... stages can lead to fixation, therefore if an adult experiences great personal problems, he or she will tend to show regression (going back through the stages of the psychosexual development) to the stage at which he or she had previously been fixated. Thus because conflicts cause anxiety, and the ego defends itself against anxiety by using several defence mechanisms to prevent traumatic thoughts and feelings reaching consciousness, mental disorders can arise when an individual has unresolved conflicts and traumas from childhood. Defence mechanisms may be used to reduce the anxiety caused by such unresolved conflicts, but they act more as sticking plaster than as a way of 'sorting out' an individuals problems. Psychodynamic therapy is based on psychoanalysis, and was introduced by sigmund Freud at the start of the twentieth century. Freud and other psychoanalysts used various methods to uncover repressed ideas, and to permit the client to gain insight ...

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