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Psychodynamic Counselling
Psychodynamic counselling has its origins in Freud’s work in the early part of the last century. However psychodynamic theory has progressed since Freud’s early pioneering work and this course will look briefly at the contributions of a number of important workers in the field; such as, Klein, Winnicott, Bowlby, Fairbairn, Guntripp, Bion, and others.
Briefly the theory rests on the premise that our ways of relating to others, notably our parents, in infancy and early childhood determine to a large extent how we relate to others in our adult life.
In other words it is these early childhood patterns of relating to our parents, (or other primary caregivers), that act as a template for the way we form our later adult relationships.
However psychodynamic theory is not just involved with external behaviour, i.e. the client’s external world; it is concerned primarily with the inner workings of the client’s psyche, i.e. his/her internal world.
Depending on the nature of the client’s issues, he/she will experience to a lesser or greater degree an internal conflict of feelings and the more painful of these will be repressed, i.e. will be ‘banished’ into the inaccessible, unconscious part of his/her mind. A significant part of a psychodynamic certificate course is concerned with how this unconscious part of our mind affects both our external behaviour and our inner feelings about ourselves; about who we are.
It then becomes the counsellor’s job to create a safe, non judgemental, therapeutic environment in which the client can explore for him/herself how these unconscious processes are affecting his/her life.
Psychodynamic therapy claims to tackle the root cause of the client’s issues and concerns, rather than simply treating the symptoms. While it is normally seen as a long term process it can also be effective in the short term.
For the therapist to be effective it is important that he/she has dealt with his/her own personal painful unconscious feelings and that is why we recommend that our students have at least some experience of their own personal psychodynamic therapy.
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