Global InformationPsychoanalysis information
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
 The words "Die Psychoanalyse" in Sigmund Freud's handwriting, 1938 | |
| ICD-9-CM | 94.31 |
|---|---|
| MeSH | D011572 |
| Part of a series of articles on |
| Psychoanalysis |
|---|
 |
|
Psychoanalysis[i] is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques[ii] that deal in part with the unconscious mind,[iii] and which together form a method of treatment for mental disorders. The discipline was established in the early 1890s by Sigmund Freud,[1] whose work stemmed partly from the clinical work of Josef Breuer and others. Freud developed and refined the theory and practice of psychoanalysis until his death in 1939. In an encyclopedic article, he identified the cornerstones of psychoanalysis as "the assumption that there are unconscious mental processes, the recognition of the theory of repression and resistance, the appreciation of the importance of sexuality and of the Oedipus complex."[2] Freud's colleagues Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung developed offshoots of psychoanalysis which they called individual psychology (Adler) and analytical psychology (Jung), although Freud himself wrote a number of criticisms of them and emphatically denied that they were forms of psychoanalysis.[3] Psychoanalysis was later developed in different directions by neo-Freudian thinkers, such as Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack Sullivan.[4]
Freud distinguished between the conscious and the unconscious mind, arguing that the unconscious mind largely determines behaviour and cognition owing to unconscious drives. Freud observed that attempts to bring such drives into awareness triggers resistance in the form of defense mechanisms, particularly repression, and that conflicts between conscious and unconscious material can result in mental disturbances. He also postulated that unconscious material can be found in dreams and unintentional acts, including mannerisms and Freudian slips. Psychoanalytic therapy, or simply analytical therapy,[5] developed as a means to improve mental health by bringing unconscious material into consciousness. Psychoanalysts place a large emphasis on early childhood in an individual's development. During therapy, a psychoanalyst aims to induce transference, whereby patients relive their infantile conflicts by projecting onto the analyst feelings of love, dependence and anger.[6][7]
During psychoanalytic sessions a patient traditionally lies on a couch, and an analyst sits just behind and out of sight. The patient expresses their thoughts, including free associations, fantasies, and dreams, from which the analyst infers the unconscious conflicts causing the patient's symptoms and character problems. Through the analysis of these conflicts, which includes interpreting the transference and countertransference (the analyst's feelings for the patient), the analyst confronts the patient's pathological defence mechanisms to help patients understand themselves better.[8]
Psychoanalysis is a controversial discipline, and its effectiveness as a treatment has been contested, although it retains influence within psychiatry.[iv][v] Psychoanalytic concepts are also widely used outside the therapeutic arena, in areas such as psychoanalytic literary criticism and film criticism, analysis of fairy tales, philosophical perspectives such as Freudo-Marxism, and other cultural phenomena.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-roman> tags or {{efn-lr}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-roman}} template or {{notelist-lr}} template (see the help page).
- ^ Mitchell, Juliet. 2000. Psychoanalysis and Feminism: A Radical Reassessment of Freudian Psychoanalysis. London: Penguin Books. p. 341.
- ^ Mitchell J (1975). Psychoanalysis and Feminism. Pelican Books. p. 343.
- ^ Freud S (1966). On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement. New York: W.W. Norton and Co. p. 5.
- ^ Birnbach, Martin. 1961. Neo-Freudian Social Philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 3.
- ^ Zoja L (1983). "Working against Dorian Gray: analysis and the old". J Anal Psychol. 28 (1): 51–64. doi:10.1111/j.1465-5922.1983.00051.x. PMID 6826461.
- ^ Chessick, Richard D. 2007. The Future of Psychoanalysis. Albany: State University of New York Press. p. 125.
- ^ Fromm, Erich. 1992. The Revision of Psychoanalysis. New York: Open Road. pp. 12–13. (points 1 to 6).
- ^ Stefana, Alberto. 2017. History of Countertransference: From Freud to the British Object Relations School. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1138214613.