What is psychoanalysis? So where does psychoanalysis come in? Where does with counselling and therapy are pretty much the same thing? What about psychoanalysis? what’s that ? Looking for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy ?

That’s a great question. In a way that’s where it all started with Freud in the well 1895 he started and psychoanalysis to start with there was no psychotherapy there was only psychoanalysis and what that entailed was what we might call the modern-day counselling but there’s some significant things firstly it’s five times a week

oh yeah Psychoanalysis is Five times a week?

Five times a week yes could you imagine that?

Oh no. How long can people spend in psychoanalysis?

Yeah a few years yeah could you afford it?

yeah that’s expensive.

I mean imagine you say in London prices 60 pounds would be very cheap 60 pounds a session first for a psychoanalyst who’s done a lot of training yes say they were moderately priced.

So why is it so often then?

Well I’ll come to that but just imagine you spending 500 pound a week just on you therapy. So, for a few years so and because when it when it grew up psychoanalysis basically was for rich people in Vienna

Oh that’s where Freud’s from

and I offer yeah exactly so often it was for the wives of rich businessmen and doctors and accountants. And then so there’s the money aspect and the frequency and then very significantly the client is not called the client they call the patient and lies down on a couch they lie down full on with a cushion under their head and the psychoanalyst sits behind the patient so the patient can’t see them.

So that’s a real thing then cause I wasn’t sure if that really happened or not or it’s just a stereotype?

No it’s not the stereotype; it’s probably become what people laugh at in cartoons. You know they see in the cartoon that the psychoanalyst is writing because the the patient can’t see the analyst so it doesn’t know that he or she is writing that is usually he to start with doesn’t see that he’s writing because if this we were doing a counselling session here I wouldn’t be writing away what you know I’d be we’re just talking. So

Right yeah. I always thought of long couch for this room. Maybe I would lay down on it and you would the therapist.

Well this has this has another thing with the psychoanalysis this the psychoanaly that is the typical strict psychoanalyst never answers any questions doesn’t say hello at the beginning and doesn’t say goodbye the end. When the patient leaves silence or gap the analyst doesn’t immediately start talking although that happens in therapy too but so the you can imagine a patient says what do you what are you thinking now to the analyst and then silence comes back you know and so the the patient experiences the analyst as quite remote and the idea is and I guess it’s it’s really you I mean I’ve never done this I’ve never had the time and money to do that not many people have and it’s so it’s not practiced much but I apparently it’s been very successful in helping really unearth and the what you call the subconscious the subconscious fantasies you know like just as an example patients lying down and is talking about the whatever they’re talking about you know they’re angry uncle or something and then stops talking and says and then says are you, to the analyst this is are you still there and the analyst says nothing. Yeah and so then the patient thinks shit am I am I alone here?

Let me just check

Yeah exactly have I been abandoned this is an example because it might feel you what modern people what nowadays we use the word weird or spooky you know it might feel weird or spooky or you know plain, unsettling to be lying down thinking I think there’s someone else in the room that was half an hour ago he’s not talking to me you know and the idea is it it provokes a lot.

Like a trigger.

Yeah trigger yeah.

Alright so

Possible for example yeah it might be love you know you mean you it might be that the patients through noticing their abandonment notices the to wish for love and then might develop some kind of fantasy that the therapist loves them or the analyst loves them. So psychoanalysis is very much about exploring fantasies exploring the underworld of the client you know which can be very disturbing of course but can also bring great relief because it’s the it’s the stuff of that comes up in dreams you know in our subconscious. So yeah psychoanalysis so what anyway what happened was after a few decades people said well oh I want to do that but I can’t afford it. You know I can’t afford the time and the money. So they might say to the analyst will you will you see me three times a week okay then you know and then they might say can you see me once a week yes once a week and the analyst might say yeah okay it’s better than nothing. You know so it starts to be once a week.

So you can’t do it once a week. What so why is it more beneficial for five times a week?

Yes well what once a week is then not called psychoanalysis.

Its therapy.

You’re not allowed to call it psychoanalysis because it’s only once a week. okay so then I’ll just say a bit more about that in psychotherapy so if you’ve got some so we’ve got this is like say the 1940s 1950s 60s people going for once a week, not five times a week and you then start to get in the history of the development  of therapy you start to get some differences in the way that people therapists act the way that they are so some of the some psychotherapists will carry on having the kind of manner of the psychoanalyst so they won’t say hello at the start and they won’t say goodbye and at the end of the session.

The client will start doing that is that what you’re saying?

No the therapist won’t say goodbye.

Oh yeah because they’re in a made of psychoanalysis.