Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques that deal in part with the unconscious mind,and which together form a method of treatment for mental disorders. The discipline was established in the early 1890s by Sigmund Freud,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 encyclopedia 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." Freud's students 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. Psychoanalysis was later developed in different directions by neo-Freudian thinkers,such as Erich Fromm,Karen Horney,and Harry Stack Sullivan.
Sándor Ferenczi was a Hungarian psychoanalyst,a key theorist of the psychoanalytic school and a close associate of Sigmund Freud.
Alfred Ernest Jones was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908,he became his official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and became its leading exponent in the English-speaking world. As President of both the International Psychoanalytical Association and the British Psycho-Analytical Society in the 1920s and 1930s,Jones exercised a formative influence in the establishment of their organisations,institutions and publications.
Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst,writer,and philosopher. Born in Vienna,he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years,a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes,editor of the two leading analytic journals of the era,managing director of Freud's publishing house,and a creative theorist and therapist. In 1926,Rank left Vienna for Paris and,for the remainder of his life,led a successful career as a lecturer,writer,and therapist in France and the United States.
Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development relating to the practice of psychoanalysis,a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century,psychoanalytic theory has undergone many refinements since his work. The psychoanalytic theory came to full prominence in the last third of the twentieth century as part of the flow of critical discourse regarding psychological treatments after the 1960s,long after Freud's death in 1939. Freud had ceased his analysis of the brain and his physiological studies and shifted his focus to the study of the psyche,and on treatment using free association and the phenomena of transference. His study emphasized the recognition of childhood events that could influence the mental functioning of adults. His examination of the genetic and then the developmental aspects gave the psychoanalytic theory its characteristics. Starting with his publication of The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899,his theories began to gain prominence.
Melanie Klein was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested that pre-verbal existential anxiety in infancy catalyzed the formation of the unconscious,resulting in the unconscious splitting of the world into good and bad idealizations. In her theory,how the child resolves that split depends on the constitution of the child and the character of nurturing the child experiences;the quality of resolution can inform the presence,absence,and/or type of distresses a person experiences later in life.
Nancy Julia Chodorow is an American sociologist and professor. She began her career as a professor of Women's studies at Wellesley College in 1973,and from 1974 on taught at the University of California,Santa Cruz,until 1986. She then was a professor in the departments of sociology and clinical psychology at the University of California,Berkeley until she resigned in 1986,after which she taught psychiatry at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance. Chodorow is often described as a leader in feminist thought,especially in the realms of psychoanalysis and psychology.
In philosophy,psychology,sociology,and anthropology,intersubjectivity is the relation or intersection between people's cognitive perspectives.
Relational psychoanalysis is a school of psychoanalysis in the United States that emphasizes the role of real and imagined relationships with others in mental disorder and psychotherapy. 'Relational psychoanalysis is a relatively new and evolving school of psychoanalytic thought considered by its founders to represent a "paradigm shift" in psychoanalysis'.
Karl Abraham was an influential German psychoanalyst,and a collaborator of Sigmund Freud,who called him his 'best pupil'.
Sabina Nikolayevna Spielrein was a Russian physician and one of the first female psychoanalysts. She was in succession the patient,then student,then colleague of Carl Gustav Jung,with whom she had an intimate relationship during 1908–1910,as is documented in their correspondence from the time and her diaries. She also met,corresponded,and had a collegial relationship with Sigmund Freud. She worked with and psychoanalysed Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget. She worked as a psychiatrist,psychoanalyst,teacher and paediatrician in Switzerland and Russia. In a thirty-year professional career,she published over 35 papers in three languages,covering psychoanalysis,developmental psychology,psycholinguistics and educational psychology. Among her works in the field of psychoanalysis is the essay titled "Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being",written in German in 1912.
Stephen A. Mitchell was a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. His book with Jay Greenberg,Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory (1983),became a classic textbook in graduate schools and post-graduate institutions,providing a general overview and comparison of several psychoanalytic theories. He was considered a leader of relational psychoanalysis. Mitchell helped to create the Relational Track of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.
Feminists have long struggled with Sigmund Freud's classical model of gender and identity development,which centers on the Oedipus complex. Freud's model,which became integral to orthodox psychoanalysis,suggests that because women lack the visible genitals of the male,they feel they are "missing" the most central characteristic necessary for gaining narcissistic value—therefore developing feelings of gender inequality and penis envy. In his late theory on the feminine,Freud recognized the early and long lasting libidinal attachment of the daughter to the mother during the pre-oedipal stages. Feminist psychoanalysts have confronted these ideas and reached different conclusions. Some generally agree with Freud's major outlines,modifying it through observations of the pre-Oedipal phase. Others reformulate Freud's theories more completely.
Fixation is a concept that was originated by Sigmund Freud (1905) to denote the persistence of anachronistic sexual traits. The term subsequently came to denote object relationships with attachments to people or things in general persisting from childhood into adult life.
Karen Horney was a German psychoanalyst who practised in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views. This was particularly true of her theories of sexuality and of the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis. She is credited with founding feminist psychology in response to Freud's theory of penis envy. She disagreed with Freud about inherent differences in the psychology of men and women,and she traced such differences to society and culture rather than biology.
The term "intersubjectivity" was introduced to psychoanalysis by George Atwood and Robert Stolorow (1984),who consider it a "meta-theory" of psychoanalysis. Intersubjective psychoanalysis suggests that all interactions must be considered contextually;interactions between the patient/analyst or child/parent cannot be seen as separate from each other,but rather must be considered always as mutually influencing each other. This philosophical concept dates back to "German Idealism" and phenomenology.
The Oedipus complex is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which,to try to immediately satisfy basic desires,he unconsciously wishes to have sex with his mother and disdains his father for having sex and being satisfied before him. Sigmund Freud introduced the idea in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899),and coined the term in his paper A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men (1910).
Silvia Montefoschi was an Italian Jungian psychoanalyst.
Poststructural feminism is a branch of feminism that engages with insights from post-structuralist thought. Poststructural feminism emphasizes "the contingent and discursive nature of all identities",and in particular the social construction of gendered subjectivities. A contribution of this branch was to argue that there is no universal single category of "woman" or "man."
Galit Atlas is an Israeli-American psychoanalyst best known for her rethinking of the place of sexuality and desire in contemporary theory and practice. Her new and innovative work on emotional inheritance explores the ways our ancestors' experiences shape our lives.
