Freud was heavily influenced by physics and contended that the mind is an energy system that seeks to release energy in order to remain in a state of balance (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983). Ideas take up mental energy that remain stored in the mind until they are released. However, sometimes energy is blocked because its expression is deemed forbidden by our environments that we are forced to suppress them (this takes considerable energy). When our environments have difficulty accommodating our expressions early on in life, we can develop emotional insecurities about ourselves and the world that carry forward to adult life.  

 

As we grow up, we keep our emotional insecurities at bay by finding distraction and meaning in work, play, and interpersonal relationships. However, there are instances in our day-to-day lives that trigger our childhood insecurities and threaten our identity stability. As a result, our ego employs defense mechanisms in order to keep our insecurities from fully entering our awareness (Cervone & Pervin, 2013). If these defenses are mature and adaptive, we experience identity stability and contentment in our interpersonal relationships. If these defenses are immature, we experience identity instability and conflict in our interpersonal relationships (see image). It can be extremely painful to lose a meaningful relationship while in a state of emotional instability. 

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Some goals of psychodynamic psychotherapy include helping people develop ego awareness of their own emotional patterns/defenses that may be keeping them and their relationships stuck; helping them adapt to ego threats using more mature defense mechanisms; helping them develop more trust and confidence in their relationships; and, helping them resolve that which was blocked or pushed down earlier on in life in order to help them live more freely and less defensively. 

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References

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Cervone, D., & Pervin, L. A. (2013). Personality theory and research (12th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. 

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Greenberg, J. R., & Mitchell, S. A. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalytic theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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