Atlas›Domains›Domain I
Domain I of XVI

Psychodynamic & depth psychology

123guides
2,765weighted interventions
1970median founding year
304723mean Agape · Logos · Mythos

Open the live domain doc (online) · Trinity explorer · Lineage map

Domain synthesis

What "healing" means here

The oldest strand treats healing as making something unconscious conscious. Breuer and Freud sought the discharge of "strangulated" affect tied to a forgotten event I-001. Freud's aims were filling gaps in memory and overcoming resistances I-004. Bose said the patient "is made to appreciate this repressed wish" I-061, and Freudian dream work reverses the dream-work I-123. Janet and Lorenzer move the emphasis from discharge to integration: a fixed memory becomes a told, "realized" story I-002, or a split-off scene is resymbolised I-042. A second strand sees healing as development set moving again. Examples are strengthened ego functions I-005 I-086, repaired structural capacities I-052 I-053, psychological birth I-023 and a restarted mentalizing process I-062 I-092. A third strand sees healing as a new relational experience. Examples are the corrective emotional experience I-098, disconfirmed pathogenic beliefs I-074, undone aloneness I-076, a new way of participating in the relationship I-027 and reopened epistemic trust I-062. Several brief models treat symptom relief as a by-product I-068 I-069. By contrast, IPT I-030, supportive therapy I-009 and EAET I-080 target symptoms directly.

Jungian authors describe healing as the psyche correcting a one-sided attitude through compensation and individuation I-108 I-114 I-115. They also describe a new "third" attitude produced by the transcendent function I-113 I-120. Kawai places healing in the client's own self-healing capacity I-119. Giegerich says change is not produced by interventions on the person I-111. Adlerians speak of redirected striving toward social interest I-100 I-104. Other traditions add social and collective repair. Institutional psychotherapy treats the institution as well as the patient I-038. Schizoanalysis and Burrow locate illness in produced subjectivity or species-wide "social neurosis" I-039 I-094. Samuels and Taylor bring political life, racism and sexism into the work I-112 I-129. The Ajase and Tao lineages speak of mutual forgiveness and "purification of mind" I-058 I-060. Tensions run between insight and lived experience I-062 I-098 I-113, between raising and lowering tension I-010 I-066 I-067 I-055, and between open-ended and fixed-end treatment I-004 I-012 I-069; some dream and group methods say outright they are not therapy I-124 I-126 I-129.

What "the self" or "the person" is here

The classical image is a mind in conflict. Id, ego and superego reach compromise formations I-005 I-006. The mind is peopled by internal objects, self–object role relationships or affect-linked dyads I-007 I-017 I-063. Object-relations, self and relational authors see a person formed in relationships. Examples are Mitchell's "relational matrix" I-027, the intersubjective field I-026, lifelong selfobject needs I-025 and internal working models I-024. The link school takes the link itself as the patient I-048, as couple and family models do I-093 I-056. Developmental images are also common. The infant moves from fusion to separateness I-023, the primary self deintegrates and reintegrates I-109, and the ego is built from translations of the adult's enigmatic messages I-036. Lacanian and Dolto–Mannoni authors see a subject of speech and desire caught in signifiers I-034 I-040. Solms describes feelings as signals of unmet needs I-016. Rank sees a person struggling to own their will I-012. Adler sees a goal-directed being moved by a fictional final goal I-100 I-104.

Jungians picture a self-regulating psyche with the Self as its totality I-108 I-115. The psyche contains typed functions I-121 and many sub-selves I-109. Hillman treats soul as "a perspective rather than a substance" I-110, and Giegerich treats it as the "logical life" of phenomena, not something inside a person I-111. Aizenstat extends psyche to the anima mundi I-128. Szondi adds a familial unconscious of "ancestral figures" I-013. Fromm adds a socially patterned character I-031, and Burrow a socially conditioned "I-persona" I-094. Body-centred authors describe a person "lived by" the It I-097, or psyche and soma as equally relational I-044 or as one life I-117. Asian lineages frame the person through amae I-059, Ajase guilt I-058, a repeated "nuclear feeling" I-060 and paired opposite wishes I-061.

