At the end of the last century, a different approach to psychological therapy emerged from the medical treatment of psychiatric disorders. At the forefront were the Vienna neurologists Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer. They discovered that a person could get better if they talked about what had happened to them, rather than being treated with drugs and shock therapies (such as electroconvulsive therapy). Their work formed the basis for modern psychotherapy.
Freud believed that the interaction between the consciousness and the unconscious is the key factor behind human behavior. He drew parallels between psychological energies and the physical concept of energy in thermodynamics. The term ‘psychoanalytic’ refers to the application of these ideas to understand the nature of the mind. In his work, Freud developed a system of therapy known as psychoanalysis. His theories about the mind and the relationships between its components, along with his methods of diagnosis and treatment, were hugely influential. The psychoanalytic model was adopted and refined by a number of different schools of thought, including those of Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and others, who advanced the idea of talking therapies.
