This paper shall examine the fields of psychoanalysis and psychopharmacology in respect to the topic of whether or not these two can integrate and cooperate in the treatment of a patient. The paper will show evidence that medication can have detrimental effects on the analysis of the patient by strengthening defense mechanisms and by providing a ephemeral relief of the patient’s symptoms. First of all, the paper will briefly introduce and give a little bit of information on both fields.

Psychoanalysis is the name applied a specific method of investigating unconscious mental processes as well as to a form of psychotherapy. Sigmund Freud developed the technique of psychoanalysis and most of its theories. His theories were based around the unconscious. He proposed that unconscious psychiatric processes were present in the human mind and followed laws different from those that govern conscious experience.

In therapy, Freud would analyze his patient using hypnosis. He wouldn’t use hypnosis for suggestion; instead he would use it to uncover painful and forgotten memories in his neurotic patients. Freud believed that during the course of a person’s development unacceptable sexual a

nd aggressive drives are forced out of consciousness. These repressed urges, constantly striving for release, are sometimes expressed as neurotic symptoms. This is especially the case when the ego is underdeveloped because of being trapped in its earlier conflicts, called fixations or complexes, and when it constantly resorts to regression; the greater the pressure is to succumb to these pressures. If it is unable to function normally, it can maintain its limited control and integrity by forming symptoms; these tensions are expressed in the aforementioned neurotic symptoms. Therefore, symptom formation, character and impulse, perversions, and sublimations, are all attempts by the ego to fix the conflicts in the mind.

The study shows that what at first may be a very fast and efficient method of dealing with a psychiatric disorder can actually be detrimental to analysis. A useful analysis should bring about symptomatic improvement as part of the positive outcome. But during the course of the analysis, progress may cause an increase in symptoms; furthermore, a decrease in symptoms may represent a retreat from a productive process. The medication comes to be a crutch that the patient becomes used because it is better than “falling” back into the state that they want to avoid. Unfortunately, the patient will never learn how to “walk” without the medication and furthermore the analyst will never get to the root of the problem. The ego splits as a result of this, and the damage is multiplied, which in turn further confuses the patient. In this process, a patient simultaneously both affirms and disavows a wishful fantasy, in consciousness, without being consciously aware of the contradiction. This mental process is different from that found in a classically described neurotic patient, in whom a wish is made unconscious and reality is essentially preserved. Splitting of the ego also differs from the defensive process of a psychotic patient, in whom an intolerable reality is ignored and completely replaced by a wishful fantasy, as in a hallucination or a delusion.

K is a woman who suffers both from dyadic conflicts, characterized by feelings of disintegration anxiety, dependency, envy, and paranoia; and from triadic conflicts, characterized by feelings of guilt, jealousy, and performance anxiety. She feels entitled to receive special help, but she also feels that others suffer and deserve more than she, such that she deprives herself; she then projects this depriving activity onto others. Furthermore, she has unintegrated experiences of herself as both weak and powerful, which she tries to manage with projection and projective identification, such that she alternately feels overpowered and overpowering. One consequence of these defensive processes is that K loses an experience of herself as cohesive and distinct from others. Though less so than in the past, K, to an unusual degree, seems to maintain simultaneously two contradictory attitudes, without being consciously aware of the contradictions: for example, about whether she is weak or strong, about what she does or does not need and deserve, whether others are helpful or poisoning, and about what is "her" versus "not her." In other words, she seems to rely heavily on splitting of the ego. This defensive process is unconsciously felt by K as absolutely vital to protect herself against sadness, shame, and guilt, and also against a catastrophic loss of a cohesive experience of herself

Some topics in this essay:
Analysis Study, Sigmund Freud, Dr Swoiskin, Klerman Beitman, Theory Suggestion, Training Research, Psychoanalysis Psychopharmacology, Interestingly Freud, swoiskin 2001, Medical Institute, splitting ego, symptomatic improvement, defensive processes, inexact interpretation, heavily splitting ego, feelings guilt, wish medication, defensive process, strengthening defense mechanisms, psychoanalytic aims, leads symptomatic improvement, rely heavily, simultaneously affirms disavows, conflicts characterized feelings,