Talk Therapy

Talk Therapy


After studying the method of “Cathartic therapy” in Vienna, which used hypnosis, Freud developed his own method of therapy which he called “free association” after making the assumption that peoples repressed conflicts were hidden deep in the recesses of the unconscious mind. He would get people to be in a relaxing position on a long couch, without sensory distractions and would allow them to talk freely and without any inhibitions, he held the belief that this would allow him to ascertain the unconscious forces behind what was said. In both free association and dream analysis Freud believed that the super ego is in some way disarmed, allowing material to filter into the conscious ego, when in other times it is repressed.

Freud also incorporated dreams into his therapy after the death of his father and the dreams that followed, Freud developed the idea that there was a difference between Manifest content, which was what the dream appeared to be about on the surface and the Latent content which are the repressed, unconscious desires and wishes, being the real object of the dream. Freud also believed that the desires of the ID can sometimes be so disturbed that the mind creates a censor to psychologically protect itself and make the disturbing ideas into a more symbolic and acceptable form.

Both of these methods of therapy used by Freud worked on the assumption that in order to deal with their problems a patient needs to bring the repressed emotions and conflicts back into  consciousness so that they could be dealt with properly.

