dreaming of tall towers and deep, blue ponds

Kristoise asked an interesting question on a comment to the last post which peaked my scientific interest, and i ran with it much further than i had expected to, so i decided to make it it's own post. she asked me what the difference is between therapy, cognitive therapy and psychoanalysis. i kind of knew, but not as clearly as i would like, so i did a little research, and here is what i found:

-"therapy", as i have known it, is just basic listening and responding; most of my therapists have been licensed clinical social workers, who are defined as follows: 'A social worker trained in psychotherapy who helps individuals deal with a variety of mental health and daily living problems to improve overall functioning. A social worker usually has a master's degree in social work and has studied sociology, growth and development, mental health theory and practice, human behavior/social environment, psychology, research methods.' pretty general stuff, but it gets the job done.

- 'cognitive' and 'behavioral therapy' (or 'cognitive behavioral therapy') is more about recognizing patterns and behaviors in order to change them. to be more specific: 'Cognitive therapy teaches you how certain thinking patterns are causing your symptoms — by giving you a distorted picture of what's going on in your life, and making you feel anxious. Behavior therapy helps you weaken the connections between troublesome situations and your habitual reactions to them. Reactions such as fear, depression or rage, and self-defeating or self-damaging behavior. It also teaches you how to calm your mind and body, so you can feel better, think more clearly, and make better decisions.depressed or angry for no good reason, or provoking you into ill-chosen actions.' sounds good and logical to me- this i am looking forward to trying.

- 'psychoanylisis' is the juicy stuff, the stuff that everyone wants to learn about in psychology class (or at least i did); it was freud's baby, and includes all of those crazy, subconcious freudian ideas. even it's definition sounds wack: 'Psychoanalysis is a family of psychological theories and methods that work to elucidate connections among unconscious components of patients' mental processes, and to do so in a systematic way through a process of tracing out associations. In classical psychoanalysis, the fundamental subject matter is the unconscious patterns of life as they become revealed through the the patient's free associations. The analyst's goal is to help liberate the patient from unexamined or unconscious barriers of transference and resistance, that is, past patterns of relatedness that are no longer serviceable or that inhibit freedom.' it's all about dreams and repressed behavior and suconcious desires as being the root of and answer to your neuroses; you know, oral fixation and anal retentiveness as a child, penis envy as an adolescent, a secret desire to bed your mom and kill your dad (or vice versa), all as evidenced from free associative (aka: babbling) observations made while lying on your back on a couch. freud thought everything was really about sex or death; though i don't totally disagree, i think psychoanalysis is a load of hooey. but the theories are interesting to hear.

so, kristoise, there is my (lengthy) answer to your question. i wonder if i only answered so thoroughly because i knew i was talking to a scientist? freud would probably say i have some deep seeded desire to please you in order to enhance my own sexual identity. i think i am just curious and like looking things up on the internet. i'll ask my therapist tomorrow and see what he thinks.