 Psychoanalysis is unique among the mental health sciences. Psychoanalysis alone holds that the unconscious aspects of the self—those aspects that are beyond immediate awareness—are instrumental in shaping human behavior, including thought, states of mind and perspective, and instrumental in framing one’s capacity for relatedness.
Psychoanalysis privileges the unconscious. One of its principle aims is the illumination and understanding of unconscious process, and the resolution of areas of conflict, trauma, or deficit within the unconscious that have influenced and, indeed, undermined functioning.
Psychoanalysis is not advocacy or career counseling. Psychoanalysis is not cognitive behavioral modification. It is not surrogacy, hypnosis, spiritual advice, rehabilitation, or brief, solution-focused therapy. Psychoanalysis is not psychological testing for developmental deficits. It is not sensory integration training or anger management. Psychoanalysis is not the formulaic application of theory or technique.
Rather, psychoanalysis is the dignified and empathic inquiry into mind using the principles of transference and resistance that were first articulated by Sigmund Freud in the nineteenth century and which have evolved, since then, into a robust professional discourse reflecting the current diversity, breadth, and relevance of the field.
The training to practice psychoanalysis is rigorous. In addition to stringent clinical training and academic training on a par with doctoral-level university work, psychoanalysts undergo their own analysis which is integral to their professional preparation, putting them in the unique position among mental health providers to be competent in the management of unconscious aspects of the treatment, which is, ultimately, the lynchpin for healthy resolution.
The contribution that psychoanalysis makes, and its current relevance to the mental healthcare consumer is clear: psychoanalysis offers the only treatment in which permanent structural change can be brought about in individual functioning across a broad spectrum. This has a few important consequences. Given its high success rate and low recidivism rate, psychoanalysis has a proven record in providing successful mental health treatment. (As recently as October of this year, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that in a large-scale meta analysis of 23 previously published studies on the efficacy of psychodynamic therapy—a form of psychoanalysis—it was very effective, especially in complex cases. See JAMA October 2008. This is compared to the more minimal protective effects of cognitive behavioral treatment, for example, whose efficacy is shown to fade in a four-year follow-up. See American Journal of Psychiatry, 155:1443-1444 1998)
Additionally, it is generally the rule that psychoanalytic services are billed at fees lower than the average fees instituted by related mental healthcare providers such as psychologists and psychiatrists. For the mental healthcare consumer, the availability of psychoanalysis as a reimbursable mental healthcare option expands choice and imposes the needed economic limitations on escalating fees that occur in the absence of competition. |