Psychodynamic Model Concepts

Psychodynamic psychotherapy has its roots in psychoanalysis, which can be described in a clinical context as a personality, illness, and treatment theory. In this context, the unconscious is of central importance both in the functioning of a healthy personality and in mental disorders. The basic assumption of psychoanalysis is that the main structures of a personality develop from “an interplay of individual predisposition and interpersonal relationships in the first years of a person’s life through internalization processes” (Hau and Leuzinger-Bohleber 2004), whereby the processes of structure formation are not accessible to consciousness.