APasA Connects – American Psychoanalytic Association

APasA Connects

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How Psychoanalytic Treatment Works

Psychoanalytic treatment is based on the idea that people are frequently motivated by unrecognized wishes and desires that originate in one’s unconscious.

These can be identified through the relationship between patient and analyst. By listening to patients’ stories, fantasies, and dreams, as well as discerning how patients interact with others, psychoanalysts offer a unique perspective that friends and relatives might be unable to see. The analyst also listens for the ways in which these patterns occur between patient and analyst. What is out of the patient’s awareness is called, “transference” and out of the analyst’s awareness is called “countertransference”.

Talking with a trained psychoanalyst helps identify underlying problematic patterns and behaviors. By analyzing the transference and countertransference, analyst and patient, can discover paths toward the emotional freedom necessary to make substantive, lasting changes, and heal from past traumas.

Typically, psychoanalysis involves the patient coming several times a week and communicating as openly and freely as possible. While more frequent sessions deepen and intensify the treatment, frequency of sessions is worked out between the patient and analyst.

The couch, which has become so intertwined with the public image of psychoanalysis, is no longer required. While many analysts and patients find that the couch is beneficial and helps patients relax and be more open, others feel a face-to-face arrangement works better for them. Read this article about the history, benefits as well as disadvantages of the couch in psychoanalytic treatment.

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APsaA Connects

Welcome to APsaA’s online and email-based community platform.

Please click here for a helpful guide on using this system which includes instructions on how to subscribe and unsubscribe to any community, how to send and reply to messages, how to adjust your email delivery settings, and how to upload a profile photo.

Before you get started sending and replying to emails, you must read our Community Guidelines and should also review the “Terms of Use”. Once you have read these documents, you can visit connect.apsa.org to send messages or continue using the platform via your email provider. On the connect.apsa.org website you can also adjust your email delivery settings or subscribe/unsubscribe from any community.

Association – The Association community is where important news and announcements from APsaA leadership and/or APsaA staff are posted. Only APsaA leadership and staff can post messages to this community.

Members – This community is open to all members and similar to our former listserv. Members subscribed to this group may only post messages four times per week. Please post messages about referrals to the Referrals community. To post a message to this community, email [email protected] (you must be subscribed to this community in order to send and receive messages) and to subscribe to this Community click here.

Candidates – This community is open to all APsaA Candidate Members and Academic Associate Candidates and similar to our former listserv. The purpose of this community is to encourage free and open discussion among APsaA’s candidate members on any topics of their choosing. There are no limits of any kind on the subject matter, the content of messages, or the number of messages which members may post to the list. Please post messages about referrals to the Referrals community. To post a message to this community, email [email protected] (you must be subscribed to this community in order to send and receive messages) and to subscribe to this Community click here.

Referrals – One of the many benefits of our listserv has been the ability to reach out to members all over the U.S. and abroad to seek out referrals and resources. This community will now serve as the new destination for seeking referrals. Please email [email protected] (you must be subscribed to this community in order to send and receive messages.)

About Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Sometimes also called psychodynamic psychotherapy, this treatment method is based on the theory and technique of psychoanalysis. The primary difference is that the patient and analyst meet less frequently, sometimes only once a week. As with psychoanalysis, the frequency of sessions can be customized to the needs of the patient. Another difference is that the patient usually sits upright and opposite the therapist, rather than reclining on a couch with the therapist out of view.

Other than these differences, psychoanalytic psychotherapy is very much like analysis in its use of free association, the importance placed on the unconscious, and the centrality of the patient-therapist relationship.

About Applied Psychoanalysis

Applied psychoanalysis describes the practice of using psychoanalytic theories and methods to explain social, cultural and political phenomena and has been going on since psychoanalysis first began.

Applied psychoanalysis takes the search for meaning and motivations outside of the doctor’s office, using psychoanalytic principles to make sense of the world.

Psychoanalysts have been known to work as consultants in community settings, such as schools, businesses and corporations.

About Neuropsychoanalysis

The connection between neuroscience and psychoanalysis goes back to Sigmund Freud, who was a neuroscientist and neurologist by training. It was Freud’s interest in the workings of the brain and the mind that led to the development of psychoanalytic theory.

The great advances in neuroscience since Freud’s day have led to a better understanding of how the brain — and the mind – works leading neuroscientists to explore topics that have usually been considered psychoanalytic in nature, such as memory, repression, and dreams. Neuropsychoanalysis creates a mutually beneficial dialogue between the two fields.

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APsA Position Statements

APsA Publications

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The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA)

The American Psychoanalyst (TAP)

The Candidate Connection

Find a Psychoanalytic Clinician