ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a model of how psychoanalysis works. The action of analysis probably varies widely between analyses. The idea that interpretation cures by making the unconscious conscious began to be questioned in the 1930s. A series of theoretical, clinical, and empirical investigations led analysts to believe that other factors are central to therapeutic action. Psychopathology can be described from a nonlinear dynamics viewpoint. Many forms of psychopathology are usefully conceptualized as resulting from too extensive use of defenses; treatment loosens them. Defenses are means of attempting to achieve optimal complexity. Defenses are mobilized against actual or feared disorganization. Rudolfo Llinás proposed a model in which binding is achieved by the temporal organization of brain function through the operation of underlying brain rhythms. This organization is made possible by specifying the temporal relationship of the sounds to a well-defined underlying rhythm.
