Knowra Psychodynamic psychotherapy Psychodynamic psychotherapy Psychodynamic psychotherapy uses the therapeutic relationship and exploration of thoughts, feelings, memories, and recurring patterns to address emotional difficulties. It emphasizes how unconscious processes and early relationships can shape present experience.
Transference : The redirection of feelings and expectations from earlier relationships onto a person in the present. Feelings toward the therapist can reveal relationship expectations that recur outside therapy.
Unconscious mind : Mental processes, wishes, memories, and feelings that are not currently available to conscious awareness. The approach considers how out-of-awareness processes influence present feelings and behavior.
Psychoanalysis : A theory and treatment tradition that explores unconscious mental processes, conflict, and early experience. Psychodynamic psychotherapy developed from psychoanalysis while adapting its methods and settings.
Cognitive behavioral therapy : A structured psychotherapy that targets interactions among thoughts, emotions, and behavior, often through practice between sessions. It typically focuses more directly on present symptoms and observable patterns than on unconscious conflict.
Major depressive disorder : A mood disorder marked by persistent depressed mood or loss of interest, alongside other symptoms that impair functioning. Psychodynamic therapies are used to treat depression, with evidence varying by treatment and comparison.
Countertransference : A therapist’s emotional responses to a patient, shaped by both the interaction and the therapist’s own history. Therapist reactions can offer clues about patterns unfolding in the therapeutic relationship.
Psychological conflict : A tension between incompatible wishes, beliefs, emotions, or demands within a person. Unresolved inner tensions can appear as symptoms, avoidance, or repeated dilemmas.
Sigmund Freud : An Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis and developed influential theories of unconscious mental life. Freud’s clinical ideas established the historical foundations from which psychodynamic treatment emerged.
Person-centered therapy : A humanistic psychotherapy centered on empathy, genuineness, and acceptance in a non-directive therapeutic relationship. It shares attention to the therapeutic relationship but does not generally interpret unconscious conflict.
Personality disorder : A persistent pattern of inner experience and behavior that differs markedly from cultural expectations and causes impairment or distress. Longer-term psychodynamic treatments are among approaches used for enduring interpersonal and emotional difficulties.
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