If you have not seen the movie Analyze This with Robert DeNiro and Billy Krystal, then you really should. It’s not just a funny movie, bit also gets a lot of things about therapy right. So many movies portray psychotherapy so unrealistically but this movie, while it takes a lot of liberties with the therapeutic process, gets some things right and gives you a pretty good idea of how therapy progresses. Through sound bytes from the movie we’ll see examples of catharsis, Freudian defense mechanisms of denial and minimizing, the analysis of dreams, the breaking of therapeutic boundaries, and Rogerian techniques of reflection. A fascinating movie to take apart and that’s just what I do in this episode of The Psych Files.
Resources on Psychoanalysis
- Here’s an early episode in which I talk about Freud and his ideas and how we need to take them ore seriously – especially he and his daughter Anna’s ideas on defense mechanisms
- The Necessity of the Frame in Psychotherapy
- Psychoanalyst Kerri Malawista and her colleagues have a new book, “When the Garden Isn’t Eden: More Psychodynamic Concepts from Life“
- How Do Psychoanalysts Really Interpret Dreams?
- What is Transference and Counter-Transference?
- The Importance of Boundary Conditions in Therapy
