Psychoanalytic Theory

Priya Elizabeth Aruldass Henry | Dr Ooi Boon Keat | BES (Science) Hons –Counselling & Guidance(ECG 20103), March 2023

FOCUS OF THE ANALYSIS CASE STUDY 1

Psychoanalysts have analysed • Reena, a Hindu, Indian American women who has considerable
anxiety due to her ethnicity and experiences of racial
- internal representations of gender, race, culture and discrimination.
sexual orientation and social class • Reena’s anxiety which stems with her anxiety from both within and
- using object relations theory and relational outside of her relationships and is used key component of her
therapy.
psychoanalysis
• The therapist has an insight into the clients’ anxieties due to her
own anxieties with interactions based on race and skin colour and
parent child relationships.
INTRODUCTION TO • Awareness of the conscious and unconscious meanings of race and
ethnicity, being aware that ambivalence towards cultural
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY identifications and separation from parents were used as insights
to help Reena deal with her racial and cultural identity
According to Sigmund Freud, the compartmentalised • Reena’s health and behavioural problems are attributed to early
childhood which is a main strength of the psychoanalysis theory
parts of the human personality are (Tummala-Narra, 2013).
id, ego, and superego
CASE STUDY 2
IMPLICATIONS
• There is a huge potential of connecting psychoanalytic, community and
multi-cultural perspectives and the integration of such practices have a
great deal of implications on psychoanalytic practitioners who work
across clinical and community settings.
• -Different theoretical perspectives can advantage certain contexts of
individual and social change.
• A study by Albee (1990) argued that individual psychotherapy in less
effective than community psychotherapy to bring about social change.
Another study by Kaufmann (2003) and King & Shelley (2008) agued that
community level interventions produced superficial or no deep internal
change.
• According to Sue (2001), multicultural theory does not recognise the use
of classical psychoanalytical theory’s ability to integrate an
understanding of sociocultural context.

Functions of the Psyche- id, Ego &
Superego
Id- operating at the unconscious level consists of Eros and
Thanatos.
Eros, the life instinct controls the life sustaining activities and
Thanatos, a set of destructive forces, can be directed at others in a
violent form. Freud believed in the ability of Eros to help people to
thrive as opposed to Thanatos.
Examples: unconscious source of primitive sexual, dependency
and aggressive impulses
The blocked expression of these needs leads to inner turmoil.
Ego, operates both consciously and sub-consciously develops from
the id in individuals and tries to satisfy the demands of id in a very
safe and socially acceptable way.
Superego operates on the moral principles and motivates them to
behave in socially acceptable ways and is responsible for ensuring
moral standards in individuals
Two colleagues connect with one another to bring ways of
community intervention for an afterschool program for students
exposed to violence in their neighbourhood
-experiences that the professionals should have to be able to
collaborate among themselves to develop an adequate
intervention. Cultural mistrust exists between professionals due
to their race, where one feels white guilt and another feeling of
invisibility.
Cultural divide can create feelings of alienation and
disempowerment in predominantly white institutions. However,
sharing of these experiences among staff improved the staff’s
ability to connect with the student’s experiences with
community violence.
Intervention methods progressed due to the effective and
interpersonal processes in the staff and student group meetings.
Community psychology perspective is used to develop a
framework for consultation through its questioning of power,
privilege and expert knowledge and understanding of social
location (race and immigration) (Tummala-Narra, 2013).
STRENGTHS
• relevancy and usefulness of the psychoanalytic theory when
applied to treatment and consultant settings and how
community psychology and multi-cultural psychology to
address sociocultural context with individuals and community.
• The practitioner helps to foster emotional insight by
uncovering conscious and unconscious feelings and
suggesting strategies to overcome them benefit society.
• The psychoanalytic framework validates the individual’s
distress under experiences of trauma and cruelty and
emphasises the in-depth understanding of individual and
collective meanings of experience
• Later studies do recognise the importance of using the strengths of
theoretical assumptions to work across diverse context and with clients
of diverse racial and cultural backgrounds.
• Psychoanalytic theory also recognises the ability and competence of
treatment and consultation to individuals and communities who face
social marginalisation and denied access to basic resources.
• Social justice is a key component of psychoanalytic theory but
disconnects with complete integration of social context (Tummala-Narra,
2013).
RECOMMENDATIONS & CONCLUSION
Interpretation, a psychoanalytic technique can benefit from a
deeper knowledge of both sociocultural and individual’s
conscious and unconscious identifications.
-Knowledge on impact of racial trauma on an individual and
community’s daily routine can be incorporated into the
psychoanalytical theory.
• The influence of practice, research and teaching, like ‘social
mirroring’ ‘social location’ and ‘microaggressions’ on socially
marginalised communities need to be examined.
• A broadening of psychoanalytic theory and technique is
required to allow for a more active exploration of interaction
between social contexts, communities and individuals.
• Psychoanalysts are worthy to be considered as agents of social
change and expand discourse on how psychoanalytic
practitioners, consultants, researchers and educators by
integrating diverse perspectives from minority individuals and
communities
• Main Reference- Tummala-Narra, P (2013) Psychoanalytic
applications in a diverse society, Psychoanalytic Psychology, 30 (3)
471-487