Compare And Contrast How Treatment Would Proceed For A Woman Suffering From Depression, Anxiety And Feelings Of Inadequacy If She Undertook Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Or Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.
...for psychological difficulties, largely due to the fact that they originate from very different theoretical and philosophical frameworks. It seems likely, therefore, that treatment for a woman experiencing depression, anxiety and feelings of inadequacy will proceed along very different lines according to each approach. There do appear to be some features, however, which are common to all effective ‘talking’ therapies, notably rooted in the therapeutic relationship itself and in the qualities and skills of the therapist, whatever their persuasion.
Psychodynamic therapy, as Jacobs (2004) notes, incorporates many different strands, originating from Freudian psychoanalytic theory, and is generally understood to focus upon the unconscious activity of the psyche. The internal aspects, or ‘states’, of the psyche are seen as taking shape during the years of a child’s development and constitute elements of the child’s relationship with significant others, notably mother and father. Consequently, all psychodynamic therapies pay particular attention to “the importance of the child’s early environment as promoting the foundation of later personality strengths or areas of vulnerability” (Jacobs, 2004, p.10). At times of stress we can be driven back to more primitive, or infantile, ways of thinking, feeling and behaving in accordance with our perceptions of those early relationships.
A psychodynamic therapist working with a woman who expresses feelings of depression, anxiety and inadequacy, therefore, will be concerned to attend to various indicators of unconscious psychic activity in the way the woman talks about events and situations, past and present, and her associated feelings. The woman may, for example, speak of disrupted relationships with particular loved family members, through death or separation, or of traumatic or abusive experiences. The therapy...
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