Therapeutic technıques that reveal the unconscious

Therapeutic Technıques That Reveal the Unconscious

In every field, theories have been created in order to help the patient in the field of psychotherapy,
to gain knowledge about the problems in the patient's life, and to draw an appropriate roadmap in
helping the patient. The first of the known psychological theories in history is Sigmund Freud's
theory of psychoanalysis. furthermore, psychoanalysis is a fundamental theory that forms the basis
of many future theories. While some theorists developed their theories, they built their theories on
the basic principles of psychoanalysis, while some theorists developed their theories by opposing
some of the concepts of psychoanalysis. Thus, Freud played an important role in the emergence of
many theories by providing different views and approaches with the theory of
psychoanalysis.(İnanç&Yerlikaya,2008).Freud tried to explain the effect of the individual's soul
on the body and the source of mental problems with the psychoanalytic techniques he developed.
Freud stated that the reason for the emergence of psychoanalysis is being alone with oneself and
trying to understand one's own worthiness.(Karataş&Yavuzer,2018). Along with his work with
Breuer, Freud focused on the psychodynamic factors that motivate behavior and focused on the
role of the unconscious on humans. He has developed many therapeutic methods to understand
and change the personality structure of the individual.
Freud defines how the basic unconscious and unconscious factors in the individual motivate the
individual's perceptions, feelings, thoughts and behaviors. According to Freud, our psychic
structure, which affects these mental processes, is affected by what we do not realize, namely our
unconscious, rather than what we noticeAlthough many behaviors of the individual are clear and
observable, we cannot fully understand the reason for the mental processes underlying these
behaviors. The unconscious of the individual has a great importance in psychoanalytic theory and
psychotherapy techniques.

The individual's wishes, desires, childhood traumas, emotions and conflicts that he avoids
confronting and suppresses remain like a hidden chest in the unconscious. The individual's
childhood traumas, unsatisfied desires, conflicts and traumas always live in the unconscious.
Therefore, according to Freud, the unconscious is more the product of the id.Mental processes that
are not consciously manifest themselves as pathological disorders over time. Therefore, Freud's
raising the individual's unconscious and the perception of reality to the consciousness of the
individual is a very effective factor especially in understanding the underlying causes of

psychopathological diseases in the individual. It is necessary to understand the cause of
psychopathological diseases due to the rise of the unconscious to the level of consciousness for an
appropriate treatment method. There are many therapeutic techniques developed to reveal
unconscious and suppressed emotions in psychoanalysis, which aims to develop awareness and
insight in the individual by expressing repressed or subconsciously censored emotions. The main
purpose of therapeutic techniques is to examine, interpret and resolve the individual's psychic
conflict by bringing repressed unconscious materials to consciousness.
These techniques, which are called the basic techniques of psychoanalytic theory, can be listed as
hypnosis, free association, dream analysis, slips of the tongue, transferenceThe first of the
therapeutic techniques is hypnosis. Freud expressed the importance of hypnosis with the following
words; “It is not enough to our focus on hypnotism. In terms of theory and treatment,
psychoanalysis has a legacy inherited from hypnosis.”(Karataş&Yavuzer,2018) Hypnosis
technique, which has a special place for Freud, entered psychotherapy practices as a result of the
collaboration of Freud and Breuer. In the hypnosis technique, the patient is half awake, half asleep,
by bringing the patient into a "trance" state, breaking the resistance of the superego that prevents
the patient from confronting himself, allowing all the processes in the patient's unconscious to be
revealed. The hypnosis technique is applied to the patient through suggestion. For example; “You
are slowly getting sleepy now, your arms are relaxing, your body is slowly calming down and an
iron weight is sitting on your eyes...”(Topses&Serin,2012) If this way of saying is supported by a
heavy, soothing and relaxing tone, it calms the patient.
While the patient is half-asleep and calm, the therapist should guide the patient with the sentences
"Take five deep breaths, relax, take six deep breaths...". When the patient goes into a trance state,
the specialist can access the patient's childhood experiences and traumas, and enable the patient to
relive the events that remained in the patient's hidden and implicit memory.

