Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy—Similarities and Differences: Therapeutic Technique

TYSON BEGAN BY COMMENTING on the historical development of what have become the components of standard psychoanalytic technique. She stated that technical changes and advances have always been correlated with and derived from changes in theory. She noted that Freud decreased his emphasis on abreaction of repressed memories through suggestion and the "pressure technique" when he turned his focus in the topographic model to the role of inner forces in the formation of neurotic symptoms and character. In this phase, the technical emphasis was on resolving repressions through free association, dream analysis, and interpretations. With the introduction of the structural model, the technical emphasis again shifted with greater attention paid to the compromise formations of id, ego, and superego forces, and analysis of defense preceded analysis of content. She reminded us that Freud viewed analysis of transference and resistance to the transference as the central issues of analysis, stating that a treatment that suppressed or ignored rather than analyzed the transference "would not deserve the name of psychoanalysis."

However, in the face of such emphasis on the role of technique in differentiating psychoanalysis from other forms of psychological therapy, Tyson noted the paucity of further contributions from Freud and others on issues of psychoanalytic technique and the effects of differing techniques in treatment outcome.

Tyson described early attempts to clarify similarities and differences between psychoanalysis and derivative psychotherapies, motivated in part by the political issues of distinguishing psychoanalysis