The psychoanalytic theory of change.

The concept of change by psychoanalysis has undergone an historical process related to the course and development of psychoanalytic theory. Change has changed from an effect on symptoms, to underlying etiologic conflicts, to background character, to the functioning of psychic structural systems. The psychoanalytic process does not overlap with the process of change. The former may be present without the latter. The will to recover is accompanied by the unconscious need to cover. The methodology of change is examined with regard to process, agent(s), and intrapsychic results. Every analysis is a training and supervised analysis. With increasing autonomy of the ego, the patient, identifying with the analysing functioning of the analyst, becomes his own analyst. The theory of change is related to the psychoanalytic theory of neurosis of which it is part, and differs in alternative theories extant today. The dynamic occurrences I have described as bringing about change rest upon my view of 'total composite psychoanalytic theory' as evolved to the present.