Unconscious Death Anxiety and the Two Modes of Psychotherapy

Abstract

The four quotes given above sum up the history of psychoanalysis as seen through the lens of the adaptive approach to psychoanalysis and dynamic psychotherapy (terms I use interchangeably; Langs, 2004b, 2006). Their collective message suggests that we cannot properly understand the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis without a grasp of the forces that shaped their development, including the essential story of the lives of the individuals who gave them form and substance. Evolution is cited first because it is the fundamental subscience of biology and, as such, is an embodiment of a set of archetypal principles like natural selection that are applicable to all manner of natural phenomena (Langs, 1996). Indeed, as Dobzhansky (1973) rightfully implies, we cannot deeply understand any aspect of psychoanalysis—which is after all a biological science, however little developed as such (Langs, Badalamenti, &