Psychoanalysis is it for me Essays - Psychology, Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis: is it for me? center850008549640 Ashlie King 1000000 Ashlie King Psychology is an interdisciplinary field with many branches. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives 2 very interesting definitions of psychology. The first definition is "the science of mind and behavior" (Merriam-Webster, 2017). The second definition is "the study of the mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity" (Merriam-Webster, 2017). The first definition stood out to me because of the word "science". I recently wrote a discussion board post on psychology as a science. There is a lot of debate on this issue, and I find it amazing that the dictionary defines psychology as a science. The second definition also resonates with me because this is the definition of psychology that I know very well. I remember taking Introduction to Psychology as a 17-year-old and learning about the different psychologists and schools of thought. I also remember learning about various mental disorders and thinking about psychologists and therapists working to tr eat them by going into the mind of the patient. For this reason, I have always described psychology as "the how and why" of life. I took a quiz titled "What is Your Theoretical Orientation in Psychology?" and I w as very intrigued by the result, which read, " You see the conscious mind as being largely controlled by unconscious forces. When something is wrong with a person's behavior, you see the mental illness as resulting from something negative being repressed in the unconscious, such as a traumatic memory or feelings of shame or guilt. To you, the job of the psychoanalyst is to uncover these unconscious problems and bring them into conscious awareness for the patient, forci ng them to confront the problem". My orientation is psychoanalytic , which is very accurate. I have always enjoyed reading about Sigmund Freud and his theory of psychoanalysis. Also, clinical psychology is the field that I want to go into. I have a soft spot for people with mental illnesses and who suffer as a result of trauma. I also have an idea of what I want to research for my thesis/dissertation. I want to focus on adult victims of trauma and adults who suffer from mental illness. I've noticed that a lot of my friends who want to go into clinical psychology want to focus on children and adolescents. I feel like the reason for that is so that they can address the issues early and hopefully cure the children into adulthood. I want to help the people who never got the treatment they needed, or limited treatment . I want to help the people who others may have given up on, or are deemed "lost causes". One of my inspirations is the movie Sybil (based on the book), which was a true account of a psychiatrist (Dr. Cornelia Wilbur) who treated a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (called multiple per sonalities at the time, as the event took place in the 50s) . The patient, named Sybil to protect her identity, had suffered severe trauma in her childhood. She endured physical, mental, and sexual abuse at the hands of her mother (who had been diagnosed with post-partum depression and schizophrenia). Sybil had 16 different personalitiesthere were 16 different people in her subconscious, from a baby to an old woman, and even 2 boys. The different personalities were Sybil's way of coping with her trauma. Dr. Wilbur spoke with her mentor about Sybil, only to be dismissed and told that the woman's condition was just a case of hysteria. Using hypnosis, Dr. Wilbur brought all 16 "selves" to Sybil's conscious, and helped her realize that all her pent-up anger was supposed to be geared toward her mother. Once Sybil correctly directed her anger, her road to healing could begin. My orientation relates to quite a few divisions in the APA, including Clinical, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, Social, Testing, Therapy, Trauma, Women, Counseling. The divisions that I find the most interesting are Psychoanalysis and Clinical. I have an interest in the clinical aspect of psychology, and I feel like the other divisions are related, like a domino effect. The social division also plays a huge role in my field when it