What Are the Strengths and Limitations of Psychoanalytic Theory?

Question by Cristina: What are the Strengths and Limitations of psychoanalytic theory?

Best answer:

Answer by SieglindeDieNibelunge
Psychoanalytic theory provides many answers about family dynamics, the struggle between the “Id” (your basic desires), “Ego” (your conscious self) and the “Superego” (your conscience, or sense of right and wrong”. It can help you figure out why your neuroses keep you from being happy and fulfilled and how certain negative thoughts arose.

But what it is NOT good for is changing behavior. It was once thought that the “Behavioral” school of therapy (using types of conditioning and reinforcement) would solve everything but it has many flaws.

The most promising way so far, of changing negative thought patterns and behaviors is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, in which positive thoughts are practiced and substituted for negative ones. A new type of therapy, “ACT” (Acceptance, Commitment Therapy), is the latest outgrowth of this and has been quite successful in treating things like low-self-esteem, addictions and phobias, which traditional psychoanalytic therapy does not do very well.

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