Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Freud: Psychoanalysis © The McGraw−Hill^55
Companies, 2009
place in a two-phase procedure. “In the first, all the libido is forced from the symp-
toms into the transference and concentrated there; in the second, the struggle is
waged around this new object and the libido is liberated from it” (Freud, 1917/1963,
p. 455).
The transference situation is vital to psychoanalysis. Transferencerefers to
the strong sexual or aggressive feelings, positive or negative, that patients develop
toward their analyst during the course of treatment. Transference feelings are un-
earned by the therapist and are merely transferred to her or him from patients’ ear-
lier experiences, usually with their parents. In other words, patients feel toward the
analyst the same way they previously felt toward one or both parents. As long as
these feelings manifest themselves as interest or love, transference does not interfere
with the process of treatment but is a powerful ally to the therapeutic progress. Pos-
itive transference permits patients to more or less relive childhood experiences
within the nonthreatening climate of the analytic treatment. However, negative
transferencein the form of hostility must be recognized by the therapist and ex-
plained to patients so that they can overcome any resistanceto treatment (Freud,
1905/1953a, 1917/1963). Resistance, which refers to a variety of unconscious re-
sponses used by patients to block their own progress in therapy, can be a positive sign
because it indicates that therapy has advanced beyond superficial material.
Freud (1933/1964) noted several limitations of psychoanalytic treatment. First,
not all old memories can or should be brought into consciousness. Second, treatment
is not as effective with psychosesor with constitutional illnesses as it is with pho-
bias, hysterias, and obsessions. A third limitation, by no means peculiar to psycho-
analysis, is that a patient, once cured, may later develop another psychic problem.
Recognizing these limitations, Freud felt that psychoanalysis could be used in con-
junction with other therapies. However, he repeatedly insisted that it could not be
shortened or modified in any essential way.
Ideally, when analytic treatment is successful, patients no longer suffer from
debilitating symptoms, they use their psychic energy to perform ego functions, and
they have an expanded ego that includes previously repressed experiences. They do
not experience a major personality change, but they do become what they might have
been under the most favorable conditions.
Dream Analysis
Freud used dream analysisto transform the manifest content of dreams to the more
important latent content. The manifest contentof a dream is the surface meaning or
the conscious description given by the dreamer, whereas the latent contentrefers to
its unconscious material.
The basic assumption of Freud’s dream analysis is that nearly all dreams are
wish fulfillments. Some wishes are obvious and are expressed through the manifest
content, as when a person goes to sleep hungry and dreams of eating large quanti-
ties of delicious food. Most wish fulfillments, however, are expressed in the latent
content and only dream interpretation can uncover that wish. An exception to the
rule that dreams are wish fulfillments is found in patients suffering from a traumatic
experience. Dreams of these people follow the principle of repetition compulsion
rather than wish fulfillment. These dreams are frequently found in people with
Chapter 2 Freud: Psychoanalysis 49