9 Lessons from the Great Minds of Psychoanalysis

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Rick and Forrest explore the evolution of psychoanalysis after Freud, highlighting key ideas from figures like Adler, Klein, Winnicott, and Hillman. They track how the field expanded from focusing on the individual ego all the way out to exploring the existential forces that shape who we are. They focus on what lessons we can take away from each of these influential thinkers into our everyday lives. Topics include inferiority complexes, defense mechanisms, object relations, authentic vs. false self, developmental psychology, adaptation, and our confrontation with life's ultimate concerns like death and meaninglessness. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 4:20: Alfred Adler: Inferiority, contribution, and healthy striving 14:05: Anna Freud: Ego defenses and real-time coping 20:09: Erik Erikson: Lifespan development and identity crises 33:20: Melanie Klein: Object relations, splitting, and managing complexity 46:46: Donald Winnicott: True self, good-enough parenting, and holding environments 51:09: Heinz Kohut: Self-psychology, mirroring, and healthy narcissism 1:02:32: Wilhelm Reich: Somatic therapy and character armor 1:08:25: Neo-Jungians: Archetypes, imagination, and symbolic mind 1:18:18: Irvin Yalom: Existential psychotherapy and meaning-making 1:26:50: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors Try Daily30+, the 30+ plant prebiotic supplement from ZOE. Go to zoe.com/daily30 today, and you’ll get a free bright yellow ZOE tin and a magnetic scoop. Join hundreds of thousands of people who are taking charge of their health. Learn more and join Function at functionhealth.com/BEINGWELL. For a limited time, get Headspace FREE for 60 days. Go to Headspace.com/BEINGWELL60. Listen now to the Life Kit podcast from NPR. Go to Zocdoc.com/BEING to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/beingwell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to being well. I'm Forrest Hanson.
0:10.0	If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us today. And if you've listened before, welcome back.
0:14.0	This is the second of two episodes we're doing on the history, ideas, and influence of psychoanalysis.
0:20.0	In the first part, we focused on the foundation of things, the trunk of the tree.
0:25.3	This was Freud's original theories, the context that they emerged in, and some of the controversies
0:30.0	around his work.
0:31.3	And today, we're going to be talking about what came after.
0:34.5	Psychoanalysis did not stop with Freud.
0:36.4	Over the next century, it fractured into many different
0:39.0	schools of thought, a hundred branches with immense influence on psychology, therapy, and the kind
0:45.7	of mental health content that we consume online broadly. Some of these post-Froidian thinkers expanded
0:51.3	on his ideas, others challenged them, but they all have something
0:54.9	that I think we can learn a little bit from. Today we're going to be walking through some of
0:58.3	the major schools of psychoanalytic thought by focusing on particular prominent individuals,
1:03.5	people like Alfred Adler, Melanie Klein, and James Hillman. As we do this, we'll be doing our best
1:08.8	to keep things kind of practical here. I don't want this to feel like a graduate course.
1:13.1	What are the important takeaways and how can they help us live better lives?
1:17.3	To help me do this, and I will certainly need help.
1:19.9	I'm joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Rick Hansen.
1:22.3	So, Dad, thanks for doing this with me again.
1:24.4	I'm psyched, and it is interesting that this, I'm not sure how many two-parters we've
1:30.2	done about anything.
	...

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