Introduction:
 From the psychoanalytic perspective, psychological
problems—such as distressing feelings, inaccurate impressions, and immature
or inappropriate behaviors—imply the presence of unresolved unconscious
dynamics and associated mechanisms of defense. In this section, we will
examine the psychoanalytic approach to assessing and treating psychological
problems. And, as we do so, we will see how assessment and treatment are
inextricably fused, for both involve bringing repressed thoughts and
feelings into present awareness. The hope is that once patients consciously
experience these previously repressed experiences, the energy bound up in
defending against them will be released, and the so-called "surface
symptoms" of the repressed conflicts will evaporate. How do psychoanalysts
unearth the unconscious? By analyzing projective tests (like the famous
inkblot tests), dreams, free associations, patients' reactions to the
therapist, and a thousand little things, like slips of the tongue. For the
psychoanalyst, all of these are potential windows into the hidden world of
unconscious memories and desires.
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