Therapy wars: the revenge of Freud

ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN ABOUT THE ADVANTAGES OF PSYCHOANALYTIC THERAPIES OVER CBT

Very thoughtful and thorough article in the Guardian looking at the resurgence of psychoanalysis in light of increasing concerns about the effectiveness of CBT.

“Depending on how you interpret the evidence, it would seem we can do countless complex things – from performing mental arithmetic, to hitting a car’s brakes to avoid a collision, to making a choice of marriage partner – before becoming aware that we’ve done them. This doesn’t mesh well with a basic assumption of CBT – that, with training, we can learn to catch most of our unhelpful mental responses in the act. Rather, it seems to confirm the psychoanalytic intuition that the unconscious is huge, and largely in control; and that we live, unavoidably, through lenses created in the past, which we can only hope to modify partially, slowly and with great effort.”