Psychanalytic psychotherapy is one of the routes of access to mental functioning,
opening the door to self-knowledge and understanding of psychological and
psychosomatic symptoms, and their treatment. This can be used alone or combined
with other therapeutic methods, such as psychopharmacology.
Psychoanalytic psychology includes various types: individual psychotherapy, psychanalysis,
group analytic psychotherapy, group analysis. Its structural foundations are: the
importance of Relationship and Empathy in the development of the personality
and in therapy; the importance of unconscious/non-conscious phenomena in Human
Beings, in relations, in Groups.
While the founder of
Psychoanalysis is Freud, many other investigators have contributed to the
development of individual and group psychotherapy, supported by inputs from neuroscience,
paediatrics, research on child development, and many other areas.
Analytic psychotherapy uses a
technique mediated by an empathic therapeutic relationship which tends to
explore the past, so as to understand the present, releasing the subject from
imprisoning ghosts, enabling the development of individual abilities and construction
of a freer and more enjoyable future.
Group analytic psychotherapy and group analysis also use the dynamic benefits
of the joint gathering of subjects to comprehend and treat each individual. Being
useful, being similar to the others and belonging to a protected environment
are conditions that, just in themselves, reduce the feelings of guilt, shame, inferiority,
that underlie a large part of the suffering of Human Beings. The groups are
“halls of mirrors” where our own image and that of others becomes clearer,
where we observe and are observed, with more realistic images of ourselves and
others appearing, new perspectives and insights emerging which pave the way for
the development of creativity and autonomy.
The exercise of analytic psychotherapist
duties and respective clinical practice require complex and demanding training
in specific companies.