Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Abstract

If psychoanalytic psychotherapy is distinguished from classical psychoanalysis, then indications and methods of psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be described, with particular reference to transference: how to identify it; how to use it for understanding therapy; when and how to interpret it. The concept of identification explains the symptom-relief we regard as the primary goal of psychotherapy. This identification is with the therapist who is perceived as either not having the same conflicts as the patient, or as someone who has solved them in a better way. We also offer recommendations for the differential psychotherapy of specific disturbances: acute symptomatic reactions, anxiety states, traumatic neuroses, acute adolescent reactions, and grief reactions; character pathological conditions including hysterical, obsessive-compulsive, depressive (including addictive), parent-loss, paranoid, truly hypochondriacal, schizoid and borderline characters; schizophrenic and manic-depressive reactions; and narcissistic personality disorders.