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PSYCHOANALYSIS: THE NIGERIAN PERSPECTIVE#

Submitted to
University of Florida
United States

1.Olamide George, is a Psychologist by academic and training, presently into research on inculcation of research techniques, concepts of body language and Ergonomics into business and customer relations
# This paper is subjected to comprehensive research work to fully ascertain the perspective of the selected population on narrative medicine.

Overview
Basically, Nigerians believe so much in home counseling and opinion before decision as regards the moral dimension to doing things as acceptable in the context of our social values. The presence of this discipline is felt and viewed academically; we unconsciously do a lot of psychoanalysis in Nigeria.2 In our moral contexts, things are done or decisions are taking with introspection and investigations about the people involve their background and their common history.
Professionals continue to translate this concept of Narrative medicine when people ask what psychoanalysis is; they usually want to know about treatment. As a therapy, psychoanalysis is based on the observation that individuals are often unaware of many of the factors that determine their emotions and behavior. These unconscious factors may create unhappiness, sometimes in the form of recognizable symptoms and at other times as troubling personality traits, difficulties in work or in love relationships, or disturbances in mood and self-esteem. Because these forces are unconscious, the advice of friends and family, the reading of self-help books, or even the most determined efforts of will, often fails to provide relief.
Courtship, Marriages, status, behavior tendencies and settlement pattern are observations and contexts, which are readily traced to history in the social background and are linked continuously to present events. Marriages are mostly conducted after an unplanned process of Psychoanalysis, which entails identifying and scrutinizing members of a family tree and analyzing their occupation, settlement history and other factors, which may reoccur in the marital life of the couple as in the case of marriage. Behavioral pattern of any child will always will be linked to the child’ s early life and learning process. Child behavior, academic performance

Framework
Psychoanalytic treatment demonstrates how these unconscious factors affect current relationships and patterns of behavior, traces them back to their historical origins, shows how they have changed and developed over time, and helps the individual to deal better with the realities of adult life. This is widely accepted here in Nigeria because events are mostly traced to the origin here, academically socially, past and present. As a general theory of individual human behavior and experience, psychoanalytic ideas enrich and are enriched by the study of the biological and social sciences, group behavior, history, philosophy, art, and literature. As a developmental theory, psychoanalysis contributes to child psychology, education, law, and family studies. Through its examination of the complex relationship between body and mind, psychoanalysis also furthers our understanding of the role of emotions in health as well as in medical illness.

Are Psychoanalysts Present in Nigeria
Graduate psychoanalysts trained under the auspices of the University system and education and have had very rigorous and extensive clinical education. Candidates accepted for training at an accredited psychoanalytic institute must meet high ethical, psychological, and professional standards. These candidates are either physicians who have completed a four-year residency program in psychiatry, psychologists or social workers who have completed a doctoral program in their fields or hold a clinical masters degree in a mental health field where such a degree is generally recognized as the highest clinical degree; all must have had extensive clinical experience. Outstandingly qualified scholar-researchers, educators, and selected other professionals may also be approved for psychoanalytic training. All accepted candidates, whatever their background, then begin at least four years of psychoanalytic training.

Psychoanalysis in Nigeria
As stated earlier, Psychoanalysis is practice in two contexts in Nigeria professionally by trained professionals in Psychology and related sciences and otherwise by introspection in homes, schools, reformatory centers and others who requires services. Problems faced as regards psychoanalytic process includes divulging of personal problems, because Nigerians and mostly Africans are secretive about personal information and events. Psychoanalysis can be reviewed under the following perspective. Professional psychologists are quite a number in Nigeria but the ratio and services as regards to the population is few. Counseling units are quite visible in most developmental establishments including religious, education and corrective establishments but it may not be widely accepted to visit these units to reveal events which may not be treated in confidence and empathy, because issues may not be treated professionally.

Demand
A lot of analysis is a highly individualized treatment; people who wish to know if they would benefit from it should seek consultation with an experienced psychoanalyst. People Still, some generalizations can be made. The person best able to undergo psychoanalysis is someone who, no matter how incapacitated at the time, is basically, or potentially, a sturdy individual. This person may have already achieved important satisfactions - with friends, in marriage, in work, or through special interests and hobbies - but is nonetheless significantly impaired by long-standing symptoms: depression or anxiety, sexual incapacities, or physical symptoms without any demonstrable underlying physical cause. Private rituals or compulsions or repetitive thoughts of which no one else is aware may plague one person. Another may live a constricted life of isolation and loneliness, incapable of feeling close to anyone. A victim of childhood sexual abuse might suffer from an inability to trust others. Some people come to analysis because of repeated failures in work or in love, brought about not by chance but by self- destructive patterns of behavior. It is widely accepted here but in practice by non-professionals.

Contemporary Media contexts.

Public opinion of matters of the heart, here people with problems on the personal and home front, make a retrospect of a particular experience and seek for the public opinion to reach for a decision viewing this the public would have done a contemporary psychoanalysis of the event weigh the cause and make a decision, Here suggestions are weighed to choose from a vary of options that have been one sided analysis

Education
Psychoanalysis is in continuous practice in Nigeria as regards education, whereby academic performances of students are reviewed based on their most recent and narrated history, also SWOT cases are based on this too. Behavioral tendencies are monitored on these records while future ambitions are also based on this framework while relativism and conformism are used practically here in the counseling process.

Legal
Psychoanalysis in investigation is almost absent here, because actions and decision are taken without investigation into the accused person’s history or record. Case studies have indicated many judgments without proper investigation into jury induced decision-making process. A criminal may at the point of justice be reluctant to give a brief history into his family or societal background and may not want to be cooperative in relating to issues, which maybe required of him.

Conclusion
The Nigerian may embrace psychoanalysis as part of solving ‘his’ societal and other related problems, this present may be the watershed of investigative solutions to many problems plaguing the Nigerian society, though narrative medicine is around us here, we have not been able to identify and adopt it because it may be practiced contemporarily by non professionals who do not have formal training on the steps and environmental demands.

2 .Nigeria is the largest and the most populous country in the West African Sub region with an estimated population of 130 million people, three major tribes and over 200 ethic groups with diverse background in culture and religion