Mechanisms of change the domain names

  • Discharge and recollection: abreaction plus associative correction I-001; neocatharsis I-010; turning memory into narrative I-002.
  • Interpretation and working through: transference interpretation I-004 I-017 I-063; defence analysis from surface to depth I-005 I-086; trigger-decoded interpretation I-015; punctuation and scansion of speech I-034.
  • Containment and mentalizing: reverie and alpha function I-022; holding the patient's mind in mind and recovering mentalizing I-062 I-090 I-092.
  • Relational correction: corrective emotional experience I-098 I-080; passed tests of pathogenic beliefs I-074; recognised and survived enactments I-027; rupture repair through metacommunication I-028.
  • Affect exposure: "unlocking the unconscious" I-066; graded desensitisation of affect phobias I-077 I-079; feelings linked across therapist, current and past figures I-068.
  • Separation and mourning: a fixed ending that sets "child time" against real time I-069; end-setting I-012; giving up the loyal wish I-065; mutual forgiveness I-058.
  • Images and the unconscious: compensation and amplification I-108 I-114; the transcendent function I-113 I-120; holding several embodied perspectives I-127; hosting images as presences I-128; the dreamer's "aha" and withdrawal of projections I-129 I-093.
  • Groups and institutions: diffracted transference I-037 I-038; peer "social hunger" in place of transference I-095; rank positions I-054; surfacing the implicit anxieties of a task I-041.
  • Adlerian: encouragement and insight into private logic I-100 I-105; prescribing the symptom I-103.

Shared techniques

Story and word dominate. Examples are free association I-004, Sullivan's detailed inquiry I-029, Socratic dialogue I-100, early recollections and "the Question" I-101 I-102, the word-association test I-107, and myth or fairy tale I-043 I-115 I-118. The relationship itself is the main instrument almost everywhere. The analyst's countertransference is used as data I-017 I-021 I-112. Attention is trained as a stance. Examples are evenly suspended attention I-004, Bion's reverie I-022, Bick's observation without intervening I-019, "watch, wait and wonder" I-089, Burrow's cotention I-094 and Kawai's "full effort into doing nothing" I-119.

Imagery appears as PITT's observer and screen techniques I-055, Ferenczi's forced fantasies I-010, active imagination I-113 and the many dream methods [I-123–I-130]. Play, drawing and enactment appear in child work I-086 I-087 I-106, psychodrama I-037, art and sandplay I-120 I-119, and BodySoul's mask work I-117. Body, breath, voice and movement are central only in some places. Examples are BodySoul Rhythms I-117, felt affect in ISTDP and EAET I-066 I-080, historical hypnosis I-001 and Groddeck's massage regimen I-097. Group and community formats are wide-ranging. They include operative groups I-041, multifamily groups I-047, dynamic group therapy I-054, activity groups I-095, wards and therapeutic communities I-038 I-083 I-084, Adlerian open forums I-104 and social dreaming I-126. Time structure is itself used as a technique I-012 I-068 I-069.

Developmental or stage models

Some stage models describe treatment. They include Janet's three-stage reconstruction (VBK89) I-002 and Meltzer's five-phase "natural history" of analysis I-018. Searles describes phases of patient–therapist interaction I-082, and Safran and Muran a four-stage rupture-resolution model I-028. DDP has four question-named stages, from "Can I be safe here?" to "Am I ready to leave?" I-064. IRT has five steps I-065, and AEDP four states and three transformations I-076. Three-phase manuals include IPT, DIT, PFPP and RFP-C I-030 I-072 I-075 I-091, and the Szondi manual also has three phases I-013. Adlerian models include Stein's twelve stages I-100 and Dreikurs's four-phase model I-103, with four-phase versions in Mosak and Maniacci, Bitter and Kottman I-101 I-105 I-106. For dream work there are Ullman's stages I-124 and Hill's exploration–insight–action I-125.

Other stage models describe development or a path. Mahler's subphases include rapprochement I-023. Anna Freud's developmental lines appear in I-007 I-086, and Fordham's deintegration–reintegration rhythm in I-109. Okonogi's Ajase sequence runs from ideal unity through betrayal and resentment to forgiveness I-058, and Doi's phases are given via Sakai I-059. On the Jungian side are von Franz's stages of active imagination I-113 and the fairy tale's path from lack to lysis as a map of individuation I-115. The Lacanian pass ends a training analysis I-034. Many founders refuse fixed stages on principle I-034 I-108 I-110 I-026.

Distinctive contribution

This domain reads the symptom as meaningful (a message, compromise or purpose) and makes the healing relationship itself the place where the problem is re-lived, observed and changed. It offers the atlas's most developed account of the healer's own subjectivity as clinical data, and a large body of methods for dreams, images and unconscious meaning across individual, family, group and institutional settings.

All 123 guides in this domain

Domain II →