Psychology › Schools & history
Psychoanalysis
Since 1896· School or movement
Historical, now abandonedImportant in its time, no longer accepted.
Freud's theory and therapy: hidden childhood conflicts drive adult symptoms, and talking them through brings them to light.
See it on the Psychology map →What it says
Freud coined the term in 1896. Patients lay on a couch and said whatever came to mind (free association); the analyst read dreams, slips of the tongue and the patient's feelings toward the analyst (transference) as clues to repressed wishes, often sexual and rooted in early childhood. Treatment could mean several sessions a week for years. Spread by a tight-knit movement, it dominated American psychiatry from the 1940s to the 1970s and saturated art, literature and everyday speech.
Why it matters
It invented the modern idea of talk therapy and gave culture words like ego, denial and repression, even as its scientific claims faded.
The evidence
Status: historical. Its evidence was mostly case reports by Freud and Josef Breuer, some later shown inaccurate (Breuer's patient Anna O. was not cured). Core claims such as the Oedipus complex found little support or could not be tested.
Open questions
Its descendant, psychodynamic therapy, shows real benefits in trials; the open question is whether they come from Freud's theory or from factors all therapies share.
Inside this (4)
Connections (7)
▸Sigmund Freud founded PsychoanalysisWell replicated
The connection
Freud built psychoanalysis from Josef Breuer's 'talking cure' with the patient Anna O. He swapped hypnosis for free association, named the method in 1896, and grew it into a theory, a therapy and a movement, with a Vienna discussion circle from 1902 and an international association from 1910.
Who showed it and when
Vienna, 1890s–1910s, largely in Freud's office at Berggasse 19, with Breuer, his confidant Wilhelm Fliess, and early followers including Adler and Jung.
The evidence
Freud's publications, his letters to Fliess and the minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society survive and document the founding step by step.
Open questions
How original it was: Pierre Janet claimed priority on trauma and the unconscious, and research shows the Anna O. 'cure' was less successful than reported.
▸The unconscious mind and defense mechanisms is the core idea of PsychoanalysisWell replicated
The connection
Everything in psychoanalysis rests on the unconscious. Symptoms, dreams and slips were read as disguised expressions of repressed wishes, and therapy aimed to make the unconscious conscious. Free association, dream interpretation and analysis of transference were all methods for slipping past the mind's inner censor.
Who showed it and when
Vienna, 1895–1900, from Studies on Hysteria to The Interpretation of Dreams, published in November 1899 but dated 1900.
The evidence
Freud said so himself, calling dream interpretation 'the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind'.
Open questions
Whether modern evidence for unconscious processing supports Freud, or a very different, unmotivated 'cognitive unconscious' that simply automates routine mental work.
▸Humanistic psychology (Maslow, Rogers) rebelled against PsychoanalysisWell replicated
The connection
Humanists objected that Freud built his picture of human nature from troubled patients and saw people as driven by sex, aggression and the past. Maslow said Freud had supplied 'the sick half of psychology' and the healthy half was missing. Rogers replaced the analyst as expert interpreter with a client-led conversation.
Who showed it and when
United States, 1940s–1960s: Rogers' Counseling and Psychotherapy (1942), the Association for Humanistic Psychology (1961) and Maslow's Toward a Psychology of Being (1962).
The evidence
Maslow and Rogers stated their opposition plainly, and the movement's 'third force' label defined it against psychoanalysis and behaviorism.
Open questions
The rebellion was partly a family quarrel: many humanists drew on psychoanalytic dissidents such as Adler, Karen Horney and Erich Fromm.
▸Psychoanalysis evolved into Psychodynamic therapyWell replicated
The connection
Full psychoanalysis, on the couch four or five times a week for years, proved costly and hard to test. Therapists kept its core ideas, unconscious conflict and transference, but sat face to face, met weekly, set time limits and took a more active role.
Who showed it and when
From the 1940s, with Franz Alexander's shorter therapy in Chicago; by the 1970s–80s, brief dynamic methods by David Malan, Habib Davanloo and Lester Luborsky.
The evidence
The lineage is explicit: training institutes and treatment manuals cite psychoanalytic theory as their basis.
Open questions
Where psychoanalysis ends and psychodynamic therapy begins is blurry, and some analysts argue shorter formats lose what made analysis work.
▸Psychoanalysis read hidden wishes into Sleep and dreamsHistorical, now abandoned
The connection
In The Interpretation of Dreams (1899, dated 1900), Freud argued that every dream disguises a forbidden wish, often from childhood, and that decoding its symbols was the 'royal road' to the unconscious. Dream analysis became a core tool of psychoanalytic therapy. Sleep science later tied dreaming to REM brain activity, undercutting the wish theory.
Who showed it and when
Vienna, 1899–1900. The first printing of 600 copies took about eight years to sell, yet the book became one of the century's most influential.
How solid is it?
Freud's book and case histories show the link; his interpretations were never tested in ways that could prove them wrong. Hobson and McCarley's 1977 activation-synthesis theory challenged it directly.
Open questions
Whether dreams carry personal meaning: modern research finds they often reflect waking worries and emotions, a partial echo of Freud, but finds no support for disguised wishes.
▸Attachment theory (John Bowlby) grew from Bowlby's break with PsychoanalysisWell replicated
The connection
Bowlby trained as a psychoanalyst and was supervised by Melanie Klein. Kleinians traced children's troubles to inner fantasies; Bowlby insisted real events, such as separation, loss and poor care, mattered more. He replaced Freud's drives with evolution and animal behavior, arguing that babies are built to seek closeness for protection. Many British analysts rejected his ideas.
Who showed it and when
London, at the Tavistock Clinic, 1940s–1960s; his 1958 paper to the British Psychoanalytical Society drew criticism from both Anna Freud's and Melanie Klein's camps.
The evidence
Bowlby's papers and letters, plus histories of the British Psychoanalytical Society, document the rift; he explicitly rejected the 'cupboard love' view that infants love whoever feeds them.
Open questions
Whether attachment is best seen as a break from psychoanalysis or a reform of it; many analysts now embrace it, and attachment-based therapies blend both.
▸Talk therapy (psychotherapy) traces its modern roots to PsychoanalysisWell replicated
The connection
Before Freud, healers used hypnosis, suggestion and humane 'moral treatment'. Breuer and Freud's cathartic method, then psychoanalysis, set the model of regular, private conversations aimed at understanding and changing inner life, which later talk therapies adapted or rebelled against.
Who showed it and when
Vienna, 1895 (Studies on Hysteria) and after; Freud's movement spread through Europe and, by the 1940s, dominated American psychiatry.
The evidence
Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, founders of the cognitive therapies, both trained as psychoanalysts before breaking away; the history is well documented.
Open questions
How much credit belongs to Freud versus earlier figures such as Pierre Janet, who described similar ideas, is debated among historians.