American Board of Registration and Accreditation of
Portuguese Language Psychoanalysts
Sociedade Brasileira de Registro e Acreditação de Psicanalistas de Língua Portuguesa
basic concept
"Psychoanalysis is a specific form of individual psychotherapy where the analyst's differentiated listening, interventions and interpretations promote an unequaled mental expansion to all people who undergo treatment, hence the possibility of curing emotional disorders that are preventing the well-being of living; which essentially comes from the relief we feel from understanding and reinterpreting painful experiences that made us what we were before." - Paulo B Caram - Psychoanalyst
a theory of mind
The human conversation - embracing complexity and understanding below the surface.
Psychoanalysis grew out of appreciating the power of people talking directly to each other about important issues and issues difficult to understand. As human beings are built for communication, our goal is to understand and be understood. When reading the news, interacting on social media or in everyday conversations, many of us try to understand “what motivates people?”. And many of us are asking why people behave in opposition to their own interests.
Historical, political and economic explanations provide important information about the irrationality of everyday life. Psychoanalysis, however, offers another perspective.
By examining what lies beneath the surface of human behavior, psychoanalysis teaches us about the unconscious psychological forces within us, outside of everyday consciousness.
Psychoanalysis, by providing multilayered and multidimensional explanations, seeks to understand complexity.
How does psychoanalytic treatment work?
Psychoanalytic treatment is based on the idea that people are often motivated by unrecognized desires and desires that originate in the person's unconscious.
These can be identified through the relationship between patient and analyst. By listening to patients' stories, fantasies, and dreams, as well as discerning how patients interact with others, psychoanalysts offer a unique perspective that friends and relatives may not be able to see.
The analyst also listens to the ways in which these patterns occur between patient and analyst. What is outside the patient's consciousness is called "transference" and outside the analyst's consciousness is called "countertransference."
Talking to a trained psychoanalyst helps to identify underlying problem patterns and behaviors. By analyzing transference and countertransference, analyst and patient can discover pathways to the emotional freedom needed to make substantial and lasting changes and heal past traumas.
Usually psychoanalysis involves the patient coming in several times a week and communicating as openly and freely as possible. While the more frequent sessions deepen and intensify the treatment, the frequency of sessions is worked out between the patient and the analyst.
Sofa use has been identified with psychoanalysis. However, the psychoanalytic method can be applied without using the sofa. While many analysts and patients find the sofa beneficial and helps patients relax and be more open, others find that a face-to-face arrangement works best for them.
About psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Also sometimes called psychodynamic psychotherapy, this method of treatment is based on the theory and technique of psychoanalysis. The main difference is that the patient and analyst meet less often, sometimes just once a week. As in psychoanalysis, the frequency of sessions can be customized according to the patient's needs. Another difference is that the patient usually sits upright and opposite the therapist, rather than leaning back on the couch with the therapist out of sight.
In addition to these differences, psychoanalytic psychotherapy is very similar to the analysis in the use of free association, the importance attributed to the unconscious and the centrality of the patient-therapist relationship.
About applied psychoanalysis
Applied psychoanalysis describes the practice of using psychoanalytic theories and methods to explain social, cultural and political phenomena and has continued to do so since the beginning of psychoanalysis.
Applied psychoanalysis takes the search for meanings and motivations outside the doctor's office, using psychoanalytic principles to make sense of the world.
It is known that psychoanalysts work as consultants in community contexts such as schools, companies and corporations.
What others are saying about neuropsychoanalysis
The connection between neuroscience and psychoanalysis goes back to Sigmund Freud, who was a neuroscientist and neurologist by training. It was Freud's interest in the workings of the brain and mind that led to the development of psychoanalytic theory.
The great advances in neuroscience since the days of Freud have led to a better understanding of how the brain - and the mind - work, leading neuroscientists to explore topics that are generally considered to be psychoanalytic in nature, such as memory, repression and dreams. Neuropsychoanalysis creates a mutually beneficial dialogue between the two fields.