In general, the patient is told to navigate in the first mood in which the disease symptom appears,
so that the patient's unconscious repressions, desires and wishes, traumas are brought into
consciousness. It allows us to know about the motivations that can cause the disease. However, it
should be underlined that although hypnosis is an important technique for psychoanalysis and
psychotherapy, this therapeutic technique was left to be used after it was seen that hypnosis did
not cure patients for a long time and the patients returned to their old state. Another therapeutic
technique is the free association technique.While applying this technique, the person puts all his
conscious thoughts aside and says their answer with the first thought that comes to their mind.

Thus, the person scans the upper surface of their consciousness. The patient has to say whatever
comes to mind for every word that the specialist says, either nonsense or trivial.Thus, the patient's
unconscious wishes, expectations and conflicts are expressed.When applying the free association
technique, it is important for the patient to open up to the specialist without censoring himself.
Another important technique, the therapeutic technique, is the interpretation/analysis of dreams.
Freud argued that the most effective way to reach the unconscious is the analysis of dreams. Freud,
who has many studies and even a book on the analysis of dreams, described dreams as a royal way
to reach the unconscious. According to Freud, dreams are the symbolic and indirect way of
realizing the id impulses.It is realized in a symbolic way by masking the desires, impulses, wishes
and expectations that will not be accepted in the external world of the individual.Freud, who gives
different meanings to many objects seen in dreams, divides dreams into two contents. The first is
the content that the person remembers in his dreams and thinks consciously, called manifest
content. The second is the content, which he considers to be the hidden meaning underlying
everything he calls the hidden content. According to Freud, many symbols that a person sees in
his dreams have different meanings. If we talk about a few of them, the knife, umbrella, snake
figures that the person sees in his dream are interpreted as the penis, the food on the room and the
table, the water is interpreted as birth and mother. Finally, Freud expressed the effect of the
interpretation of dreams on her with the words “... the only interest and curiosity that remains
alive in me is against dreams”.
Transference, which is another therapeutic technique, is defined as the re-experiencing of the
individual's childhood experiences and the unconscious sexual instinctual desires of the individual
in the therapy environment. During the transference, the patient sometimes experiences
ambivalence feelings known as excessive love or extreme hostility to the specialist throughout the
therapy. Since the transference reflects the sexual instinctual wishes of the individual, which is
hidden in the unconscious, it is a desired situation in therapy.Freud mentions two important
benefits of bringing the unconscious into consciousness in transference. First, the patient puts the
specialist in the place of his/her mother or father and delivers the superego on his/her ego to the
specialist and gives the specialist the opportunity to correct the wrong education applied by the
parents. Secondly, instead of giving insufficient information during the speech of the patient, more
information is provided by playing the patient's life story concretely. Finally, there is the
therapeutic technique, which Freud called mistakes and accidental events, in other words, slips of
the tongue. Freud emphasized the importance of this therapeutic technique with the following
words; “These seemingly meaningless behaviors all have meaning, and can be easily and reliably
interpreted, given the circumstances in which they occur.” In this therapeutic technique, there are

events such as forgetting the names of the people, forgetting the names, mistakes made while
writing and reading, and accidentally reaching the hand to another object.
The unconscious is an important factor that cannot be ignored in order to understand and interpret
the effect of the individual's mental processes on the individual's body, which is the main purpose
of psychoanalysis.By bringing the unconscious into consciousness, we try to make sense of the
diseases that occur in the individual and their causes more easily. Choosing the appropriate
treatment method for the disease and applying this method according to the information we obtain
from the unconscious of the individual with therapeutic techniques still provides convenience for
specialists today.

REFERENCES
Banu Yazgan İnanç,Esef Ercüment Yerlikaya. (2008). Psikanaliz:Temel kavramlar ve İlkeler. E.
E. Banu Yazgan İnanç içinde, Kişilik Kuramları (s. 15-25). Ankara : Pegem Akademi.
Gürsen Topses,Nergüz Bulut Serin. (2012). Psikoanalitik kuramın temel teknikleri. N. B. Gürsen
Topses içinde, Psikolojik Danışma ve Kişilik Kuramları (s. 32-35). Ankara: Nobel
yayıncılık.
Zeynep Karataş,Yasemin Yavuzer. (2018). Teröpatik Teknikler. Y. Y. Zeynep Karataş içinde,
Psikolojik Danışma ve Psikoterapi Kuramlar (s. 43-46). Ankara: Pegem Akademi.

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