ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author aims to consider whether theory and practice in the field of psychodynamics are, or have been, affected by ethical judgements of what is ‘good’, be such judgements explicit or implicit. She discusses some of the understandings and misunderstandings of psychoanalytic insights among the lay public. Psychoanalytic insights are liable to be understood concretistically and translated into modes of behaviour rather than recognized as modes of experience. The excitement and fascination the early analysts had experienced when they explored unconscious processes and manifestations was thus shifted to include consciousness. Sigmund Freud moved from the study of instinctive forces to the analysis and exploration of man’s consciousness, of his ego functions, and of his interpersonal relationships. He thus led psychoanalysis from its nineteenth-century beginnings as a physically based psychophysiology and psychobiology to a twentieth-century exploration of a new area, the area of ‘psy-chodynamics'. While psychoanalysis was predominantly determinist, the problem of moral values was irrelevant.
