Freud Talk Therapy

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Although some may argue that it was in fact Joseph Breuer and his patient “Anna O.” who discovered “talk therapy”, Sigmund Freud coined the technique, making it one of his most famous theories in psychology. Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis around the turn of the century, and made profound contributions to the field with his descriptions of the unconscious, infantile sexuality, the use of dreams, and his model of the human mind. Freud’s work with neurotic patients led him to believe that mental illness was the result of keeping thoughts or memories suppressed in the unconscious. The treatment for the neurosis was to listen to the patient and provide interpretations, which would bring these suppressed memories to the conscious mind, where the patient could understand …show more content…
The talk therapy was originally thought to work best with the patient under hypnosis, but Freud quickly discovered that hypnosis wasn’t necessary to have the patents open to talking, but rather the patient responded best when they were in a comfortable environment. hence the couch. Once a patient talked at length, Freud could analyze what the person was revealing to figure out what past traumas were likely causing the patient problems. After studying and using the talking cure on patients, Freud decided that mental health issues usually stemmed from the patients repressed thoughts. Often these repressed thoughts were sexual in nature. These could be socially forbidden sexual urges or sexual traumas that were experienced in childhood. By repressing these thoughts or traumas, the patients often ended up suffering from depression, anxiety and a plethora of other mental problems. This is because, while certain thoughts of ours are unacknowledged, they are still in our minds in some