88        PART TWO <5fi Theories and Techniques of Counseling
Psychoanalytic Therapy Applied to the Case of Stan

in each of the chapters in Part 2, the case of Stan is used to demonstrate the practical applications of the theory in question. To give you a focus on Stan's central concerns, refer to the end of Chapter 1, where his biography is given. I also recommend that you at least skim Chapter 16, which deals with an integrative approach as applied to Stan. In Chapters 4 through 14 you will notice that Stan is working with a female therapist. Given his feelings toward women, it may seem odd that he selected a woman for his therapist However, knowing that he had difficulty with women, he consciously made this choice as a way to challenge himself. As you will see, one of Stan's goals is to learn how to become less intimidated in the presence of women and to be more himself around them.
The psychoanalytic approach focuses on the unconscious psychodynamics of Stan's behavior. Considerable attention is given to material that he has repressed. At the extreme Stan demonstrated a self-destructive tendency, which is a way of inflicting punishment on himself. Instead of directing his hostility toward his parents and siblings, he turned it inward toward himself. Stan's preoccupation with drinking could be hypothesized as evidence of an oral fixation. Because he never received love and acceptance during his early childhood, he is still suffering from this deprivation and still desperately searching for approval and acceptance from others. Stan's gender-role identification was fraught with difficulties. He learned the basis of female-rnale relationships through his early experiences with his parents. What he saw was fighting, bickering, and discounting. His father was the weak one who always lost, and his mother was the strong, domineering force who could and did hurt men. Stan generalized his fear of his mother to all women. It could be further hypothesized that the woman he married was similar to his mother, both of whom reinforced his feelings of impotence.
The opportunity to develop a transference relationship and work through it is the core of the therapy process. An assumption is that Stan will eventually relate to his therapist as he did to his mother and that the process will be a valuable means of gaining insight into the origin of his difficulties with women. The ana-

lytic process stresses an intensive exploration of Stan's past. The goal is to make the unconscious conscious, so that he will no longer be controlled by unconscious forces. Stan devotes much therapy time to reliving and exploring his early past. As he talks, he gains increased understanding of the dynamics of his behavior. He begins to see connections between his present problems and early experiences in his childhood. Stan explores memories of relationships with his siblings and with his mother and father and also explores how he has generalized his view of women and men from his view of these family members. It is expected that he will reexperience old feelings and uncover buried feelings related to traumatic events. From another perspective, apart from whatever conscious insight Stan may acquire, the goal is for him to have a more integrated self, where feelings split off as foreign (the id) become more a part of what he is comfortable with (the ego). The relationship with his therapist, where old feelings have different outcomes from his past experiences with significant others, can result in deep personality growth.
The therapist is likely to explore some of these questions with Stan; "What did you do when you felt unloved?" "As a child, what did you do with your negative feelings?" "Could you express your rage, hostility, hurt, and fears?" "What effects did your relationship with your mother have on you?" "What did this teach you about all women?" Brought into the here and now of the transference relationship, questions might include "When have you felt anything like this with me?" and "What are you learning from our relationship about how relationships with women might go?"
The analytic process focuses on key influences in Stan's developmental years, sometimes explicitly, sometimes in terms of how those earlier events are being relived in the present analytic relationship. As he comes to understand how he has been shaped by these past experiences, he is increasingly able to exert control over his present functioning. Many of Stan's fears become conscious, and then his energy does not have to remain fixed on defending himself from unconscious feelings. Instead, he can make new