Psychoanalysis and change: between curiosity and faith

The IPA recently announced that it now recognized three sessions per week as a valid frequency for psychoanalytic treatment. From the debate that has ensued over the problems this decision is expected to cause, important insights can be gained into the current crisis of identity afflicting psychoanalysis. Technical aspects of therapy that were once considered peripheral have gradually acquired the status of core theoretical parameters. Freud was a man of science who was concerned with universal human phenomena. His disagreements with followers such as Jung and Adler centred on the major theoretical issues of the sexual nature of the libido and the existence of the unconscious. It is also interesting to note that Freud never distinguished between psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Where he did make a distinction, it was between psychoanalysis and the consciousness-based psychotherapies, or those that used suggestion as a major tool. When the point has been reached where the frequency of sessions or the use of a couch is used to define whether a treatment is psychoanalytic, some consideration of whether the right direction is being pursued is called for. A serious risk is being run of sacrificing our spirit of curiosity for the sake of tradition, becoming more concerned with repeating the formal aspects of practice than with the real purpose of psychoanalysis, the investigation of the most profound workings of human nature.