anxiety is released and dissipated. This procedure is not a pleasant process, and gives rise to a rule, which can be called the first rule of dynamic psycho-therapy.
The first rule of dynamic psycho-therapy
In order to make a small, real change in a person’s character,
that person as to wade through a great amount of psychological rubbish.
When a person injures a muscle, the pain that is experienced is out of all proportion to the extent of actual injury : a small injury causes a great deal of pain. So too, the extensiveness of psychological pain is created by a small trauma (small in proportion to the sorrow). This is especially true in early childhood, if trauma occurs when the fledgling ego has not yet achieved stability. Psychological pain distorts all relationships. To resolve such pain, the person has to work their way through the great extent of the sorrow that it has caused them. Much work on relationships has to be done before a small significant change is achieved.
For example, if the child has experienced rejection by significant people, it may tend to sway towards preferrring aloneness. Its attitude towards rejection becomes ambivalent. As an adult, it will still be scared of being rejected by other people, but it will also resort to rejecting other people when relationships get difficult. To overcome the problem of rejection involves persevering in relationships that have become very oppressive ; the person has to persevere till the intensity of the problem eventually begins to diminish. Then the problem has become manageable rather than oppressive. [²]
Working through sorrow means working through memories and anxieties, and this involves the process of abreaction. [³]
Notes
There are two more
rules in the next article, Content of a
Psycho-Analysis.
There are limitations to the effectiveness of a psycho-analysis. One limitation due to form and content was described in the previous article Character Transformation. The next section describes some more.
More Limitations to Psycho-analysis
Memories may take three different forms.
They may be visual ones.
They may depend on sound and language, and so be verbal memories.
They may be a cluster of emotions that seem to have become displaced or separated from an unpleasant experience in the past (in this case the person does not get upset if he remembers the experience).
In all these three forms, memories in the subconscious mind link together by association of similar themes or ideas, and not by any rational bond. Therefore in order to reach into the subconscious mind so as to retrieve forgotten memories we cannot use reason. Instead what is required is insight. Ideas in the subconscious mind link together by association. Hence in order to explore any problem, the person has to follow a chain of associations back to the cause of that problem.
So free association to ideas is the major method in psycho-analysis.
Since the memory that we wish to retrieve is subconscious, how can we locate it ? . A memory becomes associated with a negative valuation when we attach anxiety to it ; most unpleasant memories indicate previous experiences that caused anxiety to us. In a psycho-analysis what happens is that we try to analyse the existing state of anxiety of the client. The anxiety indicates the presence of a subconscious unpleasant memory. The greater the intensity of anxiety the easier it becomes to locate the memory. Why is this ? . When a subconscious unpleasant memory ‘rises’ closer to the boundary of consciousness the person experiences an increase in the intensity of anxiety. This process facilitates insight : in effect, the more serious the problem that a person has, the easier it can be to penetrate to the cause – the intensity of the anxiety makes it easier for the association of ideas to be followed.
However, there are three major difficulties here that are likely to frustrate analysis.
In a psycho-analysis the client has to use both insight and reason. To prefer one at the expense of the other will cause problems. The strength of rational thinking is in the ability to examine and remove self-deception, rationalisations, and other defensive mental manoeuvres. But first the faulty thinking has to be brought out into the open, using insight. [4]
A problem cannot be solved by intelligent guesswork (by the therapist). Even if correct, the guess will not release anxiety in the client and the problem will remain. Only insight by the client releases anxiety. Hence the client needs to explore the emotional dynamics underlying his / her attitudes and to delay a rational investigation of those attitudes themselves till later.
The difficulty with an analysis for a stable adult, who wishes to change but is not under any great stress or anxiety, is that the structured mind prevents insight. Reason is preferred to insight (or intuition). Only in times of acute anxiety, when the structure is breaking down, is insight facilitated. Personality weaknesses are revealed when the structure begins to break down. The unfortunate fact is that in order for the person to strengthen their character by being able to adapt to changing circumstances they have to experience deep sorrow ; this is usually the only way to change the mind. Fixed beliefs produce stability of character, but mainly at the expense of flexibility of mind.
The difficulty with an analysis for an unstable adult having an unstructured mind is that the person finds it difficult to use reason as a means of checking unpleasant thoughts. He / she prefers daydreams and intuition to reason. This neglect of reason means that he / she too is often embroiled in deep sorrow.
The most effective results in therapy will occur when the person has some form of idealism, preferably one that is not centred on materialistic values alone. An idealism that focuses on improving the quality of one’s life and relationships is the way to unite reason with intuition. [5]
Two Ways to Change
We should note that there are two ways of changing the subconscious mind through a psycho-analysis. We can either bring the actual subconscious memory into conscious awareness in order to remove the anxiety that is attached to it, or we can relive the theme of the memory. The first way enables us to relive directly the past emotions associated with the memory, but it can deal only with memories of the present life. The second way deals with the motifs of memories of this life or of former ones, of former incarnations.
The theme is just a recurring unconscious belief that produces a dominant mood or a disposition to act in a predetermined way. In effect, an unpleasant event from a past incarnation changes from being a subconscious memory in that past life to being a present unconscious theme in this life.
For example, if in the previous incarnation the person had been betrayed in some situation, then in this life they will have a problem of learning to trust people – they will be sensitive to any suggestion of betrayal. The experience of betrayal will generate the unconscious theme : I cannot trust anyone. So past life memories are not important as such ; it is what they signify that is important.
Memories can also signify positive themes. This is the reason that religious and spiritual symbolism can affect a person so much : the symbolism represents unconscious themes, which in themselves often either reflect former memories (if they were good ones) or else reflect good aspirations which attempt to repudiate former bad memories (a process of compensation).
What we find in a long analysis is that a person’s character is usually dependent on unconscious themes ; individual unpleasant experiences will hinder our choices of living, but only themes can shape the way that we live.
There are two ways to produce change : by reliving memories or by reliving themes. The difference between the first way and the second way is that isolated unpleasant experiences can produce neurosis. But themes generate character, either a ‘normal’ one or a psychotic one.
[In the article ‘Emotion : E1’ I list the major themes, or motifs, of character in the table of unconscious ideas ].
The number in brackets at the end of each reference takes you back to the paragraph that featured it.
[¹]. The importance
of memory is explained in the 1st article : Characteristics of a Psycho-Analysis.
Anxiety is an emotion. My
definitions, descriptions, and analysis of emotions are given in
the three articles on Emotion. See home page. [1]
[²]. The issue of rejection gives rise to the experience of trauma in infancy. This is one of the origins of mental conflict. See article Infancy Trauma.
The issue of rejection is also analysed in the three articles on Conflict within Idealism, on my website Patterns of Spirituality. Another approach is in the article Levels of Suffering, on the same website or on Discover Your Mind. See Links page. [2]
[³]. My in-depth analysis of the process of abreaction is given in the five articles on Abreaction. See home page. [3]
[4]. Self-deception is analysed in the article Characteristics of a Psycho-analysis. [4]
[5]. In this article I treat insight and intuition as being equivalent terms, for the sake of simplicity. However, I separate them in the article Reason and Intuition, on my website A Modern Thinker. See Links page. [5]
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The articles in this section are :
Characteristics of a Psycho-Analysis
Process of Psycho-Analysis
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© 2002 Ian Heath
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The copyright is mine, and the article is free to use. It can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.
Ian Heath, London UK
http://members.freezone.co.uk/ian-heath/
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