This chapter describes families of relationship- and emotion-focused therapies, whose members include psychoanalytic, psychodynamic and humanistic treatments. It begins with Freud’s traditional psychoanalysis, which stresses the need for clients to develop insight into their primitive drives, unconscious conflicts, and patterns of relating. It next covers other psychodynamic approaches that share ideas with traditional psychoanalysis, including interpersonal therapy. It also describes humanistic treatments, including person-centered, Gestalt, and existential therapies, all of which emphasize each client’s unique way of experiencing the world. Psychodynamic and humanistic treatments are considered relational approaches because they place strong emphasis on the role of the therapeutic relationship in treatment. The chapter also describes other treatments such as motivational interviewing and emotion-focused therapy that emphasize the role of emotion and interpersonal relationships in helping clients overcome psychological problems.

Known for the concept of the “trauma of birth,” Otto Rank’s contributions to the fields of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy have largely been obscured. Rank came from an impoverished family with an alcoholic father, and was sent to a trade school to become a locksmith. However, his unique insight into applying psychoanalytic concepts in understanding philosophy and art caught the attention of Freud, who supported him in his college education and graduate studies. Freud hired him to be the secretary of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, where he functioned as Freud’s “right hand man” for close to twenty years. Intriguingly, his “breaking away” from Freud’s circle coincided with Freud’s diagnosis of oral cancer and near-death from surgical complications. Ostracized by orthodox Freudians, he nevertheless was able to further explore pre-Oedipal issues and the significance of separation anxiety. He developed his patient-centered, brief psychotherapeutic approach, with particular focus on the “here and now” and on patients’ autonomy and self-healing potential. His ideas heralded the later developments of client-centered therapy, existential-humanistic therapy, and Gestalt therapy.