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The Psychoanalytic Theory of Symptoms
Lessons in Psychoanalysis, 02
What is a symptom? A random event triggered by biological imbalances? A genetic structure? A behavior or set of behaviors which are somehow bothersome, somehow different from more acceptable behaviors?
The psychoanalytic symptom is very precise, and it bypasses these other concepts of the symptom. Regardless of which school of psychoanalysis we are looking at, symptoms are basically outward manifestations of structural conflicts.
Structures! Not Symptoms!
Perhaps the most fundamental difference between psychoanalysis and behavioral psychology is a chicken-or-the-egg problem. Psychoanalysis claims that there are deep structures which constitute who we are as people — they are the coordinates of our personality. Behavior can change throughout time, and with (relative) ease; but structures are more or less permanent. This does not mean that people cannot change — it means that people cannot just become entirely different people by changing behaviors.
Behaviorists reduce human psychology to patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings. One is what one does. Therapeutically, this produces practices like CBT, REBT, or DBT, which seek to transform these (and this is the claim of psychoanalysis) superficial manifestations of structure in…
