ABSTRACT

Sigmund Freud continues to explain that psychoanalysis set itself the same therapeutic aims as treatment by hypnotism, but that it goes far deeper into the structure of the mechanism of the mind, and seeks to bring about permanent results and viable changes in its subjects. There can be no doubt about his aim. He wants to bring about change in his patients—permanent change. In 1917 Freud was still very positive about therapeutic possibilities and was an advocate for prophylactic analysis, a movement of focus from the sickness to the educative perspective. Freud points out that the analyst helps the patient overcome resistances with suggestions that operate in an educative sense. It is for this reason that analytic can be described as a kind of after-education. Psycho-analytic treatment may in general be conceived of as such a re-education in overcoming internal resistances.