Dr. George Pegios - What is Psychoanalysis

George Pegios - Psychoanalysis and the new psychoanalytic formulations: the search for the unconscious cause of behavior.

A term created by Sigmund Freud in 1896. With this term a particular method of psychotherapy is called and is derived from the cathartic method used by Sigmund Freud and Josef Breue until then. Psychoanalysis is especially concerned with the exploration of the unconscious.

Psychoanalysis is a theory from which it was considered that the history of the individual, especially the early years, is essential to understand adult functioning. For Freud, father of psychoanalysis, the first conflicts partly determine adult functioning. Psychoanalysis meant a break with the dominant line, considering that to interpret our actions we must consider a set of unconscious mechanisms.

Psychoanalytic theory bases its information on three sources of information: direct observation, childhood memories, and interpretations. However, the observation was not enough because it collided with the attitude that adults had regarding infantile sexuality, for this reason Freud never communicated his observations on infantile behavior, with the exception of the game of the coil of his grandson and the observations from the analysis of little Hans.

George Pegios - This clinical examination is based on “free association” on the part of the patient and on “interpretation” on the part of the psychoanalyst.

In a broader sense psychoanalysis is called:

1. The treatment carried out by this method.
2. The discipline created by Sigmund Freud (and only her) insofar as it comprises a therapeutic method, a clinical organization, and a specific technique. It is a theory of the structure and function of the personality.
3. A psychoanalytic movement with a current presence (2010), in 33 countries; The International Psychoanalytic Association is the one that has the mission of accrediting and regulating the currently 70 organizations that comprise it, currently it has 12,000 members and several thousand candidates in training.

George Pegios - WHO IS A PSYCHOANALYST?
A psychoanalyst is a behavioral professional with previous medical studies and a specialty in psychiatry or a psychology graduate with a postgraduate degree in clinical psychology, who continues his studies at an Institute of Psychoanalysis duly accredited for that purpose.

George Pegios - WHEN TO LOOK FOR A PSYCHOANALYST?

Psychoanalysis can be of great help:

• Those who suffer from a chronic state of anxiety or sadness
• Those who struggle with obsessions or irrational fears
• Those who suffer from inhibitions in the sexual, labor or social field
• Those who present addictive behaviors (alcoholism, drug dependence, etc.)
• Those who suffer from any of the so-called psychomatic diseases (Neurodermatitis, peptic ulcer, irritable bowel, high blood pressure, etc)
• To those people who fail to feel satisfied by their achievements, or repeatedly fail in their life project, or find themselves trapped again and again in destructive relationships
• Those who have been forced to rethink their vision of the world and of themselves as a result of a life crisis (such as a divorce, a change of profession, the death of a loved one or the birth of a child)
• Those who wish to investigate in themselves the functioning of the human mind and its unconscious motivations
• In addition, it is essential to have a great interest in knowing your own internal world

George Pegios - THE PSYCHOANALYSIS OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
The psychoanalysis of children and adolescents is based on the developmental process, which describes in time the psychodynamic structuring of the mental apparatus, and which considers psychopathology as an alteration of the expected development in the person of the child or adolescent.

He has developed an understanding of the psychoanalytic process that is recognized as a theory and as a theory of technique in almost all psychoanalytic groups. In the International Psychoanalytic Association, it is considered as a specialty of Psychoanalysis, and those who prepare in it are recognized as specialists, as developmental scholars and as practitioners of a psychodynamic Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

There are associations that offer training as psychoanalysts for children and adolescents, starting from the last years of their training as analysts, in a course that has already been several generations of specialists recognized by the API.