Narcissism The term 'narcissism' is banded around a lot. But what does being a narcissist actually mean? And how do we work out if we are in a relationship with one, or even if we might be one ourselves? Origins of Narcissism The term narcissism comes from...
How Freud Is Still Relevant Today
The Art of Self-soothing 4: Using Our Senses
Using Our Senses This final post in my series is about using our bodily senses to self-soothe. There are lots of ways that we can self-sooth by looking. Sight Natural Vistas As I’ve already mentioned in a previous post, nature and landscapes are very calming. For...
The Art of Self-soothing 3: Creativity
Creativity is a sure way to self-soothe. People have lost themselves in creative pursuits since time began. Getting in touch with our creativity is a way of reaching something within ourselves. By allowing this to develop we can usually make something bigger than...
The Art of Self-Soothing 2: Nature
This month’s way to self soothe is by being in nature. It’s long been known and proven that being outside and preferably in nature can improve our mental health. Take a Short Walk The simplest ways are often the most effective. Such as going for a short walk from your...
The Art of Self Soothing
There is so much going on in the world now. It’s hard watching the news, in fact I am more likely to just quickly check a news ap than I am to watch the news in real time. Many people I speak to are unable to watch the news at all because they struggle to think of the...
Interpreting Dreams
In the last of my series on dreaming we look at common images and symbols in dream interpretation. I love working with the unconscious and find dreams fascinating. We can think of them as metaphors for what might be going on in the dreamer’s life and/or the...
Nightmares and Night terrors
It seems difficult for people to talk about their nightmares. Even if the person has told me during their assessment that they suffer from nightmares, I often find people don’t talk about them in any detail until we have been working together for a while. Maybe by...
Types of dreams
Types of Dreams Every dream is as unique as the dreamer, but there are specific types of dreamsthat most commonly find their way into my consulting room. These are daydreams, vivid dreams, recurring dreams, lucid dreams, nightmares and night terrors. This month, I...
Dream Journaling
How To Remember Your Dreams I often work with people who dream frequently and are interested in their dreams. Many suffer from nightmares and night terrors which they remember vividly. I will be exploring these in a later post. But a lot of people don’t remember...
Dreaming
Photography by Gregory Pappas on UnsplashPsychotherapy and Dreams During an initial consultation with a potential client, I often ask about their dreams. Do they dream regularly? Do they have significant dreams from childhood? Do they have recurring dreams? This is...
How Freud Is Still Relevant Today
Prompted by last month’s blog on Narcissism, this is the first in a series on some of the founding members in psychoanalysis and some of their ideas, many of which, I believe, are still useful for us today.
Widely regarded as the key founder, I start with Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939).
During my second professional training, I really came to appreciate what a genius Freud was and how groundbreaking and anti-establishment some of his ideas were at the time. To get a feel for how radical he was in Viennese society I recommend watching The British-Austrian produced TV series “Vienna Blood”, which gives a flavour of the emergence of psychoanalysis in the early 1900s.
Here are my favourite parts of Freud’s theory -which you may be familiar with – and how I use them in the consulting room today:
The Unconscious
Freud purported that we all have an unconscious part of our mind. A large part of it is hidden away never to be accessed. But there are also parts of it that are only semi-hidden. These can be more readily accessed for example jokes, which can show our true feelings (many a true word said in jest) and (Fruedian) slips when we unconsciously let our opinion show and dreams.
In our busy lives we often let things pass us by. We may know, deep down, that we have an underlying worry about something, but we gloss over it and carry on. This can cause anxiety over time. It’s good to get to the root of the problem, so we can work with and overcome what is holding us back once and for all. Often this will involve accessing our unconscious in the consulting room through exploring memories and dreams.
Repression
The hiding away in the psyche (or into the unconscious), of painful events and memories is called Repression. Freud didn’t invent the term, but he expanded the concept and gave some ways of treating it.
Usually, this hiding away works brilliantly to stop us thinking about it. But something may happen to bring the event into our consciousness again, or at least fragments of it. This can feel disturbing and depending on the content, might even retraumatise us.
As the memory pops back into our consciousness it’s possible to work with it in a safe and controlled way. An example could be how you’ve always been self-critical and negative causing anxiety and defensiveness with authority figures, eg your manager at work. Through supportive exploration of repressed and conscious fragmented childhood memories, you gradually remember painful incidents where you were punished severely by a parent or teacher but had repressed the memories. You can then objectively re-evaluate the fairness of these and gain peace about it…..
Repression is often a tool we unconsciously use for dealing with trauma or multiple traumas, it’s important to work with someone professionally trained so that they can guide and support you through the process and work at your own pace. Search for someone who mentions they work with trauma specifically.
Compulsion to Repeat
The compulsion to repeat is Freud’s concept which is useful today in most types of therapy. A quick look at some therapists’ profiles on the Counselling Directory will talk about repeating unhealthy patterns and how changing them can lead to solving the issue involved. Freud’s uniqueness was that he thought this applied especially to unconscious patterns which become internalised over years and have become automatic to us. Once we have figured out what’s the anxiety about from exploring our unconscious repressed stuff then we know what we are working with and we can go on to change our behaviours in future.
Dreams
Freud revolutionised how dreams were used in psychotherapy. His theory consisted of dreams being wishes that we want to happen to us. As I’ve said in an earlier blog post, dream analysis has developed vastly since the early 1900s and there are now many more ways of looking at dreams but dreams in themselves are a fantastic way to access our unconscious and I love it when a client brings a dream to explore in session.
So, although talking therapies have developed a very long way since Freud practiced, there are still some gems of genius in his theory which we find helpful today.
Psychoanalytic ideas have been built upon since Freud’s day and, I believe, are still useful for us today in contemporary society.
My next blog post will focus on Jung…