Psychoanalytic Therapy: Principles and Application

by Franz Gabriel Alexander, Thomas Morton French

First published in 1946, Psychoanalytic Therapy stands as a classic presentation of "brief therapy". The volume, which is based upon nearly six hundred cases, derives from a concerted effort at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis to define the principles that make possible a psychotherapy shorter and more efficient than traditional psychoanalysis and to develop specific techniques of treatment. While taking a psychoanalytic approach, the authors urge the therapist to plan carefully and sensibly to avoid letting every case drift into "interminable" psychoanalysis. They address not only psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, but also psychologists, general physicians, social workers, and "all whose work is closely concerned with human relationships."

353 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1980

Reviews

[Tania Bradkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book addresses the controversy regarding Alexander’s theoretical framework of a corrective emotional experience which centered on the shift from the planned, neutral, and objective demeanor of the analyst in the classical psychoanalytic treatment model to Alexander’s contemporary psychoanalytic treatment model in which the planned, genuine attitude of the analyst is tailored to the patient’s transference neurosis and is generally tolerant, empathetic, and encouraging. Alexander recognized the therapeutic alliance as a unique factor and identified an analyst’s emotional (rather than intellectual) interactions with the patient, as the most important factor in facilitating the patient’s path towards healing and the undoing of their repetitive, neurotic patterns and tendencies. Alexander, who was an analyst, researcher, a physician, and a Veteran, designed and tested the corrective emotional experience technique out of a desire to update classical psychoanalytic technique, which had not transpired in three decades; Alexander sought to reach the societal majority who suffered from milder, ubiquitous daily life challenges, and stressors while simultaneously elevating and honoring Freud and the theoretical tenets of psychoanalysis and the dynamic unconscious.

Many of Alexander’s concepts are weaved into American mental healthcare treatments and are the norm of American and international psychoanalytic communities. While Freud’s psychoanalytic method will forever permeate and shape the field of psychotherapy, it was Alexander who completed what Freud had hoped for, which was the spread and normalized use of psychoanalysis of which Alexander’s model is rooted in. The corrective emotional experience is in use in contemporary psychotherapy and a treatment achievement regarding not only how to gratify and heal responses that were not met in early life and shaped the adult personality, but also tailor the treatment to meet the unique needs of the patient. With repetition of the corrective emotional experience, Alexander discovered a new way to provide additional relief to patients with the support of their analyst, to expand mental health access to be more inclusionary and affordable, and his ultimate intention, which was to help people clear the path to healing through a modern psychoanalytic model of treatment.