Psychodynamic Psychotherapy - Core Principles and Characteristics

Core Principles and Characteristics

Although psychodynamic psychotherapy can take many forms, commonalities include:

• An emphasis on the centrality of intrapsychic and unconscious conflicts, and their relation to development.
• Seeing defenses as developing in internal psychic structures in order to avoid unpleasant consequences of conflict.
• A belief that psychopathology develops especially from early childhood experiences.
• A view that internal representations of experiences are organized around interpersonal relations.
• A conviction that life issues and dynamics will re-emerge in the context of the client-therapist relationship as transference and counter-transference.
• Use of free association as a major method for exploration of internal conflicts and problems.
• Focusing on interpretations of transference, defense mechanisms, and current symptoms and the working through of these present problems.
• Trust in insight as critically important for success in therapy.