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Freud thought that bringing the repressed fantasies and emotions into consciousness could eliminate such symptoms. After experimenting with hypnosis, he resorted to a method in which patients were asked to talk about whatever thoughts came to their minds about dreams, fantasies and memories. By interpreting these associations Freud helped his patients gain the insight into their unconscious that he believed to be curative. Later he placed a great importance on what could be learned from transference, the patient's emotional response to therapists, which to Freud reflected the patient's earlier feelings toward the patient's family members. .
Psychology has changed a lot since the times of Freud, these changes are in the forms of advancement, and the advancement in psychopharmacology is one of the most notable of these because the range of psychiatric disorders it treats is constantly growing. Until relatively recently, syndromes now commonly called dysthymic disorder, social phobia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder were deemed beyond the reach of psychopharmacology (Akiskal, 1983; Bowden, 1992). Interestingly, Freud predicted that drugs might eventually play an important role in treating the kinds of patients that he encountered. Indeed, drug treatments now often supplement psychotherapy and, increasingly, psychoanalysis. Surveys at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research demonstrated that psychotropic medication, primarily antidepressants had been used in 18% of analyses conducted by training analysts in a recent 5-year period and in 29% of candidates' training cases. Psychoactive medication is used to treat what are felt to be coexisting mood and anxiety disorders, as well as to diminish intolerable affects, so that patients become more capable of free association and self-reflection (Gabbard, 1995; Paykel, 1995; Swoiskin, 2001).
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In spite of this, historically, the use of psychopharmacological treatment has been seen as opposing to psychoanalytic aims.