ABSTRACT
Every form of psychotherapy is based on certain assumptions, such as the obvious one that people can be helped to overcome personal problems and change for the better. What assumptions underlie the various psychodynamic psychotherapies? Psychodynamic theorists propose that much of mental life and activity is unconscious, and neurotic symptoms are the result of the ego’s defensive efforts against repressed conflicts. Healthy development involves making constructive use of such conflicts; unhealthy development reflects a failure to deal with them adequately and may produce a mental disorder. Freud’s emphasis on social development and early childhood experiences supports an environmental or psychological view of personality and psychopathology. If mental disorders are caused by environmental factors, then treatment involves helping clients to adjust to them or avoid them (Bell, 1980). If the ego adapts to continually changing internal and external environments, biological, psychological, and social, then the mind is dynamic, or active and changeable. The rationale for psychodynamic therapy is that, because the mind is dynamic and adaptive, mental symptoms are treatable (Bromberg, 1975).
