ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to provide you with a conceptual map that can serve as a starting point for becoming more familiar with psychodynamic approaches and understand how these approaches can inform the therapeutic practice of counselling psychologists. I will begin by pointing out that psychoanalysis has diversified and proliferated widely since its inception by Freud and that the term ‘psychodynamic’ is currently used to encompass the different schools of psychoanalytic thought. I will then offer a rudimentary synopsis of Freud’s psychoanalytic model, since this is the reference point for all psychodynamic approaches and his theories dominated psychoanalysis for its first half-century. This synopsis will then serve as the basis for suggesting guidelines, along with a learning activity, that can help you navigate through some of the important ways that psychodynamic approaches have evolved and diversified since Freud. Next, I will focus on relational psychoanalysis, one of the contemporary developments in this field, since I consider it to be a good fit with the values and principles of counselling psychology and I will use a clinical example from my own practice to demonstrate how this theory can assist counselling psychologists in their therapeutic work with people who suffer from psychological distress. Moreover, since within counselling psychology we adopt the scientist-practitioner model and believe in the value of evidence-based practice, I will conclude the chapter by discussing research evidence that offers support to the tenets of relational psychoanalysis and the effectiveness of psychodynamic approaches.
