Psychoanalytic psychotherapy evolved here in America almost exactly a half-century ago, out of the psychoanalysis innovated by Freud a half-century earlier in Vienna. From the start, it was framed along two distinct lines that were called expressive (interpretive, insight-aiming, uncovering) and supportive (ego-maintaining, suppressive), both directions being solidly anchored in psychoanalytic understanding, but differing in techniques and in goals in relation to the differing clinical exigencies of patients across the entire psychopathologícal spectrum. Because of its greater closeness to the techniques and goals of psychoanalysis proper, expressive therapy has from the start been better articulated with greater (seeming) consensus on its modes of action and the mechanisms of the changes that it achieves. In this paper we trace out in detail the gradual elaboration of our understanding of the various techniques that can be specified in the originally more amorphous and ambiguous conceptions of supportive intervention modes. We offer in conclusion an amplified schema for categorizing both expressive and supportive intervention modes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.