Psykoterapins uppgift : Hälsa, bot och självförbättring i modernt psykoanalytiskt tänkande

Sammanfattning: The main purpose of this study is to critically examine, by means of theoretical analysis, the limits of psychotherapeutic intervention and the view of mental health embraced by the psychotherapy which is based on a psychodynamic thinking and procedure. This is done by asking how different theorists, e g Freud, Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg, are dealing with the questions of the indications of a need of psychotherapy, the desired extension of a therapeutic change and how the goals of treatment should be formulated.The conclusion is that modern psychoanalysis offers some promise of treatment for a wide range of phenomena extending the traditional concept of negative health. Mental health, from the psychodynamic viewpoint, contains ideals which are primarily taken from four value perspectives: knowledge, autonomy, adaptation and well-being with certain ideals of life style and quality of life in connection with imperatives about the good, satisfying and meaningful life. A fourth category, autonomy, has had a very strong position in the psychoanalytic tradition. As an ideal it too should be assigned to the educational domain.Modern psychodynamic psychotherapies, especially the ones with an increasing element of support, have now come very close to a universal means with positive, restorative goals for the patient's whole self, including the conscious parts of his person. The psychoanalytic self psychology and object relations theory, considered as belief systems or philosophies of life, provide the practising psychotherapist both with thereasons of intervention and the belief system needed as a remedy.