What are the advantages of psychoanalysis?

Answer 1

Psychoanalysis is considered by its practioners to be more thorough and enduring. It spends a great deal of time on exploring the client's past, uses the technique of "free association (saying whatever come to mind without censorship)," and is supposed to raise the unconscious content of the mind to consciousness, providing the client with more control over his or her life. However, it is lengthy, usually lasting years and it is very expensive. Classical psychoanalysis, rarely practived these days, involves three to five visits a week to the psychoanalysts. Most psychoanalysts are psychiatrists, while some are psychologists and a very few are clinical social workers. Psychiatry has become higly biologically oriented over the last several decades and relies more heavily on medication than talk therapy. Most psychologist are cognitive-behaviorally oriented. Much more prevalent than classical psychoanalysis today is an adaption of it to what is known as "Psychodynamic" psychotherpy. This tends to be briefer and relies on one or two visits to the therapist a week Today, cognitive-behavioral therapy is regarded as more effective and briefer than most therapies. This modality is highly researched and has a storng scientific foundation. Other models of therapy include gestalt, narrative, constructivism, existential, Jungian, and so forth. Many theorists and researchers of psychotherapy believe that more significant than the type of therapy one enters is the strength of the relationship between client and therapist. There is research supporting the premise that certain common elements are present in all types of therapy and that these commonalities are more central to the client achieving a successful outcome than the type of therapy involved. Lastly, the majority of therapists practicing today, tend to be eclectic, meaning that they tend to use techniques drawn from a variety of therapeutic models even though they may have a single coherent philosophy of therapy which guides their practice.

Answer 2

The advantages of psychoanalysis is that you can take the results and use them to change your life and your personality. You can also have an outside perspective on your life that you are too close to see.

Answer 3

Talk therapy is useless fro serious disorders and is harmful when done by incompotenet or abusive therapists. Psychoanalysis is uncommon and ineffective and harmful in some cases and for some disorders like schizophrenia and is not based on sound science and considered pseudoscience by most scientists and is based on fictitious absurdities such as psychosexual stages and the Oedipus complex and approaches disorders on the assumption that they were caused by childhood traumas but this is not applicable to most disorders. Most real psychotherapies are cognitive, behavioural, and CBT (cognitive-behavioural therapy), which have some degree of effectiveness depending on the disorder.