Variations of the psychoanalytic framework of rules

Abstract

Since its hesitating start in the beginning of this century, psychoanalysis has found broad acceptance the world over. As a method of treatment it is used on some scale, and as a theory it has influenced numerous scholarly disciplines. It has also contributed to the development of forms of treatment which are orientated towards psychoanalysis but which also seem to diverge from it: the many forms of psychotherapy which at the present time even seem to be overshadowing psychoanalysis. One could question whether this is matter of repression in terms of loss of territory, or whether it does concern repression in the psychoanalytic sense of the word in which essential elements of the psychoanalytic process are being rejected. The latter possibility could imply that any conflict between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy would be settled with a compromise by way of what is called ‘psychoanalytic psychotherapy’ a description which would retain the term psychoanalytic but would not, by its use, guarantee content.1 The use of this term has become so popular that we now encounter expressions such as: psychoanalytic individual psychotherapy, psychoanalytic group therapy, psychoanalytic couples- or marriage therapy, etc.2 Are all these combinations permissible, or do some of the activities named in this way cross into territory which should preclude the use of the term ‘psychoanalytic’? This question can perhaps best be framed in terms of the principles which govern the activities which are, or may be, called ‘psychoanalytic’.