Psychoanalysis stresses the interplay of unconscious mental forces and the way in which the adult personality is determined by sexual development in childhood. The chief techniques of psychoanalysis are free association and the recall of dreams , which usually requires several 50-minute sessions each week for up to three years. In the course of this treatment transference takes place, in which aspects of the patient's past experiences and relationships are transferred to the analyst, the object being to bring repressed conflicts into consciousness so that they can be resolved.
Most analysts are medically qualified, but there are some lay analysts.
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