Introduction

The Psychological Language of Symptoms is a psychodynamic lecture series that introduces BS and MS Clinical Psychology students to the meaning and function of psychopathological symptoms. Rather than cataloguing disorders, it asks a fundamentally different question: what is a symptom doing, and what is it saying?

Each session pairs a clinical presentation with its psychodynamic architecture, the unconscious conflicts, defence mechanisms, developmental histories and relational patterns that give rise to symptoms.

Unique Selling Propositions                     

1. Psychodynamic interpretive depth.
2. Accessible clinical grounding, structural formulation and conceptual understanding of psychopathology and symptoms.
3. Delivered through clinical vignettes, live case formulation and literary illustrations.

Objectives and Learning Outcomes

1.  Define a symptom from psychodynamic perspectives and explain how psychodynamic theory understands symptoms as meaningful communications from the unconscious.

2.  Identify unconscious conflict, defence mechanisms and compromise formation in clinical presentations spanning anxiety, depression, trauma, OCD, somatic, personality, narcissistic, borderline and psychotic domains.

3.  Distinguish ego-syntonic from ego-dystonic presentations and articulate their implications for help-seeking behaviour and the therapeutic alliance.

4.  Construct a basic psychodynamic case formulation from clinical material, integrating developmental history, relational patterns and the function of the presenting symptom.

Key Topics / Related Concepts

1. What is a Symptom?
2. Anxiety & Defence Mechanisms
3. OCD 
4. Depression & Object loss
5. Trauma & Dissociation
6. Personality & pathology
7. Narcissistic & Borderline presentations
8. Psychosis & Ego boundaries
9. Somatic Symptoms
10. Clinical Case Formulation

Activities and Learning Strategies

1. Interactive lectures anchored by clinical that contrast descriptive and psychodynamic readings of the same case.
2. In-class formulation exercises and small-group discussion tasks applying defence-mechanism and compromise-formation analysis to fresh clinical material.
3. Tiered guided readings, drawn from primary and secondary psychodynamic texts.

Venue / Facilities 

Online, delivered live via Google Meet. No physical campus facilities required.

Technical requirements: Google Meet, a stable internet connection and session recording enabled for enrolled participants.