We’ve covered a variety of topics in this series, such as perception,

morality, and social psychology, to name a few. One thing we haven’t talked a lot about

yet is the realm of clinical psychology. This branch of psychology is concerned

with the assessment and treatment of mental illnesses. In many schools,

general psychology and clinical psychology are completely separate programs. As we’ve seen,

general psychology researches a lot of different topics, while clinical psychology tends to be

much more focused on training therapists to help people and researching mental illnesses.

Over the next two tutorials, we will go through a very brief overview of clinical

psychology. First we will introduce Freud, the most famous figure in the history of psychology,

and his invention of psychoanalysis. Then we will examine modern-day therapy.

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in the Austrian Empire. He went to the University of Vienna,

where he studied philosophy, physiology, and zoology. He actually did a lot of work while at

school on the biology of nervous tissue in humans and other animals, and his research paved the way

for the discovery of the neuron. Freud became a doctor in 1881 and began his medical career

at the Vienna General Hospital in 1882. In 1886, Freud started a private practice specializing in

what was known at the time as “nervous disorders.” This would have encompassed things like depression

and anxiety. By 1896, he was using the term “psychoanalysis” to describe his method of

treating patients and the underlying theories. So how did psychoanalysis work in treating mental

illness? The goal of psychoanalysis was to bring repressed thoughts and feelings to the surface. In

acknowledging and understanding these repressed feelings, a patient would be cured of their

mental illness. One way Freud attempted to uncover repressed feelings was through “free association.”

Essentially, the patient was told to talk freely about whatever ideas or memories came up.

They were not supposed to think about these ideas or attempt to judge them in any way,

simply experience them. In this experience, repressed thoughts and feelings were supposed

to come up to the conscious level. In addition to free association, Freud would analyze the

dreams of patients as another way of uncovering and understanding the thoughts that the patient

was unconsciously repressing. Transference was another important component of psychoanalysis.

This is when the patient would redirect their feelings for someone in their life

towards their therapist. Did the patient have issues with a parent? If transference occurred,

they may start treating their therapist as their parent and feel angry or frustrated with them.

In recognizing the transference relationship, the therapist and patient can explore meaning

and thoughts behind the relationship. They even use transference to solve conflicts the patient

has with people they used to know, through a kind of role-play. Overall, by making the unconscious

become conscious, Freud believed that we can be cured of things like anxiety and depression.

But what about the theory behind psychoanalysis? Clearly, the unconscious mind was key to Freud’s

beliefs. This is the part of the mind which is inaccessible to the conscious mind, which is your

active awareness, but still affects behavior and emotions. His theory of unconsciousness began with

the theory of repression. In his view, there was a cycle of thoughts. Thoughts would be repressed but

not erased from the mind. These repressed thoughts could impact behavior, and in some cases, actually