Posted by badhaircut on December 21, 2003, at 18:44:14
In reply to psychoanalysis vs. CBT, posted by naiad on December 20, 2003, at 7:16:04
Here's some semi-free associating by me on psychoanalysis:
I had about 4 years of psychoanalysis, going usually 4 times a week.
*ACTUAL BENEFITS*
I felt much more relaxed around children after about a year of analysis.*GOALS*
My analyst was a CSW, and I liked him personally. I enjoyed free-associating. But I was very frustrated with the fact, revealed to me over time, that "getting better" is not a goal of psychoanalysis -- at least not as theorized by my guy, the people he trained with, the other shrinks in his institute, and the majority of neo-Freudians I've read.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. The point -- for these practitioners -- is to free up the flow of ideas and emotions from within. It's not to change what's inside you, but to have a different attitude about what comes up from inside.
I think that's a worthy goal. It may even be the basis of most long-lasting benefit in psychoanalysis, CBT, Gestalt or any other therapy.
*FAITH*
But I don't think that free-associating or getting into the anguish and scraps of what they insist on calling "transference" is likely to achieve that very well. From my reading and experience and conversations, I think that the analysis the neo-Freudians perform is less doctrinaire than what typically-trained shrinks did through the 1950s -- it's more dogmatically relaxed, more Zen, more cognitive, less sexist, less classist -- but it is still based on Faith.--Faith that despite nine months (or nine years!) of 5-times-a-week sessions after which you feel worse, sticking to this course of effort will produce some significant benefit to you!
--Faith that psychoanalysis provides SOMETHING worth having that cannot be gotten any other way -- despite NO STUDIES showing long-term efficacy of psychoanalysis, and many showing that people (like me!) are actually likely to feel worse the longer they are in it.
--Faith that feeling bad in psychoanalysis is a sign of progress!
--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.
--Faith that the insight from today's session is true and deep and meaningful -- despite there being no evidence for this other than a rather fleeting feeling of epiphany and the analyst's beaming approval. And despite the fact that you felt this way about that insight last week, and the week before, and nothing came of them, either.
The shrinks often tell their patients to "have faith." I'm sorry to say that in the end, that's almost all they've got.
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Incidentally, there's a little comparison chart of psychoanalysis and CBT here:
http://www.cognitivetherapy.com/jerry_compares.html
poster:badhaircut
thread:291847
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20031221/msgs/292192.html